If

(for all little girls who dream)

If I were free to speak my mind

I would tell them how it was.

How it was to grow up a girl child.

A black girl child in amerika.

With all the lessons, spoken & unspoken.

How it was to be told what to do & how to do it.

How it was to hear what others wanted, but never to be asked what you wanted.

How it was (is!) to be a thing, a body, a tool for someone else’s use.

To fulfill their expectations.

I would tell them what it feels like to awaken knowing that there is more.

I would tell them what it is to grow, to reach, to stretch for the sun, the stars, the moon.

To be a part of everything that is spirit.

To be me

If I were free to speak my mind

I would tell them about me.

©2008 Kim L. Ford

PAPER

Where is that piece of paper, that blue piece of paper?
Or maybe a red piece paper?

That piece of paper that said who I was,
When I was being too many things for too many people,
For too little.

That piece of paper that began something.
Maybe a story, my story. Maybe not the beginning,
But the end.

I look again; I know it’s here.
That piece of paper wants to be found, to be read.
I find it – it’s purple.

©2008 Kim L. Ford