Carbon (A Poem About Coming Out)
I am not who I thought I would be
But I am who I suspected I was
Alchemy, it would seem
Applied to metals and magic
To rites and times and place
Does not translate
To all things in all ways
To all people at all times
As I find myself
out
Of place
In ineffective ways and in
Inopportune times
Brimming with Wrongs amid
Teeming seas of opinion
These crushing pressures,
These weights and currents of time
Only compact the denser truths within me.
I am not who I thought I would be
But I am who I hoped I was
I am not lead nor gold
Transformed by word or action
I am carbon
Breathing, bloodied, dripping
And every breath is agony
Each inhale against the world is
a return to myself
Each exhale
an act of rebellion
And as time and essence blend
I will shine
for within me are all the colors
Of life, of creation, of love
And the greatest of these
Is love.
-rrf
“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.” - Dr. Maya Angelou
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