JOURNEY TO SELF.............!!!

JOURNEY TO WHO I AM

Next time, next time someone asks me who I am

I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them that I’m - an amazing

God like specimen painstakingly crafted in God’s own

Image and I’ll mean every single word of it.

For far too long all I felt was invisible

I didn’t like myself, couldn’t recognise my self

So every time I stepped out confidence was lacking

And questions were abounding

Looking around me didn’t help, it just made

Me wonder why my face wasn’t spotless

Why I wasn’t taller, why my boobs didn’t grow quicker

My hips weren’t wider, my waist not smaller

My teeth not whiter, my stomach not flatter

My grades not higher, my swag not flyer

This  could go on forever, basically the world made me wonder

And every time I stepped out confidence

was lacking And questions were abounding

So I just wanted to be invisible. With teenage

years came cross continental migration and that

Didn’t help matters. You see this new culture was

such a frustration, my new peers – I couldn’t understand

a fraction, with so much opportunity, their dreams

Somehow never achieved conception

Morality was missing in action

Fun was identifiable by a long list of regrettable actions

They existed just to be the centre of attraction

And I to them was a side distraction

My name - they mangled beyond recognition

My accent - they ripped to shreds with no contrition

My feelings they crushed with no emotion

And I couldn’t find myself in all of their commotion

So I felt invisible, wanted reality to match my emotion

Felt invisible craved a confidence that only comes with

True self-definition, So I set out to find myself

At first, I moulded myself into the image of their perfection

And when they said I was beautiful, I guess --I was

I lived for those moments when showering me with compliments;

I saw glimmers of that confidence that person I so badly wanted to be

I didn’t know who I was so I sold whatever that was at a high price

Just so I could hear someone say you are beautiful

Choosing to forget that when he called me beautiful he wasn’t giving me an upgrade

He simply acknowledged what God made,

I became almost all their expectations

Only to find that the new me - wasn’t matching my expectations

I didn’t know who I was

But I had to be - I was I had to be worth more than that

With that realisation I took my first steps on the road to who I am

Saw a sign defining bondage as allowing my self worth

 To be determined by others’ subjective limitations

So I found a standard that wasn’t subject to permutations

Salvation set me free from self-imposed incarceration

Now my self worth is defined only by the Creator not his creations

I opened Psalm 139 and found my true definition

It wasn’t linked to my profession, or my current situation

It didn’t fluctuate with emotion; in fact it made me rise out of

Depression, I opened it and it said

I am fearfully and wonderfully made

And with that discovery history was made

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

So if for some reason you  don’t behold mine

It doesn’t dismantle what God made

My confidence has totally been remade

And my value it’s not manmade

I know who I am so I can embrace what I am

I’m 5 foot 4 of intelligent, beautiful awkward awesomeness

Who is fearfully and wonderfully made

On those days when I wake up daring to forget what God has made

When the confidence of yesterday has somehow been mislaid

I react on purpose until my misgivings are allayed

Repeating to myself in the mirror of life

I am not invisible; I am not worthless

I am not invisible; I am not worthless

I am not invisible; I am not worthless

I am 5 foot 4 of intelligent, beautiful awkward awesomeness

Who is weirdly, wonderfully, fearfully and awesomely made

And I dare you to prove different

Because this is who I am

An amazing god like specimen painstakingly crafted in God’s own image

This is who I am. Now tell me,

Who are you?

©ToluAgbelusi 2012

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Tolu Agbelusi is a performance poet with an uplifting message delivered in a heartfelt manner that engages across generational divides. She speaks about the human condition with an endearing sincerity. More of her poems can be found on her blog http://poetic-echos.blogspot.co.uk