Hanging Upon a Thread

running
walking
strolling
through life
she worries
about the obvious things
school
work
love
those last five pounds
never considering the other things
pain
anger
desolation
until
she is called to attention
and sees the sword hanging over her life.

I’m trying to process everything all of a sudden and at once. I’m trying to figure out why I suddenly feel hunted. I have lost the shell of invulnerability that tends to encase all young creatures of a species. I have stepped beyond knowing that everything will come up roses, and into a realm where the roses could be poisonous. I’m trying to process why I feel so hurt, so lost, so confused. Why life has suddenly become a very very serious issue…and not all fun & games. Why I am shifting into a woman who is so much harder than the woman I was. And I am trying to decide if I should even fight it. I KNOW that it ain’t all bad. I am surrounded by love and beauty on a day to day basis. But damn…there is so much pain out there too. Is there any way to leave myself open to the one and block away the other? Is there any way to ignore the sword and instead live & love freely? and if there is…would I simply be deluding myself? Would I be doing the same thing Little One is doing by ignoring everything he doesn’t want to touch him…and in the process ignoring so much more that just what he is avoiding? I’m confused. I really don’t know who I am anymore. I see the way I look at people, and I hear the things that come out of my mouth, and I notice the wordlessness I suffer when faced with occasions for empathy, and I wonder who the hell IS this woman? Where did she come from, and how did she sneak up on me? Even more important…do I want her around? Do I want to live with her? and if I don’t… where can I send her? to the back of my mind…where she will be steady whispering for me to look up and see if the thread is fraying…if the sword is still up there.
And then reminders that I am NOT dreaming the sword surround me. It is there…and it gets bigger every day, with damn near everything I hear in the news, every story I read in the papers, every study done on women. The sword is there, and it’s getting heavier. I am a young black single childless woman in a world where the norm states that I am the WRONG sex, and most certainly the wrong color. And that if I have the nerve to exist in that state…I could at least fall under the stereotypical position of having at least 2 babies and no husband. And so I don’t know what to say or to do and where to go. I am a stubborn person, and I have always KNOWN that I was perfect in being myself … cuz how can you compare the apples of me to the oranges of someone else…but suddenly I feel like I am collapsing under the weight of trying to be who the world thinks I should be…and I can’t become a white man… so I have to try to struggle through and find some big sistas who aren’t bitter, and who aren’t broken, and who know the sword is there, and manage to live their life as they wish anyway.

Work like you don’t need the money
Love like you haven’t been hurt
Dance like nobody’s watching.

Stay Jazzed.