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His T-Shirt

Why I Write?
…to be liberated is to be free of all that may impede you. For me, this is a state of mind that can only be achieved through self-evaluation. Why? Because true evaluation of yourself illuminates your fears, troubles, and hurts. Only when they are brilliantly lit, can you scoop them up and eat them. Destroy these feelings by consuming all their light. Knowing why you feel the way you feel. Dealing with why you wander to wherever you are on earth’s lush pasture. Only then can you defeat those pricking things that defeat you by knowing who the true you. Every demented thought hiding in the shadows. Every sweet dream whispered into bulbous clouds. The sickening mixture of feelings causing a raucous reaction that you undoubtedly wish you could retract. By loving the good, the bad, and the ugly along with the simmering sweet goodness of you is to truly love yourself. Understanding the complexities of you. You are uncategorically. You are many things and one thing. You are undeniably unique. You are the first and the last. In mediating on these things, you discover you are liberated because you are conscious of yourself. Despite whatever ugliness you feel, you love that which is you.
In my poetry, I liberate myself through self-evaluation. It is my heartbeat, my tingling nerves, my hot tears, the music of my mouth, the twitch of my brow etched onto the skin of a tree; it is me. Thank you for hearing.
His T-shirt
Seven years out the womb I wore your t-shirts
Tip-toeing into your room I open the lowest drawer
And snatched my favorite tee
Grey shirt with navy blue
Letters etched on the top
Beige shirt with the pink sleeves
The blue shirt, baseball shirts
Coke-a-cola shirts, white shirts
Work shirts, old shirts, new shirts —
I would take
Snuggle into and breathe deep
SLEEP into infantile
Dreams of candyland and uno
Lounging with Ariel
Gossiping with Mother Willow
Painted with sunset
It was warm and safe
Nine years later
I can’t wear your shirts
Your t-shirts are suffocating me
Battling my infantile memory
With reality
In the reality of
Paycheck to paycheck living
Student loans
House foreclosure
Death, stress, love
Your t-shirts were suffocating
And I wanted to relieve
The tightness
Rip the t-shirt
Open, restructure it, mend it
So that it is just right for
Me, for us
But you didn’t- not that you couldn’t
Trapped in the oblivion stretches of your imagination
Caught up in the glory of your new found freedom
Destroying four shirts for unblemished ones
Your freedom suffocates me
Turning breathlessness into breathless anger
my longing is unfilled
because your t-shirts don’t fit me
anymore
About the author: Jasmine Willis is a storyteller who started carving images and sounds into words in the mountain of Virginia. She followed this passion at University of Virginia and continues to find passion in her craft. Find her on Twitter at @Jazzandra_J