For Maya, The Woman Who Lived

I don't know why I cry for Maya, but I do. She has had a long and difficult life, its beginning fraught with prejudice, it middle years of struggle; its end of peace. When I think of her, she is like a mixture of the three, and yet somehow towering above it, strong and wise, enduring. 

I don't know why I cry for Maya, the woman who lived. Perhaps there are some tears of joy for knowing her. Perhaps those are tears of sorrow for not knowing. 

Perhaps I cry thanks to Maya, the woman who lived. 

Love Liberates

The Detached - Maya Angelou {All Rights Reserved, taken from Poemhunter}

We die, 

Welcoming Bluebeards to our darkening closets, 

Stranglers to our outstretched necks, 

Stranglers, who neither care nor

care to know that

DEATH IS INTERNAL.

We pray, 

Savoring sweet the teethed lies, 

Bellying the grounds before alien gods, 

Gods, who neither know nor

wish to know that

HELL IS INTERNAL.

We love, 

Rubbing the nakednesses with gloved hands, 

Inverting our mouths in tongued kisses, 

Kisses that neither touch nor

care to touch if

LOVE IS INTERNAL.