Not Enough

I’ve never fit in

My spot never chosen

Not Spanish enough to move my hips easily 

Nor American enough to step on others to rise

Too militant 

Yet not suffered enough to raise fists 

Not white enough even when rocking to Metal

Roots not African enough to proclaim ancestry

My DNA is as scattered as my thoughts

Ask me who I am

I’ll say one thing and disagree with myself 

Neither this nor the other 

Not Muslim enough to Habibi 

Not Christian enough to feel the Holy Spirit 

Not Taino enough to darken my skin 

Not animal enough to kill

Not human enough to care 

Not covered enough in tattoos

Not paid enough to afford my bills

Not educated enough to be allowed formulated opinions

You leave me boxed in

Cornered as a hunted beast 

Who every now and then reacts 

Attacks 

And blamed for doing so

Don’t even want to step outside

Not worthy enough to walk

Shouldn’t even write

Not accepted enough to be cool with the click

I stand just on the cusp 

Peaking my head in ever so often 

Shouldn’t be alive 

Not worthy of breath 

Someone else needs it more

Don’t want to see anymore 

Vision I’d give to the blind immediately 

I could say I’ve lost my way

If there was ever one to be lost 

So I’ll remain

Until I fade from memory 

And be just a whisper to some 

Lost

I have searched for you

In the darkness of my soul

Feeding it’s hue words and ritual

Movements memorized

Til the hurt in my bones 

Was no more

Pronunciations perfected

So that my very tongue 

Won’t lie on that sacred day

Witnesses are the winds, and trees

As to all that I proclaim 

I awaken

Within this dream

Once more 

Hoping I’d travelled over 

To you

So much that the “Good” in morning

Ceased to be

And acceptance is, all there is 

My knees no longer can withstand

The weight of proving 

Of hoping

And believing 

I have only breath

Left

This is my testimony 

Being illuminated in the illusive 

Where inhalation 

Closes my eyes

And exhalation loosens 

The burden 

I am surely lost

And in you 

Found 

She Told Me

She told me I was too clever for my own good

That my seductive words couldn’t thaw the ice that built around her heart

You see this just made me want to try harder

Cause I was never one to quit so easily 

Hard to get wasn’t an option here

And a savior surely wasn’t what she needed

She was looking for that man

You know the ones she was promised in childhood tales

Valiant and chivalrous

Old fashioned yet modern in his ways

One with insight enough to see royalty

When he gazed upon her

She was an entire empire

Rolled up into feminine 

Pumped up my adrenaline

To set forth my efforts more vigilantly

Till finally she paused and said

 With the shrug of her shoulder

“We’ll see”…. 

Left me smiling as she walked away from me
copyright ©Axel Garcia