Count your blessings

Count your blessings

Lbena T-Michael

Maybe your two cents was the last bit of change that I need

To let my guard down and finally let my ego spill out of my veins.

I never had much to my name,

But a first and a last.

In the middle of a sentence… is when I stop to gasp.

Overwhelmed with the weight of the words that I claim,

Choking on confessions and hard learned lessons,

Battling my pride and pain.

They exist in the same vein.

In the same hood is where we both were raised.

How could we be so different?

I think our cultures were different.

I was taught how to love in the language of struggle and strain.

So being tender is hard,

And it seems like it’s in my genes.

In between the seams of the jeans I’m rocking,

Fitted a belt through the loops around my waist,

In case I need to escape the strife that I’m causing.

Then I’m gone.

You want to get to know,

But my mask is fully drawn.

I only get real in a poem

Or a song.

By painting out my life,

I build a stronger bond with my younger self,

And as I get older,I start to see my higher self.

I pray she comes near and stays long,

And brings along the peace that I’m searching for.

Peace ain’t happiness, but it’s when you’re grateful for

The feeling of insecure.

You gotta count your blessings.

I know a homie dealing with depression

And can’t take it.

If it were up to me, I’d take their problems and replace it

With my burdens, with my stress.It’s funny, now we’re both depressed.

You gotta count your blessings.

Searching for love in every path that she crossed,

Crossed all her t’s and i’s see all their dots.

Controlling her narrative.

It’s imperative

That all she sees is positives

And never negatives.

She gave me her two cents once,

That’s all I needed to see clear for months.

She told me all I needed was what I had from the jump,

Took me straight out from my funk

Into something not short from peace and tranquility.

That was the last bit of change that I need

To be free,

To afford to be set free.

I look at her,

She looks back at me.

In the mirror, she’s all I see.

You gotta count your blessings.