OXFORD'S COMMA,
• Learn to speak English the way I speak it,
• Let the letters dance on your tongue, in tune,
• Cleanse your palette of your language borne,
• Submit, My English wants to see no trace of you,
• Crash land your courage on these jagged rocks,
• My invitation is not made to empower,
• Erase your History, your Home, long Forgotten,
• Erase your History and stand Recreated in Mine,
• I want to see no trace of that Mother on your Tongue,
• My Oxford’s Comma is Law,
• Praise the boats on which I came,
• Celebrate my standard,
• You and I are not the same,
• You may have mastered it, but you are Subject to my language,
• There is Civilization in this Punctuation,
• I have saved you from a Nonsensical Refrain,
• ,
These are the things that were told
Their Bullets raged like their run-on sentences, These are the stories of old,
Ironic, isn’t it?
That the most violent war is one of words.
Love's Elegy
learning to unlove is putting on shoes that no longer fit my feet there is too much room where you used to be and now that empty space preoccupies me
learning to unlove you was me finally not picking at the scab of almost love.
Almost trust.
Too much love.
Too much trust
never enough.
Learning to unlove has been a never-ending funeral, an elegy for
what was.
but this grief threatens to swallow me whole.
When I think of you,
I can’t help but smile
I can’t help but pour myself a glass of your laughter
and continue to be refreshed by it
Learning to unlove you has me walking in reverse
like my feet have no volition
and someone keeps messing with the remote.
learning to unlove you has me bound.
to the memories of when you were everything and I could only thank God that you wanted to stick around.
In those memories, I am a dusty accordion ready to be played but time and history sure as hell will have their way and all that comes out is an unpleasant sound.
However it is all I get to keep of us, so it became my favorite melody.
Learning to unlove you is the cough syrup I hated as a child. the bottle tells me that in 1-2 weeks I should start to feel fine but this sickly sweet tastes like poison and I’d rather keep the irritation than drink that again
Learning to unlove you
reminded me of how much of myself I had lost slowly the lights will turn back on slowly the end of you will be the beginning of me.
The Becoming
There is a revolution in these bones
Each step a cry for Justice
A myriad of Black memories and legacies built the foundations on which I stand
And these revolting bones demand that no more stories go untold
There is a past of vision, intuition, and innovation
Memories loud and unrelenting, ever dignified
There is a future, a now, where Black is Pride
Black is Joy. Black is Love. Black is Divine and Nine.
Black is Mind, Body, and Soul Alive in Laughter, Serenity and Movement.
Black is Disruption. It is Learning and Unlearning. It is Open, Loud and Aware.
Black is Being Aware and claustrophobic in a room full of ignorance.
It is standing up, sitting in, and pointing to the door, the window, the cracks in the roof
and demanding that Light, Voice, and Accountability shine forth.
It is knowing where your presence is valued and making it so.
Black is Support-a hand, a commitment, a nod, a yes-you-can, an I-know-that’s-right!
when the body and mind can barely push through. It is Trailblazing, Growth and Vulnerability.
Black is acquaintance with Pressure and Tension-weighty and heavy, boulders on shoulders with little room for rest and even less to fail. Still, Black must mean Rest and Honor.
Remember that.
Black is Protest and Mediation. Black is Jazz and Melody. Black is by any means necessary.
It is preserving your peace and light just the same.
Black is Ethereal. It is Olympian and Multi-Hyphenate.
A Dream of a better today and Action towards it.
It is becoming more and speaking life into existence.
It is choosing when to say yes, no, now-is-not-the-time, and come-back-when-you-know-more.
There is a revolution in your being, your breath.
No bullets or bigotry could bullet list your future.
Black is Connoisseur of Culture, Creator,
Delicate and Bold. Black is Community.
Black is a River of Gold.
These Rivers of Power, of Passion, Pain, and Strife
Rivers of Endless Drive and Legacy
In these rivers may you find more Life
Where Glory and Capacity Untapped
Become oceans of change and you find refuge in your voice.
There is a revolution in these bones.
And this revolution is for the neophyte; the veteran; the determined and impassioned.
The tired; the ready-unready; the uneasy; the institution;
The comfortable; the journeying; and changing,
The Becoming.
In this river of Blue, Gold, and Black
here you stand
From the Hill to Harrisburg with a voice that cannot be silenced
Story awaiting, story unfolding
A revolution in your bones,
Becoming.
S.S.I.D.
in sisterhood, I have learned to shapeshift.
with an eye for understated beauty, my sisters are a rainforest. our laughter drizzling
down one moment, and then a joke
gone
too
far
has thunder sprinting through the air, the forest of our friendship quiet with the whispers of
“shhhhh, no, no don’t cry, you’re fine
JUST DON’T TELL MOM”
my sisters and I were spies, we parasailed through discomfort and roundhouse-kicked misogyny and patriarchy in the ass.
my sisters
crackers of the code on how to say
“no”
“not now, not ever, and definitely not in that tone”
see my sisters knew how to love like a jazz band and a gospel choir all at once
spiritual the only direction of your soul blossoming is upwards
during midnight, kitchen deliberations
my sisters build their monuments and promised each other to be more
my sisters and I, we argue as sisters do: I steal her clothes, she says I’m annoying I tell Mom
a cycle made just for us
my sisters and I speak mountains out of pebbles and life into empty spaces.
in sisterhood I have seen that each of these women are manifestations of a dream so dear to me that I dare not open my eyes
but then I hear them, calling to me and asking why I am never on time and that the
car is ready to go
in sisterhood I shapeshift once more
despairing the day I will leave them behind
ever-present
in cascading
memories.
PEACEBUILDERS
(an ode to Dr. Comfort Ero)
They will ask you upon which foundation you stand
And if your voice is truly loud enough to carry
They will ask you where your boldness emerged from
And that you are yet to truly know fear
They will taunt and quarrel
Trembling because your heart refuses to falter
They will demand the silencing of your spirit
And you will deny them.
Ten and Ten Thousand Times over
You will wage the words of peace
To shatter the illusions that have long existed
Before your arrival
Ten and Ten Thousand Times over
You will follow the journey of justice
A justice:
Demanded
Coaxed
Negotiated
And Long-Awaited For
Where there is no room for negotiation
Is in the business of Hope.
Ten and Ten Thousand Times over
Hope stands Alive and Eternal
Ten and Ten Thousand Times over,
The Peacebuilders speak Life
Into the fight of Tomorrow.