Sarah Oguntomilade/MiC.

Robert Frost said, “To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.” 

And I feel like a poet today 

I just love the way my smile gives room for my voice to appear

Almost as if that was the way God had always intended 

For me to use my voice

I had always thought that I took up too much room

I talked too much 

I was too much 

But all of that has gone out the window today

Because today I feel like a poet

I woke up this morning and simply decided that I was beautiful 

Doesn’t that sound like poetry to you?

I oiled my scalp

Braided my hair 

And sang songs in my mirror 

I laid outside in the summertime 

Face to the sun 

Because my Blackness was never a plague 

Always a gift 

Doesn’t that sound like poetry to you?

I prayed that each of my friends would find a love as beautiful as their spirit 

Whether that be a person, place or profession 

I prayed for our collective joy 

Because don’t Black girls deserve joy?

I prayed they would feel like poets today too

I said my dreams out loud 

Each and every one of them 

All of whom I aspired to be 

Because it just sounded like poetry to me

My favorite poetic device is refrain 

because I am never afraid to try again. 

I am never afraid to repeat myself,

just in case you didn’t hear me the first time.

A close second is metaphor 

Because I believe that hidden meaning 

Is always waiting for you around the corner

However, I will say that hyperbole is on that list as well

I’ve been told I have a flair for the dramatic 

Always pushing the envelope between truth and imagination 

Between goal and dream 

Perhaps I can’t tell the difference 

I’ve always said I am not a good poet 

but I am a storyteller and everyone has got a chapter they do not want to read aloud 

The times when you realized he was a chapter in your book but you were barely a page in his

The times when you’d given up on believing in anything at all 

The times when you felt like you didn’t belong – and maybe never will

The times when it seemed like no one was listening and you wondered if there’s a point in speaking at all

I’ve been there

But I figured we are all a mixture of unhappy endings that tangle into something beautiful  

Doesn’t that sound like poetry to you?

MiC Columnist Sarah Oguntomilade can be reached at soguntom@umich.edu.