Bag Lady

Dear Bag Lady,
How do you do it?
How do you carry the weight of the world and yet take up so little space?
You occupy like a fire escape,
Operate within a small square dark cubicle and only speak when someone sparks your flame.

Dear Bag Lady,
How do provide space for others and not yourself?
You are amazing at making sure everyone else is taken care of
yet leaving yourself lying on the bedroom floor without the will to get up.

Dear Bag Lady,
You have the ability to recognize everyone's humanity, but your own.
You often see yourself as part android.
Having the ability to portray that you are brilliant
Do every task, take on every project, make sure everything I say is articulate,
and program yourself to be as nice as possible to make sure everyone has a smile.

Dear Bag Lady,
This time you finally cracked,
you enter into a room that is filled with 20 people that feels like 200.
your battery has depleted.
Trying to engage in conversations about professionalism and being a brand,
yet as a black trans woman, the only brand that I can obtain is dead.
You are trying to engage with a boy that you like, yet your brain is malfunctioning.
The temperature of the room is skyrocketing where your body is overheating.
I walked downstairs to get a drink and finally couldn't breathe.
The noises of every conversation and self-deprecation finally brought you to your knees.
This is a moment in which you realized you are not android,
that you might actually be human.

Dear Bag Lady,
What have you done to yourself,
you give so much of yourself only to burn out.
These people are only going to cause you more pain.
Yet we live in a world in which the only relationships that can exist are the ones that hurt us.

Dear Bag Lady,
You are going to spark your own light,
You will shine brighter than a city skyline.
More than the bulbs that light up Las Vegas.
My worth will not be determined by how much I can perform,
how much I can take the pain.
or by how much I can stimulate people in a conversation because they are grown-ass adults and can do it themselves.

Dear Bag Lady,
Finally, she drops the weight and carries on.







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