subtexts - Poem

Losing footing chasing dreams while other things threaten to choke me
Holding onto blind hopes hoping life won’t own me
Bending my spine to nd the lines where I’m allowed to write
And my right to breathe is bigger than the steed that drives your ego
I’m almost someone
Someone I love
But I’m out of sync
Tripping on precepts and worlds unspoken
Making tokens for subjects that most certainly spell out my death
Again
I’m struggling for breath
Running after pay cheques squashed in the back of a taxi
While men make passes at me like they own me
Mentally undress me and call me baby like they know me
I guess I was born in a world that thinks it owns me
Makes me think so
Makes me silently rage at their audacity to do so
I don’t speak well, but my pen flows
My mouth is desiccated of all the power of my right hand
Where all my thoughts come alive and stand
Even though I look like I’m cowering
But this towering doubt
But as a woman my only clout is what rests between my thighs
And all I hear are lies so they can have a piece of it
I’m sick of it
This game of shame
Of cursing my name and making me pay for it
Pay for your lust with the scraps of my trust
Busting myself to suit you
To please you
And serve you
And I ask myself who is it you’ve become?
Will I love myself when this is done?
I can’t nd it in myself to run
To dance across the place where you don’t make sense
And the suspense is worth nothing to me
I’ll pay careful eye on the play of the in-between
Your words aren't the only things that speak
And I see all the contexts of the subtexts