Poem by Chrisette Michele

For Freedom Not For Beauty

There’s a beauty that lives so deep inside each of us.

There’s a fickle eye

that doesn’t believe anything it sees.

There’s a benefit in love that erases all doubt and believes good intentions.

There’s an ear that isn’t free enough to give the honest man the benefit of the doubt cluttered by lies not-mentioned.

Since when is creativity subject to criticism?

When is honesty subject to a jury of fears who wouldn’t believe rain if it fell, or sun if it shined?

Sometimes a flower grows when no ones watching.

Sometimes a bird sings and no one hears.

There’s a meadow no one runs on and a cloud no one names.

And what would the sky be with out the sun?

What would the earth be with out its rose?

They’d still be the sky and the Earth.

So perhaps there is a peace in becoming.

Perhaps the meaning is in the experience and not the sight.

Maybe a flower grows because it suffocates under ground.

Whether or not she is always noticed, beauty must become.

She doesn’t look for an eye.

She doesn’t listen for a voice.

She just becomes,

For Freedom Not For Beauty

-Chrisette Michele