Post the Seventieth or I Want to Live

I used to be gagged by

Fear

My mouth stuffed with

The white cloth of silence

Stifling my screams

Sometimes it felt like I was biting more than I could chew

A constant, overwhelming, emptiness that filled my mouth

Othertimes it felt like my very soul was being pulled out

Inch by agonizing inch

To be consumed and erased by those who say

I’m colorblind. Can’t was just love everyone?

–

And then

I looked up at the night sky

And saw myself written in the stars

I looked down at my feet

And felt the fierce gentleness of my Mother

I looked behind me

And saw the many miles that my ancestors walked

I looked into my lover’s eyes

And saw myself reflected in his love

He reached into my heart

Eased the knot that constricted my spirit

And my voice

Burst out fierce, blisteringly hot, and blazing with a power

That moves to tears

And makes white supremacy uncomfortable

A clarion call for revolution

A challenge that says

I won’t be silent any longer because

Silences equals Death

And I want to live

–

She told me that she supported me

But that I was too angry

And wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you just toned yourself down?

I told her

My anger is a result of my experience

And wouldn’t it be better for everyone

If you just gave back the land that you stole?

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 Thirty-First or Heaviness

I always feel it most at night

When I’m with my lover

Our skin pressing against each other

I feel it there

The heaviness

The weight

In the safety of their arms

I feel the heaviness of

My colonization

The scars of oppression

surface

As I take off my armor

The rage and the pain

That I carry with me all day

I can finally put down

I can finally express

I can finally claim as my own.