Untitled Poem by Chantelle Nixon

Have you ever woken up
To a day where everything
Around you is gray?
And it doesn’t even matter
If you take your next breath
It hurts to smile
And it pains you to laugh
And happiness seems
An impossible thought
Have you ever found a day
Where your worst fears were true
The sky is really falling
And no one REALLY cares
All your doubts are uplifted
And your heart is nonexistent
Has the sun ever risen but
Set too quickly
Leaving a single shimmer
Of a thought of beauty in
A world overflowing with darkness
Have you ever tried to breathe
And felt that fire in your lungs
The fire that screams out to you at night
Saying that you are nothing
And love DOES NOT EXIST
Such an anger and rage that
Just swallows you whole
I woke up today and when
I rolled over in bed
His face was printed in my heart
But what can I do? How can I say it?
How dare I speak those words from my lips?
Have you ever known pain?
Pain and fire – how much more can I take?
No matter how hard I try to pull back
My hand keeps stretching to the fire
And I know it will burn me
But it says that maybe it won’t burn so bad
Maybe, just maybe, it won’t hurt
But I know better
My mind is screaming –
You should know better by now
But my hands keep stretching
Like a need to test the fire
No matter the tears that fall
Or the sleep I lose
No matter the meals I miss
Or the rain that finds my head
I can’t pull away
I just can’t fight the fire
Have you ever jumped into the fire?
Have you ever been burned?
What’s a girl to do when
The lesson has not been learned?