preamble
my biggest fear is that stress will kill me.

my biggest fear is that one day my son, my sweet baby boy, will walk in my room call my name and be forever changed because his mother has died in her sleep of a heart attack, or stroke or aneurysm.

my biggest fear is an obituary of my life that begins or ends with ‘she left us before her work was done’ or ‘we are heartbroken at her sudden passing.’

my biggest fear is that this ball of anger about the injustices i and all black women face every day will choke out my life and leave me for dead.

my biggest fear is that i will leave this life, this time before i make a difference; that my transition will occur and i will not have completed the mission my Father called me here to do.

my biggest fear is not being there to see my son graduate high school, to not be the one arguing with him about his choices.

my biggest fear is that stress, disappointment, and resentment will build a wall so big around my heart that all she will be able to do is surrender.

my biggest fear is leaving my mother to bury me; to leave her knowing that she’s not only had to bury her parents, her brothers, and countless others but also her daughter and that that death was 100% preventable.

my biggest fear has been a chain around my neck.

my biggest fear has been a secret choking on the very marrow of my life.

my biggest fear has paralyzed me and i have had to fight it and that fight also stresses me and that stress is just another nail in my coffin i don’t want to pay for with my mother’s tears or my son’s college fund.

article i
i want to be free.

i want real freedom.

i want to drop
what he did to me or
how this job taxes me.

i want to soar above
what the news says about it or
the anxiety i feel when my son asks,
‘can o go outside to play?’

i want to be above debts and
the ever mounting list of to do’s.

i want to live my life as
a free woman, untaxed but aware of
my responsibilities because
i can do it.

in all my 44 years,
God has never failed me
although i constantly fail Him.

i want to be
a free woman,
galvanized by joy
filled with compassion.

article ii
i want to know the
freedom my foremothers felt
before urbanization,
before migration,
before sharecropping,
before slavery,
before the middle passage,
before the slave castles,
before the treacherous walk to the shore,
before the tales of ghosts stealing children.

i want to know the
freedom of the gatherers
planting their feet and seeds in earth,
feeling the sun on their faces.

i want to know that
freedom.
the freedom that
I Am Capable.
I Am Strong.
I Am Nurturing.
I Am Love.

i want to know in
the core of who
I Am
that this thing before me
is doable and I Am the doer.

article iii
i want FREEDOM.

i want FREEDOM from
the dance with depression
and the need…that nagging
need to swallow my feelings
for the protection of someone else.

i want FREEDOM to be able to
care for me the way i care for my son.
to get me the things that i need.
to feed me the foods that sustain.
to rest when i am weary without guilt.
to go to the bathroom without the
obligation of ‘i have 2 minutes hands
free let me send this quick message.’

article iv
i want FREEDOM.
and i don’t just want it for me
but for every black woman everywhere.

i want everyone of us to remember
our origin that We Are from whence
All things began. We Are Fannie,
We Are Ella, We Are Septima,
We Are Mary, We Are Ida,
We Are Harriet, We Are Sojourner,
We AreNefertiti, We Are Nzingha,
We Are Lucy, We Are Mother,
We Are Free.

amendment 1
and i am willing to walk 1 million miles to get me and you there.