I Call Myself A Cloud Poem by Angela Bontle Ditumiso

First time I took a pen and purged
What was my first two poems
I didn't have the urge
To write
I was just begging for silence
Because words had come alive within me
First they were cooing
Then they were clear and their voices too loud
I pretended a pen was earplugs
Block out the noise

The day I realized that poetry is a calling
I was an infant in my self esteem
Hadn't started teething
I almost gave it away
Because on these streets there's a lot of art
And what I could do with a pen
Always seemed forced, boring, a waste, mediocre
It wasn't until one of my idols
Line for line paraphrased my poem
That I realized not all gods are worth worshiping

Here we are
I write doodles on the wall
And still see a message in it
In every poem I deem worthless
I find pieces of myself
And I have learnt
If there's anything in my universe
That's priceless
It is I
For I was a single cell once
Now everything that exists within me
Can't exist without me
Even these words