PAD Challenge Day 10: Get the Chance
PAD Challenge Day 10: Take
the phrase “Get (blank)”. Replace the blank with a word or phrase. Make the new
phrase the title of your poem.
Get the Chance
Everyone will not get the chance
to grow old and gray.
I am nowhere near lucky; I am
blessed with a life
that symbolize good omen,
faith, hope
and love like a green leaf clover.
I am fortunate that I got the chance to
take my first steps, say my first words,
color in the lines and spell my full
name.
I got the chance to see
my first set of double
digits,
a perfect 10, with a poem in one
hand
my violin in the other, and a dream
to become a scientist or a doctor.
At 13,
I got the chance to become a teen,
experience my first crush and kiss.
I got to see Sweet 16 candles lit
just for me to blow and make a
wish.
I got to take my first drive to 1606
Gardenia Avenue
where I promised my mother that I would
make it out of high school before
becoming
a teen mother like her and her mother,
I got the chance to dance at prom
because my mother skipped hers.
I got to wear pearls and a traditional
wedding dress in the Jabberwock Pageant.
At 18,
I was admitted into college,
where I registered to vote.
I got to befriend some cool,
beautiful college friends,
dance at a club for the first time
after being afraid to go because
my father was shot and almost killed
in one.
I got the chance to date,
see what it
was like to
be made love to by a man that
shared mutual love.
At 21,
I got to order Tequila
and Vodka shots and cocktails,
graduate from one of the most illustrious
historical black colleges and universities
to become a scientist with her own
on her own.
At 25,
I got the chance to let down my guard,
release the anger I had for my
father,
rekindle and forgive him for the
way
he treated my mother and me.
Before 30,
I got the chance to publish my own poetry,
travel the world domestic
and internationally on my own
just to come back home
to know the feeling when a
doctor calls to say “It’s cancer”.
After 30,
I got to know what it was like
to lose friends you thought were
real friends.
I got to see what it looks like
when someone
you cared for walks out of your
life without a why or goodbye.
I got to know how it felt to lose one
of my grandmothers,
I got to see what a heart was like
with a hole in it.
I got to welcome 5 new scars after being free of cancer.
I got to see my father take his
last breath.
I got to know how to overcome situational
depression and grief.
I got to see me complete my PhD.
I got to comb through three gray
hairs,
live through a pandemic.
Now, that I'm 35,
I hope I get to see
40, 50, 60,
70,
Hell, I’ll take 75,
just to say I got the chance to
live a full life after being old
and gray.
D’ElegantOne
Comments
Post a Comment