I want to talk.
I need to talk to you.
But this distance sews my mouth.
I want to eat greasy African food with you.
While you remind me to eat my greens too.
But this distance keeps me starving.
I want to touch your chest
While you grab my face and grace my lips.
But this distance wont let us graze upon each others skins.
I want to laugh with you, at me, at you.
But there's nothing funny about this distance.
How is this ideal?
I can't deal
With detachment
My already loose heart.
Swings and ties around you
Not to keep you locked
But to swing to universes that you thought your gravity kept you from.
Yet you cut my chords
And pick it up every now and then
When you supposedly can.
We can't be friends.
Not now at least.
Love me
This distance feels like you hate me.
How can you call this intimacy?

I know you guys were never masta's
You don't own a plantation
Some of you don't even own a home.
But when you rock your chair
And recline to my beats
I hope you know what waters
You're treading on.
I hope you don't consume my melodies
And decline acknowledging my daughters and sons.
Because our pain is nothing to smile about.
Our grief isn't for you to swim in.
If you nod to our beats.
Make sure your ready to sink in and be an ally.
Not just another song
I have to write about
To heal my wounds.

Your neglect
Dragged me back to your bed
Body down
Ropes tied
Around my left leg
I came into your room with valleys on my body
I ran up those bruises
Without delicacy
Without realizing that they were volcanoes
Until I erupted in your presence
Looked at myself through you
And asked why haven't you been here?
Why do you get to graze my mountains when you choose to land your plane.
I thought my soil was land for you to build your home on?
But you come as you please
But my love is unconditional.
My love is not a tease.
It is not a sting
It is errupting
Molding
A breeze
I shiver
While I sweat
My love is a universe
And perhaps that's too large for you to wrap your arms around.
Maybe my love will wait for you to grow
Maybe not.
But it will never decrease in size
Infinity has no size.

If you want to make it up to me
Out of worries that I'm mad
Then you should know that I'm not mad
But I do have one wish.
Just be good to her.
Love her
With the love you never gave me
And the love that is hers
So she can overflow with compassion
And a heart ache that isn't from the traditional pain
But from a burst of
So
Much
Love.
Love my little sister in the way
You never got to love me.

If I crossed the street I would've been in the district with all the black kids
I begged my mom to take me there.
If I crossed the street I wouldn't have gotten IB
I wouldn't have gotten the prestige
That I thought everyone deserved
Saving me almost a year of college
And money like a scholarship.
If I crossed the street I wouldn't, as much, question my identity.
I wouldn't be single and question my beauty through white eyes
I would learn how to answer questions in class without feeling my white peers lying their eyes on me to see if the black girl could get it.
If I crossed the street I wouldn't be the only black girl in my classes.
If I crossed the street I wouldn't have to feel like MLK day was my job to announce according to my substitute teacher.
Because you know what week it is! Well of course you know girl.
If I crossed the street I would've been with my black brothers and sisters
Rather than trying to find my black experience in my white friends
But I didn't cross the street.
Maybe it took a bit longer to learn to love my black because of that.
But today I love myself
No matter what border I reach
And who disclaims or proclaims my authenticity.
I love my black self.
Maybe I wasn't supposed to cross the street

You scare me.
You say you're not sad.
But your silent stares
Scream with emptiness.
It makes me so heavy.
If I could pour something into your soul
I would.
But the wires in your brain have shut your body.
Im open and you're closed.
I'm sorry.
To me you are everything.
You can fill a space with love
But I can't wait till you can fill yourself with love.

Mommy.
My lips felt warm around that word.
Like when my leg wrapped around you
Insulated by your thick body.
It's like we never had sleepless nights.
In white cold Michigan.
Cold like Christmas season
With a warm mood.

Mommy
yee
yee
My tongue got twisted as I began to age
I couldn't grasp my leg around you
and I only got shorter, while they said you're getting stronger
This is what it's like to get older.
So I didn't sleep with her anymore.
I couldn't sleep as much anymore.
I stripped the yee
That bounded us together
No mommy no mommy noo
mom
I called her mom
Because I'm an adult now.
I am cold.
They said venture off into this world alone.
But thankfully,
Every time I turn around she still has a hold.

My leg let go of her body
But her hands bleed with a tight grip
And cracks that let me back in.
She said Mommy will always be here
We were one when you were inside me
We are one now because I am always beside you, behind you, before you, because I love you.
I love you Mommy.