I might be a traitor

This chest cavity,

this black female body

donated to the movement

this black fist raises one flag,

this one wears her 'fro

her 'turban', her three-

quarters, her Afrika so well. 

this one is a wet dream

this negress farts rose petals

and fucks and bucks and

cooks eggs and grits

and carries a shotgun

with the butt to her

pregnant belly

this one might snap

in the kitchen with the beans

burning on an electric coil

and their ain't enuf speaking

in tongues or pleading the blood

to pull the pieces of her spine and

ribcage together so she can 

stand and smile and

regard her testimony 

as less than a crucified man

whether blue-eyed

or dreadlocked

so this one might open her mouth

and spit the only 

salvation she knows

and cuss a motherfucka out

back ten generations

for her mama, nana

and great-grandmother

light a cigarette and circle up

with other female bodies donated

for the sake of blackness

and talk about

these tits

this ass

this coochie

this nigga

these bastards

this heart

this rage

these tears

this wound

right here

this wound

right here

ends me

(written in response to NO! The Rape Documentary, which I viewed today courtesy of CVVC)

NO Blessings

You have no idea how much my unfettered NO is a blessing to me, and a blessing to you. The obligatory cords of toleration in Spite have snapped and now my mouth is free to smile at will and not just when I am called to do so.

It means I can actually feel your touch on my back and absorb it and want more of your warmth tracing the pattens of my skin, rather than waiting  as a future spector for you to not see me but your ex while you find some rememberance of her in my pussy.

It means I can write this and love myself. It means you can not speak to me because you thought I owed you something, because you thought you had me by the throat because you know 'all about me' and I know your penchant for cruelty by the thinly veiled glimmer in your eyes when you gossip. It means no weapon formed against me shall prosper...

It means it's possible for me to look in your eyes and see possibility and not dead-ends. My NO means hope, it means my yes is juicy, luscious and authentic. It means acknowledging that I hold infinite multitudes, and what I express, choose to create, desire to embody...

Is UP to me.


00000000010111010101011101000000000

objectivity

Sometimes I ask god
what's the point of beauty
and then i know,
i am dead
but not born yet.

Rage/Grief

I never want to go to another rally where we play the same rhetorical political games with the same mouths that speak the same language as the system that can justify 

justify, justify.

I want to build a bonfire. And I want the drums to beat. And I want ululation instead of words. I want to call on our backbones. I want to watch skittles simmer in the heat. I want to wail

for every gunshot that's ever carelessly left its home and found tender flesh in a black man

I want to scream for every black woman who has left pieces of her soul on the ground. I want to

hear a silence so fierce it mirrors the

tension I have in my shoulder

blades from being an agreeable negress.

I want to slice that silence with a roar that echoes in the past so loud that my ancestors bones wake 

from the bottom of the ocean and come dance round the bonfire.

I want to split the world open a million times for every girl 

 cut

and sewn shut with razors, glass or words

I want to pound the earth with my fists until the moon trembles

I want words that don't mean shit to become extinct

I want the core of the earth to spew lava on every lie ever told about

black folks

I'm fucking pissed

I want all my children back

and in their right minds

I want to roll in the ashes of the fire and wail

until this grief floods the world 

and we realize what the fuck is really going on

I want us to stop being spectators to real hunger games

and get real intimate with the depths of our own souls

so we can be fucking human

instead of input/output machines.

This is not an extensive list of my demands. more later. 

Mother of a black boy

My son told me, when he was four

or five, that

If I threw my heart in the river

I would change

the world. I guess 

I really don't have a choice 

in the matter, my son is 8 

now, climbs mountains, fences,
stays away from gated

communities and the like, 

I have yet to tell him that I am not so

concerned about his cavities

while I instruct to get a bag of plain

chips and no drink

when he, big man,

walks to the store half-

a block from my house

I haven't taught him how to

defer, politely, yield, stop

my son goes hard

and so I question

If I fucked up

if I made him think 

things were like a skittle commercial

though there are no

random gun fights in 

skittle commercials

and there are no frightened black boys with hoodies

and my son, 

middle name Courage

is often frightened

tugs his hoodie round his face

like a security blanket

trying to hide

vulnerability from me

when he asks me

if that is

another gunshot

and should he stay away from the windows

and what is death like

and what is it like to get shot

and why isn't it safe?

and he trembles just a bit and draws in on himself like a wind just chilled him and

now even if I hold him real tight

he still trembles a bit

cause the wind speaks to him

like I'm not even there.

Karma

You let Karma beat the shit out of you when fuck that... no really, fuck that... feeling bad about being celestial...

Guilt is quite paralyzing. Most of us got some sort of addiction to some sort of destruction of ourselves for not fitting into some dumb predetermined cultural meme.

That goes for the subsets of culture as well as the dominant culture in this society.

What will it cost for you to be yourself? What is it costing you not to be yourself? And what are you willing to lose to gain your soul?

Blood Lotus: An Online Literary Journal: BL #23

Blood Lotus: An Online Literary Journal: BL #23: In This Issue... I'm in here! Yay!