i know how it feels to be second and not
Knowing what to do about it; and the first
one refuses to care about you.
i know how it feels being depressed inside
That small capsule with capricious unhappiness
and hopelessness their prison guards
i know how i felt riding greyhound buses unnoticed
by those seated comfortably up front, white-curtains
to obscure Negroes instead of light.
i know more saints who kneel and pray
Hoping for something magical in the distance and
finding out Later or never that reality is just being.
i know how it feels to be forgotten and alone
On a stinky garbage bin eating from a can
As passer-bys are cosign to oblivion.
i know how it feels being mother with
a fully matured, broken-winged bird who
can't leave her nest.
i feel the pain of the crying womb
that month after month her flowers go
to seeds, die, and never to blossom.
i know how i feels remembering the
The child I 'got but didn't get'
and the deprived one could have gotten.
i know how it feels being the ignored flower growing
through the cracked sidewalk unnoticed, like
children slipping through the cracked welfare system
I know about beauty, fears, joy, and loneliness;
I know about stories held, not told as signs of me;
I know that poems are evident of our obscure being…
the forgotten
Almedia Knight-Oliver January 19,2011
Almedia Knight Oliver
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-forgotten-i/
