Her Loudspeaker

I am sorry you are trapped with me.

Honestly, it’s a feeling I often feel.

I know how it is when it’s confusing to hope.

Let me tell you how I cope...

I enter this weird place of fantasy where

I wish for magical devices like:

Scales that would show the weight of all my invisible work! 

Cameras that would capture the beautiful workings of my chore-generating thoughts!

I frolic within works of modern art that are not yet created:

I am a gorgeous witch,

taking my turn to 

ride and repurpose 

a large variety of brooms that have been employed in the inhumane cleansing 

of that horrible discontent feeling 

when you know others are dying for your safety.

I am the queen that beat a rigged game of three-card-Monty.

Finally, the two wrinkled white devils have gone 

From calling my culture and womanhood hysterical and weak, calling my dark-skin evil or violent or stupid or lazy

To denouncing currency as something that can buy only the comfort of feeling like you have earned the right to abuse your privilege 

They are finally willing to admit the  unsustainability of 

just “looking out for yourself” or refusing to “worry about everybody”

In unison they hail me, once the:

“nagging bitch” who is “surprisingly articulate,” and “unreasonably precocious,” continually “asking for too much.” 

Today, their righteous queen.

Sometimes the magical devices and imaginative escapades are not enough.

Don’t fret; there is something that always works better than all the others.

It’s the one where I honor our mothers:

From the first moment I can remember she has 

given me advice, 
urged me to improve, 
reminded me to think ahead, 
told me to think about everyone else first 
and take it in my stride when they think of me last.

I play her on a loop in my head

“It’s easier if you rinse it, your two minutes will save me five”

“You have to be willing to work twice as hard as everyone else”

“The one lesson I hope you learn is never to depend on anybody” 

“They will take the chance if you give it to them”

It helps me see 
why the cognitive dissonance
is so much heavier for me

When I hear chatter about independence and free will, 
I also remember how digestible society finds modern slavery

And every time I catch myself wanting a real moment of solitude

I remember that her most constant words ring far too true:

“You can never think about just you.”

I am sorry you’re trapped with the deafening person I am really,

But I know you can understand why the more important vow to me 

Is my painstaking ability to be

her loudspeaker.