Waiting On Water

Liz Prisley 


Image by Çağlar Oskay

 

I am a seed, planted,

waiting on water.

I am my own best kept secret.

I am a cactus able to keep my own needs at bay

           for months

I store secrets and half-truths.

I am nothing if not loyal

           to a fault.

Usually mine.

I am a moon rise that happens all too often in the daylight,

completely missed

if you don’t know how to look.

I am a deep breath waiting in the bottom of my own lungs.

I am a half-finished poem in a book of half-finished poems.

I am drying out.

I’m waiting on rain;

and most days I’m numb.

Or too impatient to wait on my softness.

I am all hard edge or cactus

waiting to bloom.

I am half closet and half passing

and half afraid of where I’ve hidden the truth.

I am a breath I can’t stop holding

in a body that is dying to live.

I am waiting on the water to leave

before I drink too much

and spill all these secrets

washed away by all these breaths.

A new moon in an empty sky

where truth weighs heavy in the mouth

waiting to shine.

 

Liz Prisley

Liz Prisley is a poet and educator who has been active in the Tampa Bay area spoken word poetry scene since 2012. She is currently the Executive Director for Heard Em Say Youth Arts Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to youth empowerment through creative arts. Over the past ten years, Liz has taught writing as a Fulbright Scholar in Germany, at Virginia Tech, the University of Tampa, the University of South Florida, and for the Pinellas and Hillsborough Education Foundations for local public schools. To learn more about Liz or watch her work, visit lizprisley.com. To learn more about Heard Em Say or to get a young person involved in our programs, visit heardemsay.org.