I’m a ferocious warrior
Don’t ask me what I’ve seen
I’m a ferocious warrior
don’t ask me to explain
I’ve learned so long to survive
I don’t know that I’ve seen
what could have been
I’ve walked and walked
and leaned In
I’ve read and read and thought I’d finally been
only to find that I was nowhere near
nowhere at all
You see
When you have been programmed to live
step by step
un dia a la vez
you forget
you don’t see
the life outside that cage
You don’t think what could have been
If I didn’t have to decide based on the need to
Survive
And yet one day
You realize
You are no longer working to feed
no longer walking to heed
the advice of ensuring
your children simply eat
One day you see
You have never broken through the feverish mucous
Shutting your eyes shut
to possibility
Until you feel the weight of the future
of possibility
Of Choice
you never had
you never knew
and now beckons
What Will You Do Now that You Taste
the Weight of Freedom
to ponder
the weight of Choice?
You’ve outrun paycheck to paycheck
You’ve outlived the warfare of your youth
You’ve outgrown the stories of
Making It
You’ve Made It
You’ve Made it to
What?
You stand at cliff’s edge
and you realize as you are fallling
Falling
Falling
You realize you’ve only made it to
Choice?
What will your choice be?
Susana Benavidez 