Remember when the sun kissed you darling?
No?
Look at your skin and the memories will come flooding

I was never completely sure what love was
Till I looked in the mirror and smiled

They said there was no space for you
Yet with weak hands you pushed away walls and tore down doors
And now here you are occupying heaven and earth

I ran,
Only to come back to the same point
Myself

Sometimes depression comes
Do not move furniture
Do not prepare a bed for it
Do not cook foods that clasp the air tightly in an aromatic embrace
Do not make your house a home for it
And it will leave

Sometimes the stars in your lovers become darkness
It is okay to leave before the darkness swallows your moon

True love,
True love is me loving my self from bone to skin
From marrow to flesh
True love is me
Appreciating myself
Even when I'm not at my best

They told me my heart was too fragile to stand on its own
That it's beating
It's thumping
It's pounding
Only existed because it was held up by a man or the promise of one
I told them no
For it existed because the woman I am carries it daily and the promise of the woman I will become is what keeps it beating

And how ironic is it to try to trample a flower
But then it helps the soil birth ten more

And I pray you recognise that your sons have hearts too
And that you do not expect theirs to be like baskets and seep away all the hurt and pain

I'm fascinated with the beauty of the black man who cries rose petals when the world soils the earth
And bleeds jasmine when a woman is hurt
The black man who IS rose petals
And IS jasmine
But ISN'T apologetic

I have turned tides
when they told me all I could do was drown

Hatred isn't always knives and guns aimed at hearts
Sometimes it is fiery words in legislation that authorises the building of walls
And the banning of free movement
Sometimes hate disguises itself as safety and security but really it is still just hate

The wind carries what is not rooted,
So be like the trees
Your leaves may sway but you will remain

Rooms have been silent
Now they are filled with our voices
The silence is gone and our rights will be born
Conceived by the notions of our mothers
And birthed by our sisterhood and determination
Yes my sisters,
Together we will give our hopes and dreams life

Half hearts fulfill no dreams

Be idle today and pray
Or create furiously
Whichever you choose know that this is only the beginning to show them what we are truly capable of

So be tender with people today
For hearts are bleeding

Create enough space in your heart to forgive those that hurt you
This doesn't mean create space for them to return
Know the difference

They want me
They want my skin, dark as chocolate to melt on their tongue
They want to ******* sweetness over and over
Yet they do not want to know the history of my cocoa
Nor of how it got this sweet after years of being labelled "bitter woman"
And when I speak of that history I suddenly become less wanted
Less sweet
I return to the "bitter woman" always complaining they say
So they want me to accept their compliments
Answer when they call me "chocolate queen"
But never fully claim the title "queen"
For my chocolate although sweet is only good for a few moments as though I am an addicts dream and all I am is a fix
They want the story of my cocoa to remain untold
The story of how I was whipped beaten and almost broken
The story of how the sun scorched my bare back and the mud swallowed my tired feet
The story of how despite it all my cocoa still thrived and produced wonderlust fruit

They do not want to hear such a story, yet they lick their lips in anticipation of my fruit
My cocoa still tells its story despite this and there are those waiting with patient ears

Go the extra mile for yourself my dear
For you are worth every step

My great grandmother is gone
But when I speak
She lives once more
And when my mother tells her tales
It is as though I was present for every moment

Every moment when she spoke when she meant to be a "silent woman"
Every room she was in when she was meant to be an "absent woman"

She was vast,
Always more than expected
And always enough for herself

Your lies were pregnant
They gave birth to false dreams
And now here I am,
A grandmother to broken promises

There is rain
But it's coming from my eyes
It's a downpour

You will either do one of two things with your life
Please people
Or help people

Ready yourself
Steady yourself
And go

My darling,
Do not wait for someone to dance with
When there is music in your bones

He searches for sweetness
And yet there you are
Right in front of him
Honey
Flower
Sugar

How do you feel
When you realise you were the cloud that tried to block my sun
Float away little cloud because I will break through you

Beauty is shy sometimes
It is not commanding nor demanding
No
It hides in the corner of the room

It is in your hands
Without shape
But full of many possibilities
Shape it
Live
This year is yours

Love makes us do crazy things
Like living when the world is nothing but chaos

If she carries the weight of her world and yours on her back
Do no stab her there too
Because not only will her world fall but yours will crash down all the same

It is difficult to find yourself
When the whole world tells you that you are lost
And  simultaneously shouts out directions to confuse you
I am very confused
Are you?

Her ******* you say
Are only good for suckling
For your needs
For your mouth
So you tell your friends as your laughter vibrates and shakes the room
You fail to tell them that her ******* often cradle your head when you weep
That the only vibrations in those moments are you choking on tears

Her hips you say
Are only good for holding her in place
For making her stay
Because "she's yours"
You fail to tell your friends those hips are often the only thing that hold you up
When you are shaking
And the world is spinning
That they are the only thing that steady your feet

Her hands you say
Are only good for chopping, stirring, serving
For creating anything you desire
You fail to tell them that those hands are often your only saving grace
That those hands have pulled you up when you could not find the strength to

So you forget
All the things about her that keep you alive
Instead you tell the things you believe she is only alive for

If a woman is nothing
Then so is the sky
Becuasw ow can a body that contains the moon, sun and so many stars be constantly told it will never be big enough
And yet still have people gaze up ait it's wonder
My darling,
You are the sky
Through and through
You are limitless
You are boundless
And you are free
And for those who constantly say you are nothing
Well my dear they never carried the sun or the moon
So they will never understand how breathtaking your very existence is

When a woman is limited
When a woman is denied of her truth
The moon slumbers a moment longer
The sun rises a little later
And the skies become that much out of reach

If you limit her
If you deny her her truth

In a world that seems to harbour more bad than good
The word 'trust' seems to have left
It seems to have never existed at all
But with a pen
A camera
And whatever else I can find
I will reclaim it
I will find it
Nestle it in my palms and whisper to it
"It is okay"
And I will share it
With those with broken hearts
Those with lost hopes
I will share it with everyone

Sometimes you do not know the pain you are trying to bury
You do not remember it's name
But you know it is there
So you lick up your shovel and just keep burying
Hoping that maybe it will be too far buried to crawl back out
But I don't think it was ever in the hole to begin with
It snuck out when your back was turned

Dear Mr President,
My mother told me I was the universe
So I will be ****** if I am told I am only a kitchen
If I am told that I am 'the other room'
I am the universe Mr President, stars and all
So do not mistake me for rooms in a house
Because they will never be able to contain my spirit

If love isn't tended to
If it isn't even remembered for the longest of times
Yet it still finds a way to survive
Then it is all you will ever need

Sometimes the word 'peace' goes
And you are not its home
But one day it will get weary from being on the road
And it will return to you

You cannot swim my dear,
Yet you beg the ocean to love you
Then it swallows you whole to the very bottom of its belly
And it's like you were never there
And when new lovers ride his waves
He caresses them with the same blues
He used to crush you

Some days all you want is for someone to say to you
"I am happy you are here"
To listen to them speak about how your touch, gaze and smell intoxicates and influences them
Those days will come my dear, do not fight it
But fight the worthlessness it ever threatens to bring

Darling,
I know you are scared to **** your garden
Because you are afraid it will look too bare
But those pretty flowers you crave need space to grow
So even if it takes you a lifetime
Pull the weeds
Disturb the earth
Plant new seeds

Words refuse to die
So do not give the wrong words life
Because words my flutter away
But they always make their way back home

My darling,
I am here to tell you not to waste your time
searching for the woman you want to be in the wrong men
Because you'll lose every bit of the woman you are
every time you climb their beds
and give them the loving they never intend on returning

And it seems like at two a.m
Heartbreaks are the loudest
Because the humming of people has died down
The city is asleep and you're finally alone

But beyond this shattering that you hear
There is a silence in between where threads find your cracks and pull gently to begin Stiching
But you know darling handmade takes the lonegst

They tell you to dive in
Head first
But you do not want your chest torn open for love
You want it to fill your heart gently

And don't apologise darling
For taking your time to choose
For wanting to know what *** feels like
But wanting to know what making love feels like more