Empowered

I am the amalgamation of what I was 

and all the I hold myself from becoming
All because I keep on running
From this gift
God's gift to me to see all the things so many can't see
What they can't write can't read
I must be braille
The uprising on a sheet of paper to speak the stories of those that were frightened into silence
In our small country there's far too much violence
Too much hate
And I fear what I've been entrusted to do
Given the freedom of truth
To etch on a paper powerful tears of years of depression
I am weighed down
By my thoughts of failure that keep me up until dawn

And it dawns on me that I am no longer that ugly duckling
I am a swan
I will learn to swim even though I've been close to drowning
I must be a life vest
For me
For all those that cannot speak
With tongues but cannot use them
I will lick your lips for you
I will moisten them so that your song can slip more easily through them
I will shout
Another teenager mother with no choice
Held in a corner on a date
Date rape
You are a swan too
Never let that bastard take that from you
And when I hear shots fired
I will pray for our brothers
Who learn to hold guns before they knew their fathers

I am the amalgamation of what I was and what I'm choosing to be
A voice among the tears of a mother that lost two sons in one year
I am a swan
I can float
Until we learn to swim