The miracle that we all are

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” - Gwendolyn Brooks

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I am a woman who emerged from a womb
that was not yet prepared to carry me.
A womb where five others had died.
So since I was born,
I was reminded that I was a miracle.

And as I live more days with more women,
I am certain that we all are miracles.
And each day, may we look at each other
and marvel at the fact that we did not die.

This period of my life has been a turmoil
that I have never experienced
and has now become my everyday.

The tightrope I walk is so tenuous,
that the smallest shift could send me
hurling, reeling
into a pit of despair
and I allowed my enemies to make me believe
there was no way out.

I was unprepared for the fall.

Yet, when my embers of love and hope are about to die out
because of the hate poured onto me,
it is always a woman
who has breathed life back into me
and recovered my flame.

At times, I wonder how the Creator
is not moved to help us.
Can She not see our pain?
or is She trying to remind us that
we are Her treasured ones
gifted with the power to recreate ourselves
when we finally choose to do so.

Today, it was another woman
who heard, perhaps felt,—
the tears streaming down my face
and used the melody of her words,
the timbre in her voice,
and the shape of her silence
to make them disappear.

It is strange how often we forget our power,
because we’ve been forced to use it since birth
for so long,
never allowed a moment of reprieve,
so we forget how much is on us.
We must not forget how much is in us.

And sometimes,
it takes the rush of tears
that you’ve held captive
to push someone to
recall how much you’ve overcome,
and remind you that you not only live
but survived.

Your story will be the one
your sisters, your daughters, your friends
repeat.
They will laugh and smile and say,
“Can you believe she did that?”

And it will be that story
that keeps them going
for just one more day.

It will be that story
that moves them
to do the thing
their life circumstances
said they never could.
It will be the story
that makes their purpose clearer.

Your story will be the one
that allows them
to finally rewrite their own.

This woman saved me from falling off my tightrope
when she told me
our lives aren’t lived on the extremes,
but in the in-between.
It is not an all-or-nothing road.

Sometimes, we give
and then get—
sometimes we pull
then we push.

Yet, we must not be pushed off
We must stay our course.
It is on this road
we find the others,
smiling at us, urging us to continue.

They will give us the bread of knowledge
and the water of resolve.
They will transfer their power
through affirmations of our journey,
chanting and singing us into movement
until we are steady.

Unshakeable and unmoved
by the violence that
is unleashed by
those who fear us

Our eyes will widen
So they will know that we see them.
They will cower as they turn back to see they have failed
and see more of us
standing tall in the distance—

We who are compelled to keep moving,
changing, transforming, dismantling and
rebuilding the world
we only dreamed of.

Nothing shall stand in our way.
No one shall stand in our way.

Because we have always been our way. 

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