The Week

Its been seven days,
since my mother left on vacation
Its been a week. I remember thinking,
how am I ever going to do this..I remember thinking, how do I wake up and not hear her voice. Its been a week and I've been alone, but I haven't felt lonely. I haven't had anyone over to share my bed, haven't abused all the freedom life gave me so suddenly.
Did what I said I would,left my job and committed to my art and embraced it so deeply. I'm almost 20, and for the very first time in my life I've had a whole week without wishing I would disappear or die, where I didn't hate my own skin. Maybe because I was left alone with the car which granted me time to think about the dreams, to gather myself and the whirlwind its been since I left school last august. Its been a year, a complete one. I'm not trying to make anything out of this write. I'm just saying that for the very first time I felt such deep peace in my heart. Such pride of knowing that I'm a young woman who strives to do the right thing. This week was joy, it was grace, it was realization, it was forgiveness. Coming home late and being completely unafraid, it was being far too tired to do dishes so I left them for the morning. It was having boys grind on me, without wanting them in me. It was having them ask for kisses and me taking full advantage of my right to say no. It was knowing that I've mastered the control over my hormones. It was wonder, and adventure, and realizing that I've been ready to be alone for a very long time I just didn't want to face it. Its been the first time I felt passion so deeply in my veins, I've felt so lovely. I've felt people just hear me speak and not notice that I'm uncomfortable by the way my thighs touch each other under my long black skirt. Its been empathy and sympathy, and I'm not resting till I make my life as beautiful as this very same moment. " The mercy of a stranger" is a very dear phrase to me. Because for a very long time its been all I had. and maybe this has a lot to do with all the art, or maybe it does not. but I know that I belong to poetry. I know poetry belongs to me, I know that I belong to humanity, and I'll never love a lover as honestly and as blindly as I love these two things.