So, I Wrote Poem or Something

[Guest Rashaad]

Heyo! Long time, no post~

So, in a few weeks, it'd be a year since I started living as Rashaad. To honor it, I scrounged around my closet for some old drawings of myself- one's I drew in my teens of how I imagined myself looking when I was older. What I found was sketches of a melanchonly woman covered in tattoos. Well, guess I was right about one thing. Haha! I was planning on posting the drawing on twitter or something with a short caption about the anniversary but I somehow vomited a poem thingy. Definitely NOT gonna post the poem on social media but then I remembered: Hey, Laura's! They might care to read this and I really ought to share it, seeing as how I stayed up so late writing it! XD

So without further sleep deprived rambling, here's Dead Like:

If you had told the person who drew that lonely portrait of his future that one day he'll have the courage to stand up for himself, he wouldn't have believed you.

He was absolutely resigned. He was beautifully numbed, walking corpse of a woman behind a funeral veil- waking everyday having long been put to rest with a smear of a smirk across the rock he wore crushing the face beneath. Vice gripped, he wouldn't dare chance the tomb shadowing him for fear of burning up like frail dry leaves under the menacing glare of the sun and its people. It's a safe world for the dead- getting killed all too mortifying and true. Backwards resuscitation, couldn't choke discomfort into relief- adrift in stagnant water no matter how wildly he thrashed. Resigned to rhythmically drowning- secure and fast. Praying it'll be over the quicker he kicked.

God struck his arrogance- he didn't know death, not truly. Just the shades blurred by wallowing in cemeteries. With a hard hand, God forced his face towards a doom more real than the self-righteous mausoleum he built with his Father's gifts. And for the first time in his death, he feared for his life- a gift that could without hesitation be destroyed by it's giver. Destroyed more wholly than one man could possibly do himself.

He would tremble a baby's breath above the hole he dug himself and ask his Father for courage. Not without lingering trepidations, he would one day put one foot in of the other, agonizing over every slight step. Strip by strip, he would slip from the grave and away from the chase. And with the memory of God's mercy, he would start to live- Fear would be swept off like dust and replaced with an armor thicker than pride made of soil and a happiness harder to budge than ugly headstones with ugly names.

If you had to told him that, he wouldn't have believed you.

[Charlize]

First of al good to see you and secondly thanks for sharing. I'm glad your self portrait turned out wrong. I did an oil of myself burning years ago. It might be time to do a new one in a field of flowers.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Jennifer T]

Rashaad, I love what you've written here! Funny what we say and do in our youth not knowing what it may portend. This is one if several self portraits I drew as a child. People would ask me who the drawings were of. I'd simply reply that they are in my imagination.

I hoped then, beyond hope.

Thank you for sharing this poetry from your youth!