Jaymee Thomas Poet Free verse

I Can't Believe

how many years I lived
without knowing the decision space in front of me
didn’t depend on the stingy calculus
of a lover’s whimsy.

I can’t believe—
how many times I mistook silence
for verdict, god’s understudy,
how many times I called a locked door just,
as if my wanting were felony,
my body a crime scene.

I called it love—
letting all other appetites eat first.
I called it love—
when I folded my desire, my voice
into a paper crane,
set it alight,
then apologized
for the smoke.

But freedom—
freedom isn’t a hand-me-down.
It cannot be conferred, is not a ribbon tied
to someone else’s mercy.
It’s my pulse still thrumming,
a window they swore was nailed shut
splintering, opening, opening.

Freedom is sky without edges,
my mind a kite unwound from every fist,
kissing my own lips,
striking my name like the last match on earth,
calling it holy—
to breathe without permission.

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