Misstep

A Poem by harlem_knight

i used to step like*acts out step*

i used to practice my steps to the rhythm of my heartbeat, swaying my hips, clapping my hands, stomping my feet

i used to step like slap slap, clap clap, jump girl jump, run girl run, beating my chest till it was numb yes that was my drum and i used to step

you should of seen me, i made it look easy with breath with every step this was my stage and d****t i used to step

Nana asked why don't i step anymore,

She said its been months since she last heard me stomp the floors

And the truth is Nana, each and every step, each and every slap is a reminder of something my heart cant bare to explore

October 3^rd, there I was stepping as loud as I could, tracing the vibrations echoing through the bare walls as free as any 12 year old girl could ever be,

My hands signaling a trance I didn’t yet understand, a signal that raised the eyebrows of grown boys who aspired to be conquistadors, and I merely a conquest in the minds of power-lust men

See Nana doesn’t know how it feels to be colonized.

He told me I was a trip and I thought he meant a vacation but vacations don’t feel like this.

Vacations don’t turn girls into women before they have yet to smell the flowers dying inside of them.

Clap clap, slap slap, this isn’t Disney land.

Nana asked me why I don’t step anymore….

but she wouldn't neither had she been stepped on, slapped and unpillared only 12 years of age and each and every day that goes by i still feel it, how he entered me without my permission

my brother my uncle, my lover, my best friend how could you! i used to step like slap slap, clap clap, jump girl jump, run girl run i tried to but it was no use

pinned against the stairs while he misuses me, slap slap, abuses me, clap clap, robing me of my dignity before my eyes whispers in my ear “they cant hear you scream” and im guessing he was right….cause no one’s here

God where were you while i was locked in the bathroom- puffy eyed, trying to wash him off me, out me, covering the rug burns from the stairs up so Nana wouldn't see. She doesn't know that im broken now.

If she did would i still be her favorite grandchild?

I cant clap loud enough to drown out his grunts or step far enough to evade his touch or run fast enough to the me I used to be before I was forced to carry him with me.

And she say’s……she says she’ll always love me…. but so did he Nana…. my brother, my uncle, my lover, my best friend now look at me, where is my beat i cant hear it he took it from me and God…

I just want to step again!