Growing Pains - Janae Newsom

 
Loving you is like choking on air
Lungs collapsing,
heart pumping
Heart thumping
Heart breaking,
a numb awakening
A nagging orgasm
A Tear's kiss to the cheek
Your love makes the strong feel weak Feel small,
feel last,
feel least
Everyday begins again,
the pain just rolls over
And that damn shoulder can't get no colder. It's like a bleeding heart,
and a rusted shackle
It's like a thief of goodness,
disguised as Robin hood.
But the caveat here is that
Your love aint even yours at all
It's mine.
I made it mine,
I took it and carried it,
and fed it like my children
Like my best day,
I thought that you were my best day I counted my eggs before they hatched No returns on my investment,
just I O Us
Well this time I owe you,
and by you I mean me
I owe me, time
I owe me, grief
And no I can't keep it in. I physically cannot. My aching spills out from under my eye lids I owe me, laughter
and love
and joy
and more pain
cause now I've learned what pain is A sick self affliction.
Everytime I break
nothing ever fits the same
Had to learn that doing the same shit
Really does make you insane
So now my storms are just rain
Now that shackles a broken chain
Now I'm bruised and beaten from the journey it took to find my soul
but you know they say pretty hurts
And so, if this is the pain it took to grow
I hope it stops with my babies
These generational woes
So if ever somebody tries to tell them what love is, I pray that they'll look boldly in the mirror and say
I. Already. Know.

Janae Newsom is a writer, mother, and educator from East Oakland California. She uses writing to share about the beauty of her existence as a black woman from Oakland. Much of her writing attempts to dismantle the stereotypes placed on black girls from the hood, through telling their stories as authentic to the truth of their complex lived experiences as possible. She is a graduating MFA candidate in Creative Writing- Fiction at Mills College, and is currently working on her first Novel.