"Neshama" - 3/22/21

I've been thinking a lot lately
Of how I can continue to be of service
Without doing disservice to my self

The years go by and I do my best to
Break the patterns upon which regret
Depends yet here I am akin to a protest

My very own fibres of being revolting
Against unrelenting people-pleasing
As though my mind leaves my body

I see it happening and grasp internally
For the words to stop it the phrases needed
To stand up perpetually seated I'm stuck

And no one else can see it I'm lost
No one hears the sound passivity's pulse
What cost this perceived stability

Centuries' frostbite of frivolous femininity
Sometimes I wonder if the biggest fool
Of all is me if the dichotomy between

The way I've always been and the woman
I long to be is merely the inability to
Concede embracing intuition's not defeat

Defeat is something I deconstruct daily
These days when it's so unfashionable
To navel gaze I miss the sounds

Of my loudest inner voices the illusion
That anyone's soul-obsessions
Are remotely their own choices