This poem has been wanting to be written
for quite some time
rumbling and churning around inside
and mostly burning me
from the inside out
A child sat across from me
told me she didn’t agree
with a sneer and evil intentions
breaking through her windows
I said
let me do to your son
what he did to me
and see if you don’t call it abuse
That child is no sister of mine
Sometimes I think it’s been too long
for these ghosts to be hanging around
still after all these years
I cowered half naked in a basement
alone and afraid
while a white woman
stood washing dishes upstairs
That woman is no mother of mine
What did I do?
That’s all anyone ever asks of me
and then they say
but black people discipline their kids like that
Like what?
I think, black people are brutal?
Not me.
A black man said, pull down your pants
Her beautiful new body
bared for the pleasure of vicious lechery
I’m sure it was some awful deed
for a 7 year old to have done
The wooden planking comes down
for the first time
on tender exposed flesh
and the next
after that it’s all just fun
Isn’t it? For him
No cry can escape
or scream
She isn’t allowed even that much
If you cry, you get more
Take what you deserve
Take it and take it and take it and take it
You getting hard yet?
That black man is no father of mine
But, yeah, that’s just how black people
discipline their kids
No wonder I just laid there
when the black boys told me to
lay back and relax and enjoy it
Doesn’t it all make sense after the fact?
The people god gives you to love
are the people
God makes you hate
by the ****** up ****
they do to you
If you chose to go that route
Sometimes I dream
of butterfly effects
where she finds her voice
in the strength of her hands
and snatches the board
from his nasty hungry hands
and hits him dead in the head
and runs up the stairs
past the woman dressing a chicken
out into the street
still half naked and screaming
WAKE UP - YOU FOOLS! WAKE UP!
and never stops
till she finds who she is