Going to Work (a poetic musing)

Reckoning with my words in a way I haven't in a long time.

I had a wonderful opportunity to share my heart at the Black Joy Book Talk hosted by Swarthmore College’s Black Cultural Center.

Going to Work

(a poetic musing)

These dark nights are forcing the “real writer” in me to the surface.

Every act and order and news breaking my soul, our souls, is calling up my warrior part.

She is fierce.

Holy.

Clear-eyed.

BEEN ready.

And as I greet her—because it’s been a while, you know—I weep.

Oh how I weep.

I am, we are, unsafe, my insides say.

My lament unveils the terror that’s only barely hidden under the mask I’ve worn since it was handed to me.

In pre-school.

(Mine was embroidered with confusing implications that I was too much and not enough at the same damn time.)

Now, naked faced, I am undone.

Thankfully, my warrior says, “It’s okay. Cry if you must. Rage if you need to. This is why I’m here.”

Then she proceeds to unravel me more.

Because apparently it’s still me who must fight.

Who must write.

Even WITH my terror on the table.

But also WITH my warrior as my rearguard, sharpening her oyster knife.

I must write.

Precisely.

— Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts

© 2025

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