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


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