The words I write are pieces of a long forgotten song

I have searched the world over seeking something that I have always carried within me

What is strength?

To draw from the well of my soul the energy to keep going forward

What is satisfaction?

Knowledge that this moment will never die.

I am on a carousel smiling

A moment of clarity where I remember who we were

I stretch my arms to the sky to embrace the sun

To show you that although I will never touch the sun

I can always reach

That is hope.

I am not incomplete without you

I deceived myself for so long thinking I wasn't whole

Thinking I wasn't worthy of love

I write, not because I'm sick but because it's like breathing

Words are forming on the horizon and I can feel Eurydice behind me

I was weak beaten by harsh desert winds

I had been exposed

My eyes

My brown eyes were closed

I was blind holding on to the doctrines of false prophets

Lost in a city of well wishers

I was a woman who didn't walk because she had always been told she couldn't

I slept for so long

I needed only your strength

I wanted only your love

In the end

I found my true self….waiting and wanting nothing

My skin is warm

My eyes reflect the light that is shining within

This is my covenant

That the void never needed filling

The void was always a void

Cocooned, I wanted to be safe from myself

I am an abstract individualist that wanted to conform

To a world that would still reject me

-Tichana Chipp
(3rd i)