Untitled Poem

Untitled Poem

By Sophie Skoke

I’m so tired, I’m feeling the energy ooze out of my body

I’m so tired of thinking about this

but I’m learning too

I’m learning to not hide it

I’m understanding that my ties are both

made visible and invisible

My heritage is mine

but when it’s snatched from my arms

by a twisting, encroaching string of words

I’m stripped

and

I’m tired

My religion is me, but here’s the thing

Only I get to say when it’s not

When I can profess myself a Jew

I feel pride

and in those moments, I’m free for the

few seconds before it crumbles at my feet

stolen from my stance, my hopeful face

My people

In those moments, I wait for the tiredness to takeover

Only recently, I am feeling the tiredness

stay within me for shorter periods of time

I have the voices of my parents, my sister, my grandmother, my friends,

My people

They help me build myself up again and again

These days, when I profess myself a Jew

Though my voice does waver

I feel the quake of a new hope overtaking me

It rushes through the bitterness

I am allowed to profess my tiredness

My new hope

To curl back against the onslaught of words,

so effortlessly said, but biting all the same

To stand straighter

To look as though I know something they do not

I am who I am, but I am also a Jew.

Sophie Skoke is a Kindergarten teacher at St. Malachy School. Sophie joined the Philadelphia Writing Project in 2016 attending the Invitational Summer Institute.