To grow we have to be open and free…
Open?
Yes open, our hearts and our minds…
Once you have closed either one…
Growth stops…
Once we consider ourselves a grown…
We will never grow again…
This is possibly one of the reasons for the generational divide…
Once we are unable to hear…
The voices of our children…
Realizing that we can learn from them…
Because we are too grown…
We miss out on so many chances…
Mentoring can be a backwards journey…
I have learned so much from the young people in my life…
A woman recently told me that I needed to choose a voice in my writing…
“You can’t use words like androgynous in a sentence and then slang in the next…”
Oh yes I can…
My heart and mind are so open…
That I can speak the Queen’s English and Ebonics, without missing a beat…
What that does is releases me…to know everyone…
To be available to people who are just like me…
Or so not like me…
Free?
Yes Free…
To be me…
And for you to be you…
To speak our minds and hearts…
To accept and embrace differences…
To coexist…
Somewhat…
Peacefully…
So many have tried to still my voice…
Alter my words…
Didn’t happen then…
Won’t happen now…
I am growing…
And will throw…
Water…
Sun…
And fertilizer on my damn self…
If no one else wants to…
acVernon Menchan 04/27/2007
