finding my wings

---

Lately I've been getting lost in the clouds

wondering what it would be like to touch the sky

wanting to fly

wishing I was one of the birds way up high

high off life

thinking to myself....

it must be nice

to effortlessly be

I'm just trying to make sense of it all

make sense of my life

hoping for some kinda meaning in the sky

way

up

high

But I'm losing myself in the clouds

the sky's been blurring my vision lately

of who and what I'm suppose to be

And I know I shouldn't but

I'm getting caught up in the noise of what everyone is telling me to be

an unrealistic ideal of how a woman should be

A society who wants a woman with the perfect embodiment of beauty for all eyes to see,

parents wishing for a daughter who is obedient to her family,

a workforce asking me to be more hardworking, more assertive, more demanding

than any man ever needs to be in hopes that one day the terminology of "glass ceiling"

will never have to apply to me

I'm always reminded that no one really understands me

you see, they only like me to be a certain typa' me

but what about all the other parts they fail to see?

Why can't they just accept the woman that lives within me?

the one with stretch marks, cellulite, and curves

with skin made up of scars and bruises to show how much I've overcome -

both emotionally and physically

the one fighting an internal battle of what it means to be a woman of color in a white man's world

or how about the one who wears her heart on her sleeves?

you know, the one who isn't afraid to cry herself to sleep.

this

all of this

is the real me

The me that truly embodies

me

I've lost sight in the beauty of it all

somewhere between the clouds

I forgot to just spread my wings,

to just let my soul be

because the only one that can really save me

is me

---

just fly