Excerpt from “What If” | An original poem by Briana Augustus
What if I died.
What if I didn’t but pretended and went to hide.
I wouldn’t but what if I questioned it before I decided.
Every drop that slid and tickled my face when I cried,
Slipped slowly hitting nerves like yells at every place coming fast like they’re tryna race.
Who can get the most hits, most spits, fastest pace but steady in order to get first place.
What if I left.
What if I no longer smelled air fresh or fully inhaled every breath.
Always feeling claustrophobic; my heart is running but anaerobic.
No oxygen is flowing, no wind a’blowing. Body cramping–sick.
Tongue dry, no lick. I try to rhyme, but I can’t even spit.
What if you forgot.
Every time I walked ahead, that night we laid in bed.
Every look you read. every word I never said. every path we tread.
An “us” would have never been and there would be no ‘back then’s.
Only ‘ever since’s that only refer to present tenses.
No past rememberances of me and tall barbed wire locking me away inside invisible fences.
What if I……..
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