They think
I’m normal now

They think I’m normal now.
As if when I gave birth, I died.
But instead, parts of me were resurrected and reconnected.

Yes, I live in a colonial in the ‘burbs with a Beamer,
Always toting a mug filled to the brim with the elixir of a coffee snob.
They think my essence has been robbed.

They think I’ve fallen like a house of cards,
But I am mortared strong like a fortress of bricks.
I can’t out-exercise my phenotype or DNA,
I’m super-thick.

All appearances of normalcy are a trick
Of a trade that I’m still learning
Awakened late at night with a poem burning
Can’t write, can’t type, can’t think
I’ve gotta warm a bottle in the kitchen sink.

They say motherhood has blunted my edge,
That my spark became a flame became a flicker became quiet embers
But I am rendered original like the timbers that made it all so.

I didn’t go – I grow.

Yes, I recall short days and long nights
Dressing wrong to get done right
Two babes by bikini cut – it’s just as tight.

But a poet mustn’t proselytize
Or assume the guise
Of boho beads, reefers of weed or the taboo need
For approval from the esoteric inner circle.

The only consent I seek
Is from God, my man and my kids;
If my soul says it isn’t right,
It hits the skids.

The rumor mill rollicks on with the chatter
The splatters a poorly mixed batter of matter -
That matters not.

I awake, drink dark and sweetened nectar
And dress in clothes that no longer feel like a costume.
I speak in the Queen’s parlance and leave an ether of wonder
When I exit the room.

This is the life of those who’ve made it through the grime
Who brushed off the statistics with a personal offensive line;
The ones with a foot in the mainstream
And a toe everywhere it means.

A wife, a mother who works
Bleary-eyed but seeing all;
A cook, a cleaner – speaking in soundbites,
at Creativity’s beck and call.

I don’t rock mics like I used to.
That’s just because I’ve got other things to do.

They think I’m normal now.

They think I’ve just grown up.

 

© K. Danielle Edwards