ON BEING ASKED IF I’M ALIVE
.
I am a gutted afterthought
meaning my skin slips like any other
unwound costume would
if given the chance
to abandon ship
and by this I mean sometimes
it is hard to not watch
me vanish like sometimes
I’d rather wave furiously goodbye
to the vessel than throw the anchor
overboard and grow
deep and downward.
I suspect it has everything to do
with being unfree meaning
I am everything that is unfree
which means everyone can see
these shackles I try so hard to hide.
I try so hard.
Please stop looking,
that is, I’m not waving
at you, I mean, look how fast
she’s running.
Precious Musa graduated from Smith College with her B.A. in English and Africana Studies and a Poetry Concentration. She’s a poet, short story writer, and creative intellectual whose work often engages the inner life of the body, fugitivity, and the racial and political turmoil present in American society. Her writing aims to touch your pulse. Recently, her work has turned to her and her family’s Nigerian-American identity and the origins of that story. When not writing, Precious can be found thinking about writing or indulging in a Netflix marathon.
