Maya

I’ve been a poet since I was 13, a writer since I was 11, an artist since I can remember. I pursued ballet like an addict up until I was 20, before every carpet I ever dared to stand and dance on began to rip itself from beneath my feet until I learned to live life on all fours.

Chronic illness, divorce, deaths and all the debts that follow swallowed my youth whole, leaving nothing but a pen and the entire night’s sky in my possession. How else does a young girl stumble upon God outside his regular working hours?

It was my voice, that I was told I had to use.

Music had always followed me; more so poked and prodded me through iron fences I would lean on for comfort through the years. It was Prokofiev that first moved me to tears and cemented the dream I had envisioned for myself as a dancer.

But in my darkest hours, it was the piano that would catch my heavy hands first, not the Marley of the studio beneath my sorry soles. And in my dying breath, it will be poetry that leaves my lips as they part for the last time, making my words my immortal promise.

And I promise,

to make each word count till then, until the end of my spirit, as it trails lightly out of my being in silver shades and speckles of stardust,

floating back into the sky and towards the heavens, where my soul will find its home again and at last turn to lust

and longing for life,

once more.