black woman

black woman

rise from the soil ,

a new life.

hands calloused from the holding,

intertwine your toes with the richness of the soil

and stand there,

rooted in being.

you are a constant.

taking the scornful heat upon yourself,

sunshine passes through your leaves and gives us light.

the shadow under your cheeks is a resting place.

black woman, you are strength.

no other has watched her leaves erupt

and been rebirthed from her own ashes.

you have been cut down mercilessly,

and in grace, you grew further still

your will to be surpasses all.

the mouths you feed

scorn you

and no one mourns your tears.

you are sacrifice.

expending. giving of yourself until barren

still, your leaves sprout out

like hope unfaltered.

black woman, stand in the

strength of your being and know

that you are unparalleled.

you are the branching out of

arms wide open.

voice heavy and lips set

to speak truth.

lucid

Some days I don’t recognize
Myself
Scrawl apologies on mirrors
For the blood there.
Was I  ever really breathing?

I am all skin and brittle breaking

Always folding; always folding.

Do not tell me this is home.

I am separate. I am separate.

I am

Figment.

This translucence is a

Pale moon to the sinking.

Touch lips to skin

to find the warmth there

Sometimes I imagine

I exist

In the space between my heartbeats

The tangible is fleeting

Sometimes I imagine

I exist

Between the marred hues of the sunset

This is ending. This is ending.

I beg you,

Hear my cries through

Troubled waters

Drowning with each gasp as I am pleading
Tell me I am here.

jesus paid it all.

all to him i owe.

sin had left a crimson stain;

he washed it white as snow.

break gently. sway like levies as the rain falls. this is not worship, but a pleading. absolution is the parting with soul; a death. father. father. have you forsaken me?

communion

i am the salt of her. the damp and under. the parts we hide away. the biting down on lips as we pray in silence. i am the beating. blood staining linen like morning. like becoming. i am the breaking. salt on tongue as i bend to kiss her. tears in both our mouths. communion.

(untitled)

I speak your name into the silence;

A prayer for salvation.

My own breathing slowed in the rhythm of yours,

I dream of tendrils

Where your smile meets your eyes.

And I never could grasp “sanctity”

Until your name made home on my tongue.

And I never could love like open doors,

But your praise escapes my parted lips

like a hallelujah.

You are a hallelujah.

Tree’s Lament

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Back bodies  swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Bone of my bone,
Your flesh is a part of me
And we grow in, in, in
Until we are indistinguishable.

My leaves are stained
The same color as your lips
And I wonder if you drank from me.

You are welcome to.
A fruit i did not bear
But one that was born unto me

I do not know your name,
Just how your head is cradled into my bark
And how your limp branches
Oscillate like mobiles.

And son, I’ll teach you
To exhale oxygen.

I do not know your name,
Only the peculiarity
Of eyes bulged like
Strange fruit.

And son,
I am arms outstretched and aching for you

And son,
I am tears like stains of berries

And I am sorry
That you had to rest your head here
Before you made it home

Ashes

There is a hollow ringing in my bones;
A knowing
Of fire to come.
Diaphysis ignited,
I wait for ashes.
That’s where my black is.

Children joke that in darkness
They cannot find me.
It is my resting place.
I have no safe haven,
But home is where you are most, isn’t it?
Where you lay your head?
Where the tears find their way
Out?

I haven’t found my way out.
I’ve etched tunnels into this skin
In search of escape.
Railroad crossings
To places I’ve only dreamed of.

Sirens are clenched fists around a trigger
They say they’re color blind
Because who wants to see a nigger
The only times our lives are mourned is in a hashtag.

The only time I matter is in a hashtag.
It’s a never ending trauma.
No time to mourn when there’ll
Be more in the morning.
No time to mourn when
You might be next.
The ghosts of the noose around my neck
Are the black-boy screams that haunt me
The boys in blue whose eyes pierce like
Nails in the hands of Jesus
Because they can’t stand to look you in the eye without a hood on
the crucifix ablaze in my front lawn
Is a death by fire all too precedented.

I look into my mother’s sad eyes
every time I leave.
She is uncertain of my return,
And I wish I could console her,
But truthfully, so am I.

This is an institutionalized genocide.
An ethnic cleansing.
And I know first hand that
bleach baths cannot cleanse me.

This skin is an omen I cannot escape.
Breathe prayers into a starless sky
To a God who cannot hear me.
A God who either looks on in apathy
Or does not exist.

Maybe he, like the children,
Cannot find me in this darkness.

amen.

i fell asleep with a rosary between my teeth, its beads hard in my mouth. sapphire cool on my warm tongue, i breathed a hallelujah and your praises bloomed red in my orchard. prostrate, i offered my soul at your altar, purified in the presence of your edifice. the rhapsody of your doxology is the pulsation of my bones as i crawl towards your salvation.

my name is not my own

my name is not my own

it is communion fit only for

the pure in heart

and you wear each letter

as a bead on your rosary

my name is not my own

it escapes my lips like a prayer

holy unto you.

sacred syllables foreign on my tongue

too holy for my lexicon.

my name is not my own

it is its own hallelujah

when it speaks of you,

rapturing thee mundane.

and i am born again.

Breathe.

I’ll light another cigarette to breathe
It’s just another poison that I choose
I inhale slowly, though it’s killing me

My gasps escape the prison of my teeth
The smiles I wore were nothing but a noose
I’ll light another cigarette to breathe

The scent of nicotine will never leave
I wish I could have said the same for you
I inhale slowly, though it’s killing me

The toxin nestled safe between my teeth,
The kiss of death reminds me still of you
I’ll light another cigarette to breathe

The nothingness in which your heart once beat–
I finally let the silence be my muse
I inhale slowly, though it’s killing me

Your ghosts no longer haunt me in my dreams
I’ve found another form of self abuse
I’ll light another cigarette to breathe
I inhale slowly, though it’s killing me