Masiela Lusha - I Am

Open your door and watch me.
I am all eyes and mouth.
I am pretty insecurities
Baked with the slow marinating
Of aging Pride.

When you watch me,
Do you see all this?
Or am I what your framed window
Reflection steals from me—
An outline of torn jeans and diamonds
Of clean Puma sneakers and one gold ring?

I am here, though I shouldn’t be.
It seems as if your doorsteps
Tugged at the small walls of my belly,
And I could not help but take a step up.
Then another. Until only one step was left.
Straight to your door. And your window
In which you found a trapped measure of me.

And so here I am, all of me.
But you won’t see this until I speak.
Until I dropp my branch-stubborn arms from
My pinching ribs. It hurts to not breathe…
Here I’ll stand until I clench this fist of blood
And life, and fill myself with air
Until it slows its flutter of defeat.

Until I grip this waving cement
And guide the flight of this experience.
Until I can learn to stand, I won’t speak.
I won’t speak with my lips, or with my eyes.
I will stand here, pale in silence,

With untrained legs and a poker face—
Praying with unpardonable weakness
That you will see me for me.

Masiela Lusha

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-am-35/