PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I’ve had enough

I’m sick of seeing and touching

Both sides of things

Sick of being the damn bridge for everybody



Nobody

Can talk to anybody

Without me

Right?



I explain my mother to my father

my father to my little sister

My little sister to my brother

my brother to the white feminists

The white feminists to the Black church folks

the Black church folks to the ex-hippies

the ex-hippies to the Black separatists

the Black separatists to the artists

the artists to my friends’ parents…



Then

I’ve got to explain myself

To everybody



I do more translating

Than the Gawdamn U.N.



Forget it

I’m sick of it.



I’m sick of filling in your gaps



Sick of being your insurance against

the isolation of your self-imposed limitations



Sick of being the crazy at your holiday dinners



Sick of being the odd one at your Sunday Brunches



Sick of being the sole Black friend to 34 individual white people



Find another connection to the rest of the world

Find something else to make you legitimate

Find some other way to be political and hip



I will not be the bridge to your womanhood

Your manhood

Your humanness



I’m sick of reminding you not to

Close off too tight for too long



I’m sick of mediating with your worst self

On behalf of your better selves



I am sick

Of having to remind you

To breathe

Before you suffocate

Your own fool self



Forget it

Stretch or drown

Evolve or die



The bridge I must be

Is the bridge to my own power

I must translate

My own fears

Mediate

My own weaknesses



I must be the bridge to nowhere

But my true self

And then

I will be useful