Post the Seventy-Fifth or Where do I begin?

Where do I begin?

The soft folds of her body

&

The fierce fire of her eyes

Are a good place

I remember what she said

That distant fall morning

“Don’t get lost”

–

My heart is a warren

Of old hurts

And new triumphs

The walls

Are the pink rosy gold

Color

Of hardship

The rooms

Are filled with the faces

Of those that I love

Like radiant, shining beacons

Beacons that light the way forward

The rooms are filled with memories

That I would rather forget

–

Her head lay on the ground

Very much detached from her body

She looks at me with reproachful eyes

Almost as if

It was my fault

As if

I could some how prevented

Her murder

How dare I remain alive

When she was dead?

It is the responsibility of the living

To bury the dead

But

It is the dead

Who must remind the living

Life is short

Where do I begin?

Post the Seventy-Third or For Fierce Brown Mamas

Conflict minerals

As if

The diamonds that encrusted

Her neck

Were not paid for in blood

As if

Someone just argued over them

As if

They weren’t clawed out of the Mother’s belly

By fingers filthy with the gore of greed and madness

As if

There wasn’t a reason why

Our lands and our bodies continue

To be pillaged

–

She holds her baby tight to her bosom

Hoping

That the toxic fumes of colonialism

And industrialization

Won’t kill her child

Or

Transfigure it beyond

Recognition

–

This is for all the

Fierce Brown Mamas

Who hold it down

Who work two jobs

And raise three kids

Who risk deportation

And rape

Who push against

Images

Of the Welfare Queen

Or The Neverending Strength of

Black Women

This is for those Mamas

Who give

And give

And give

So that her future generations will

Thrive

Who fight

And fight

And fight

For their family’s

Survival

–

This is for those Mamas who never had kids

–

This is for all of us

Whose insides

Will never match our outsides

For those of us

That are pursued

By hearts filled with

Avarice and fear

For those of us

Whose glory is unmatched

Saved by the Sun

–

This is for those of us

Who refuse to have our

Stories and Herstories

Erased or rewritten

For convenience

For those of us

Who refuse to be silenced

For those of us who

Stand and Fight

With glitter, fake eyelash and

High Heel

Against the pollution of our

Spirits

–

Justice

Is never simple

But it is

Clean

Post the Sixty Fourth or My Man

I could never marry a white man

I’m too smart

Too brown

And too uppity.

My man though

He is as black

As the iced Americano I drink every morning

2 shots

Extra sweet

Hold the cream

Black

Like the space in between

The stars that bloom in my mind

Whenever I enter him

Black

Like the soft wetness inside of his mouth that I explore

With my breath

Black

Like the dilated pupil of my eye

(Open with eagerness)

 As I lower my face to that

Ambrosial joy between his thunderous thighs

–

 My man

He is tough

Like the wild buffalo

Surviving in spite of those who would commit genocide against the Sacred

Tough

Like the grass that grows between the cracks in the sidewalk

Thriving in spite of the crushing weight of manmade cruelty

And cruel fate.

 My man

He is gentle

Like the bracing waves of the warm Caribbean

The clear waters belying a depth unsurpassed.

Gentle

Like full moonlight filtering through a curtain of clouds

Illuminating the path before me

The dance of shadow

Exposing magic that I hitherto had not known

I had possessed.

–

My man is

Fiercely Sensitive

I know he would go to the ends of the earth

Walk along the bottom of the ocean

And take the next flight off this planet

To plant a single kiss upon my brow.

 He would take out whole zipcodes

Call in all favors

And rewrite reality itself

To protect me from harm.

–

He loves me hard and true and pure

A love that blazes like diamonds

And burns like ice.

A love that can make you cry and laugh and cum

All at the same time.

A love that even the Gods are envious of.

A love that heals.

And I know he will love me until

The cows he don’t have

Come home.

He will love me till the sky falls

The earth busts open

And white people stop complaining about reverse racism.

I know he will love me

As I love him.

–

They asked if he made me feel like I woman

I replied, No

He makes me feel human.

Post the Fifty Seventh or Familia

They lay next to me

The both of them

One dark

One light

And I somewhere in Between

Their skin pressed up against the other

Each of us holding

Those parts of ourselves

That needed to be held

In that silence

I could hear their blood pump

And I wonder

What does it mean to be family?

Is family

Those with whom you share

Ancestry

And blood?

Is family

Those with whom you share

Spirit

And Narrative?

Is family

Those people who

Make your soul sing

With concertos of beauty

Who still the cacophony

That governs our lives?

Is family

those people who

Birthed you

Raised you

Held you when you scraped your knee

Who sweated, bled and cried so that you

Could have a better life?

Is family

Those with whom you

Are rooted

In common struggle

Or common land?

But how great is the difference between

The blood that runs through my veins

And the blood that courses through my lover’s?

Family is the blood that we

choose.

Post the Forty-Second or On Pretty Privilege

How many times have you interacted with a person and they did something annoying but you let them off the hook because you thought they were cute? Or smiled and put that little extra nutmeg in someone’s latte because you thought they would notice and it would get them to talk to you? Or open the door for some hot young thing to check out their ass? Or took that flyer because the canvaser was hot?

What you were doing then and in so many infinitesimal interactions is something that I think isn’t talked about enough. I think that it’s called pretty privilege. Those that are deemed attractive by society are often given an easier time. Whether through forbearance of punishment for bad behavior or through getting a job over someone else, pretty privilege is a big deal!

The other thing that I think is interesting to note is how much correlation pretty privilege has with white privilege, cisgender privilege and class privilege. This is because those classes of people all adhere most closely to the general societal standard of beauty. Who do you see that are models, actors and superstars? Mostly white, cisgender, rich people. To be sure, there are many POC who are those things but they are a drop in the bucket and, more often then not, those POC are prized for their “exotic” look. It is just another manifestation of tokenization. Moreover, they are the exception that proves the rule.

I think one of the most radical things we can do, as oppressed peoples, is reclaim our bodies as our own and reject those normative standards of beauty. We need to see our bodies, our lives, as beautiful. We need to not only be ok with our bodies but also celebrate them for their difference, their gorgeousness. We need to look in the mirror and be able to masturbate to our own image. We need to see our wild, natural hair and our thick thighs and see them as the epitome of splendor. We need to be able to dance in the street and shout that we are fucking hot!

Is this easy? Hell no! We need to deprogram decades and decades of messages that tells us that we are ugly, worthless and unworthy of love. This is hard work! And it is only done with the gentleness of a community of people that love and affirm us. Because otherwise, the constant batter of hatred that we face in everyday life will convince us that we are ugly, worthless and unworthy of love. We need to have the place to come home to to heal and recover and remember who we are.

And if no one has told you yet today; You are absolutely beautiful.

PS I’m so sorry for the lack of posting lately!! I’ve been working on a semi-big piece and I’ve also moved back to Boston and started school. There is just a lot of craziness right now! But I promise to start posting more regularly!

Post the Forth or How my Body is Beautiful

Greetings and Salutations! Some of you might have seen this, some of you might not have. At any rate here it is!

For those of you who think
Fat=Undesirable
I have one thing to say
Fuck you
Because beneath the valleys of my skin
And the hills of my breasts
Is sheathed a radiant spirit
A singing symphony that is my soul
A being that loves passionately
Feels deeply
And knows truly
Knows that your attempt to claim my body
To take it and say
This is ugly
Shall always be unsuccessful
A fruitless attempt of futility
Because I won’t let you
Because I know that I am beautiful
And desirable
And worthy of love
I know that the girth of my belly
Is that of the Mother Goddess
So that I may nurture my community
That the thickness of my thighs
Are as majestic as the thickness of the Red Wood Tree
So that I may stand strong against oppression
That the broadness of my back
Has the strength of Atlas himself
So that I may shoulder the burdens given to me
And you might not see that
Might see past the might of my arms
And the softness of my hands
And see only what you call
“ugly”
And that’s ok
Because my body, my soul
Is also a mirror
And when you see past me
You see only into yourself