Your lips churned lies you choked on so
I cannot sympathise.
Sweep up your bones
and lift them as
a sign of your demise.

She asks me if I would like to come in now
She asks me if I have been waiting a long time
She asks me to take a seat
She asks me if I would like a glass of water
I rarely turn down free stuff, so I say “okay”
She asks me about my degree
She asks me about how I’m coping in this cold weather
I’m good at small talk and can drag it out until the real issue is forgotten
She asks me how I’ve been this week
She asks me if I have seen my doctor recently
She asks me to grab a tissue from the box opposite her
allergies, I promise.
She asks me why I came to see her
She asks me to slow down a bit
So I do
and she sits
and she listens
so I breathe
I breathe again, but deeper this time
I am exposed, but not afraid
I begin.

Sit up straight
And listen up,
Because this is not a drill and
I am only going to say this once:
I am not ebony -
A piece of decorative wood.
Nor am I chocolate-
Ready to melt into myself with the heat of your touch.
I’m not you’re “sista” –
We are not related.
And I’m definitely not your “gurrrrl”.
We never dated.
I will tell you what I am:
You may want to take a deep breath now…
I am a Black woman.
Yes, with a capital ‘B’.
I am a Black woman.
Who is exhausted because
everything I do is silently political.
Whom I choose to dance with in the club
Is political – “is she into white guys, or black?”
The way I answer the question:
“Where are you from…?”
“No, where are you really from?”
Is political – “You look different from me, so I need to put you in a labelled box and **** at you with my mind.”
Like saying I’m from near your ends isn’t a good enough answer.
My accent?
Political – “Why is she so well-spoken? Who adopted you?”
It confuses you, because it doesn’t match my South London skin tone.
The way I choose to style my hair
Is political – I wear weaves because I want to be European and hate myself. I wear afros because I hate Europeans and love myself.
How I pronounce my own surname
Is political – Do I simplify it to spare your blushes when you mispronounce it?
The music I proudly declare to enjoy –
Political.
I must be a secret bloke – like that Serena fella of the telly.
‘Cause no fuckable girl has looks like that.
And my skinny arms?
Well, they never fed me in the orphanage, remember?. I’m obviously malnourished like my family back in the Motherland.
You say: “I don’t see race – we are all one.”
Good for you.
but, I cannot afford to pretend to be colour-blind because
I am a Black woman-
Bottom of the rung.
I am affected and I am exhausted.
I am a Black woman-
But that is not all that I am.
Are you still sitting straight?
Can you hear me in the back?
Because this is not a drill
And this woman is Black.

You waited for the storm in my eyes to pass
and wreck someone else’s home for a change
you waited
ever so patiently
until it became a routine chore
but if you had looked up for more than a second
you would have realised that
Winter raised me
**I am the storm.

England will shake
And Great Britain will break.
Blows to the head, from the heart
Is what’s torn us apart.
Divided we stand,
With no outstretched hand.
United no more
With fear at the core.

I am me and you are not
You are you and they are not
And now you are problematic
Because you made a decision that changes things
Now people can’t make money from your blissful state, your solitude, your happiness
Because now, no one can sell you the life you’re meant to crave
People like us should not exist
But yet, against all odds
here I am
here you are
existing, surviving, thriving
living.

She is playing with fossils and Lego figures
But is then made to play with dolls to convince
The other kids that
She is not a lesbian.
She is 7.
She is forced to pay tax on tampons
Because they are not as essential as,
Say,
Jaffa Cakes.
She is 12.
Now of age, she is promised to the son of a family friend.
Traded like cattle or a crop, but should be grateful that she is wanted.
She is 13.
She is sending nudes to an older boy
Because she has been told that that is the only way
Of showing love and commitment.
She is 14.
She wears a fake wedding band in public
To stop strangers asking her out.
She needs evidence, because her word isn’t enough
She is 15.
She is picking her A Levels
but shies away from Tech, Computing and Physics
because she thinks girls are not taken seriously in those fields.
She is 16.
She learns that strangers shouting and whistling from a van or scaffold
Is a compliment and she should be grateful for the attention.
She is 17.
She is called either ‘one of the lads’ or a ‘****’ for having more male friends than female.
When the word they were looking for is ‘friend’.
She is 18.
She uses earphones as armour
Against men in the gym who insist
On interrupting her session, to show her how to lift the weights ‘properly’.
She is 19.
She is required to wear makeup and heels to work
Because they are the basis of a hard-working employee.
She is 21.
She easily confuses male kind-heartedness with seduction
Because meeting friendly men without an agenda is so unfamiliar to her.
She is 22.
She is asked about family-planning by her employers. She fears that if she speaks out about the discrimination, her contract will be terminated.
She is 23.
She is told the gender pay gap is a myth
When she knows that her male colleagues are paid more for the same work.
She decides to remain quiet.
She is 26.
She is called ‘bossy’ and ‘sassy’
When leading a small team with confidence.
She now notices that those words are specially reserved for women.
She is 28.
She is unmarried and therefore the family joke.
The sponge that has no choice but to absorb
All the comments on her character.
She is 35.
She finds herself pregnant and is unsure whether there will be a job for her if she goes through with the pregnancy.
She is 36.
She decides to become a stay-at-home mother in order to not miss her baby’s growth.
She is called ‘lazy’, ‘backwards’ and ‘a disgrace to feminism’.
She is 37.
She goes back to work and now replaces her partner as the main breadwinner.
She is now a threat to male egos everywhere.
She is 39.
She is overqualified for the job role
But females over a certain age are neither commercially or aesthetically desirable in this industry.
She is 42.
The timeline ends here because
She is tired
After finally realising that
A woman dies soon after she is born.
SHE IS SOMEONE’s daughter
SHE IS SOMEONE’s mother
SHE IS SOMEONE’s sister
SHE IS SOMEONE's grandmother
SHE IS SOMEONE’s girlfriend
SHE IS SOMEONE’s wife
SHE IS. SOMEONE.

She is dark and her mind is a palace
She is dark and her knowledge will take her places
She is dark and her body is for herself first
She is dark and her voice is valid
She is dark and her thoughts will lead nations
She is dark and her just being is bravery
She is dark and her soul will keep dancing
She is dark and her dark has a purpose
She is dark and her dark is bright
She is dark and her dark is beautiful.

Your Otherness
Your beautiful, beautiful other
It is not to be denied
But distinguished  
It is not to be endured
But embraced.

What is it like to break off bonds with the toxic people in my life?*
I don’t have all the answers
but I will tell you the truth:
it is like breaking your own heart
and mending it all at the same time

How could I forget?
Those brown eyes that spark up fires
They still shine me home

We say the pressure is too immense
And we cannot stand the heat
But aren’t those the conditions in
Which diamonds are made?

Ask yourself this:
Are the fences you put up
Around yourself
Keeping out the hurt
Or keeping you prisoner?

WEATHER VAIN
The sun set over calming seas
Shining yellow, blue and red
I smile, like all the others do
But the weather’s in my head.

The moon illuminates my room
as I curl up in bed.
Soft breeze blows billows over me
But the weather’s in my head.

Loud thunder rages up above
and fills my heart with dread.
Still, it and I are both the same
‘cause the weather’s in my head.


Large hailstones bash against my skull
and leave me there for dead.
They’ve frozen up my precious brain.
Why’s the weather in my head?

The sun will thaw my ice-cold scalp
I’m certain it will spread.
For now, I rest in perfect peace
whilst the weather’s in my head.

They might as well
have dug two graves
Because I, as well
Died too that day.
Life tugs at my heart
through the bones and the veins
Until hollowed out maiden
Is all that remains.

The words I am trying to say
Are anchored in the soil within my lungs
But are creeping
Slowly
Up my throat
And sprouting wildflowers that look like weeds.
They crave sunlight and showers
Nurtured by nature
In the perfect amounts.
But what good would all this bring
If they do not attract the bees?

She asks me if I would like to come in now
She asks me to take a seat
She asks me asks me if I would like a glass of water
I rarely turn down free stuff, so I say “okay”.
She asks me about my degree
She asks me about how I’m coping in this cold weather
I’m good at small talk and can drag it out until the real issue is forgotten
She asks me how I’ve been this week
She asks me if I have seen my doctor recently
She asks me to grab a tissue from the box opposite her
Allergies, I promise.
She asks me to begin
She asks me so slow down a bit
So I do
And she sits
And she listens
So I breathe
I breathe again, but deeper this time
I am exposed, but not afraid
I begin.

I sharpen my quill
And prepare for battle
No shield made of metaphors
To guard my self-doubt
And no similes to carry me through the trenches
Like a brave war horse.
I am on all fours
Crawling into the unknown depths of the plain pages
That blinding
Brilliant
White
I am falling into the unknown -
Falling into the trap of the enemy
Which I am certain is
Myself.

Be honest, he asks me,
Would you gaze at a mirror so much
If it reflected back your
Personality
Instead of your face?*

I had never felt so exposed.

I am not my failures
I am not my parents
I am not my rejection letters
Nor am I my anxiety pills
I am not my childhood naivety
Or my teenage angst
I will tell you what I am
When I figure it out
(if I ever figure it out)
Because right now
I. Just. Am.

This place doesn’t feel like home anymore
It’s not the people who have changed
Nor the signs, shops or houses
It is I.
I am neither better, nor worse
Just grown
No longer bound like a dog to a lamp post.
This place is frozen in time
With the same old rituals and practices
I just cannot do
With sayings and languages
I can no longer speak
So I choose to leave
And pave a new path
Out of rubble, dust and anything else that is in the way.
I don’t mind
Because the frozen streets taught me well.
So well that the chill can no longer reach my bones
And call me home.