I am BSPOKEiT the Poet and I've got something to say
I skipped class that day and hid in the library. I couldn't bring myself to sit in a classroom full of frustrated peers trying to grasp 11th grade science when my world outside of the school was falling apart. It wasn't like me to side step my responsibility to be a good student and attend class, but this day even being a good student was not enough to distract me from the agony of going home to a family in chaos and an uncertain future for a girl with a lot of passion and no direction.
I figured the library could offer some refuge. I had no interest in reading the books, but the fact that the school library was mostly used for students in detention who rarely showed up to pay their debts to society meant that it was a quiet place to process my thoughts without distraction. At the time I had a thick black leather journal that I'd customized with paint glue and jell pens and it was my best friend. It did something for me that no one in my life at that point did - it listened to me. It provided a place for me to say whatever I wanted and needed to say without fear of judgement; without fear of being shut out or shut down. I knew that I could tell it anything and it would still love me. As I sat in the neglected library, my journal listened as I poured out everything.
I was angry, sad, unheard, and it listened. I felt this way all the time, but what I didn't know was that so did many of the people around me - many of them were my friends. Many of them wrote poetry which I also didn't know until I was dragged to an open mic that one of them happened to be sharing at that very evening. I was proud of everyone who touched the mic that night. All of them had done what I said I would never do; share my writing with anyone.
The rule between myself and I was that we could write whatever we wanted and needed to get out as long as no one else ever heard what we had to say. I was crippled by the fear of what people would think of me if they knew what I was really thinking. But as I watched one after the other as my peers and others were brave enough to free themselves, I wandered what would happen if I got brave enough to free myself and speak. Just as the tug-of-war between me and myself was getting good someone called my name "Brittany Williams to the stage". In another life I would have panicked and frozen. I would have pretended not to be present and let fear and shyness define the moment - define my life. But I'd already written a new life. I'd spent the whole day in the library writing about what my life would look like if I wasn't afraid. If I wasn't afraid to be the person my journal knew I was, but wouldn't dare share with anyone else. If I wasn't afraid to speak, who would I be? Well, my name is BSPOKEiT, and I bring life to words that bring life to people. It's very nice to finally meet you.
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