I’m watching the clock tick down

I’m feeling the passage of time as this current year rakes the last of her minutes down my spine.

She’s death

She’s all sweetness

She’s asking what I want to give her

She’s asking what I want her to take with her

Tonight I am giving her you.

You were all that I had ever known.  For years I looked to you for guidance.  You told me how to act, how to dress, how to be.  You gave me order and boundaries. You dictated both the flow and rhythm of my life.  

I didn’t know to hate you so by default I loved you.

I lifted you up

I fed you before I fed myself

I sought your validation

I sought my reflection in your eyes

I do not yet know who I am without you

But I know we can’t continue like this

You’re killing me

And I while I know it would be easier to let you kill me I resist!

My friends say that you are not as bad as I think you are.  My elders sometimes even forget that you are there. In a fight those who are close to me will take your side and I think maybe I’m crazy.

Feeling this certain, this entitled to my self possession is so foreign that I am mistaking being insane for finally being in sane.

Without you this world is so huge and vast and unknown and terrifying and I’m changing into something I never thought possible and that frightens me.

Having full possession of this mouth, these legs, this mind, my spirit.

Having full responsibility for it too.

You keep calling me.

You keep being all hotline bling

You tell me that you don’t know who I am anymore like it is a bad thing and sometimes in the past I believed you.

I’d go back to you and we would start all over again.

But this is the last time.

As this current year rakes the last of her minutes down my spine.

I speak to her as if She is Death

I speak to her with all the sweetness I have left

She  asks what I want to give her

She  asks what I want her to take with her

And I hand you over

I give her every lie you dared to tell me

I give her every grief you have given me

I loosen your hand from around my throat

I will lay down with you no more

I will feed you no more

I will fear you no more

You are broken from my foundation

Your direction is removed from the compass of my heart

I cast you out

You, whiteSupremacy have no more power here.

Mammy is dead

and I am all that is left