Today I’m gonna sing a little song
Of what is right and what is really wrong
Today I’ll tell you tiny little story
If you don’t like it, well, I am not sorry
If you work hard then you’ll be very rich
If you don’t work, they’ll call you nasty *****
If you love money, they will call you cheap
If you don’t need a dollar, you’re a creep
If you love boys and girls, they’ll call you bi
If you like none of them, they’ll say good-bye
If you like making love, you are a ****
They’ll call you back because they like your ****
If you don’t pray, that means you’ll go to hell
If you believe in ghosts, you’re doing well!
If you don’t go to church, they’ll call you wicked
But if they give you wine and waffles – take it
If you’re yourself, you will be called a ******
They’ll criticize your clothes, your life, and hairdo
But if they lip behind your back, remember
You’re in the front seat, baby, special member

(for Terry McMillan)

I was a *****
glacier cold solid ice

claws for fingernails
man killing eyes

not myself, not someone else
thirsty for the wild hunt

self-loathing eating away
the way aphids eat the orange tree

no more empathy
where’d that go?

probably jumped off the same cliff
as romance and joy

at the bottom of a cold canyon
swirling in roaring deep water

caught in the current
beneath the surface, far beneath

carried away for three years
no lifejacket, no life

behind reinforced steel
behind the *****

I was a ***** for three years
until the ***** took a scraper to the icebox

climbed over the edge of the canyon
breaking clawed nails on orange clay

****** at the bottom, ****** but alive
swam to the bottom of freezing waters

found my groove
got it back

shot up from the icy foam
exhaled

picked ripe fruit from the tree
cut it into four pieces

one for romance, one for joy
one for empathy, one for me

no more aphids on the orange tree
no more glacier, no more hunt

oh yes, the ***** is still here
nourishing my soul with the fruit of knowledge

reminding me don’t let go
don’t let me be all they see


[Notes:  This poem was published by Cadence Collective: https://cadencecollective.net/2015/01/17/for-3-years/

First published in Men’s Heartbreak Anthology.]

He fingerprints my melanin skin
I bleed lust, i trust
Alien tongue playing a seductive touch on my **** lips,
Dropping my guard, gulping every ******..
Hard pacing in and out of me, i let him an inch closer to my heart,
As i pick a scent of city life on his chest,
His skin so smooth it mends my dents and cracks, my perfect match,
My soul dances in the light with the freedom of a mad man,
Dead brain this sweet pain, whispers pleasure......
I chose him and left all behind
The lights of the city held a pride
Which i would bask in beside him

See..... I lost me
Imbeko packed and left me lonely,
Getting high in dark spaces of the street lights,
Yelling die, this was not living was just trying to survive
Gutter life, suffer i, had to sell my body away,
Stained my soul, my conscience couldn't stay,
Mr urban see had hit the cherry got his share of merry and walked away,
Finally unmasking the veil of deceit, i saw the true colours,
But i couldnt go back to ravaged community of round mud houses,
Pride was the bouncer that kept me inside,
Had to die here and i did

But no i am not that young woman
Didn't let go of this culture
Content with these village ethics, nature's majestics,
Completely free from these misguided pledges
I would rather fetch water on earth's edges,
Why try mold into world classes, african being is rare,
And i am that her, who brushes my black hair with pride,
You.. yes you, your african hair is nice,
I rap myself in colours of native love,
Catching the cries of early *****,
Not waking up with a bunch of different strangers in my bed,
You might think i am misguided, i am not driven by philosophers of english communities
In which the music is within us.... In the untamed soils of mother africa

So i keep his fingerprints away from my beautiful skin
Cause i never wanna be where she has been

I want to
scratch your name off my mind
forget your hideous face
remove your voice
that echos so loud in my head
forget the feeling of your disgusting skin
and how it felt on mine
forget the filthy lies
that left your tongue
the words you were never held accountable for
forget the curls of your hair
that ripped my skin with softness
your fcking hazel eyes
that were never loyal to the brown in mine
that would always seek blue or green

I want to
rip every ******* memory
of you
from my heart
and then
from my mind
and rip my soul
apart from yours
burn every memory of you
that I have in
letters
pictures
scents
all your fake cunning tactics
to use
and then abuse
burn every part of myself
that you own
the love
the poetry
the letters
the memories
everything

I want amnesia to hit me
and take away all of you
from all of me

If you were me
you'd hate you too
for the broken promises
false words
fake tries
true lies

you'd hate yourself too
because you're the most selfish
that a person can ever be
you pick people out
just to use them and keep them
keep them till they tell you who you are
and then you throw them

you'd hate yourself too
because no sane man or woman
loses their mind like you do
***** you are crazy
its either the chemicals in your brain
or past pain but whatever it is
it has nothing to do with me

you'd hate yourself too
because you take a 180 flip
you’d say you love me
and then you won’t
you’d want to marry me
and the next moment
you’d want to fck a white boy

you’d hate yourself too
because you’d see the pure evil
behind the fake innocence
the devil behind that fake smile
the selfish ***** acting all selfless and kind
the liar making promises
promises she never intends to keep

you’d hate yourself too
because you’d see the girl I loved
and how that girl kicked me and killed me
again and again and again and again
in so many different ways
for reasons unjust
for self satisfication

you’d hate yourself
down to your very core
even if I never could

Are you even aware of all the pain
you caused me every single time ?

A short mail with a sorry at the end
You think that compensates
for all the pain you caused
or even that which you caused
with your short mail

Didn't you just want "space"
I wasn't even ready
you showed me a world
where we were about to fly
and threw me down from the 7th sky

Hours turned into days
but for once
I didn't see days even turn to weeks
or weeks into months
months of forever

Do you even know the feeling
when you love a person
and care about them so much and miss
so much that they become a part of
your very existence

Do you even know the feeling
of loving a person so much
with your heart and soul
that you lose your mind
missing them

Perhaps you may or may not know that
but there is something you surely
do not know
The feeling when that very person
walks all over you heartlessly

I took your word
when you said
this was just space you needed
it wasn't supposed to be a setup
to fck me over

Perhaps for you this is a game
all just a measure of pain
to see how much it takes
for my skin to tear apart and
for me to bleed out of my eyes

You don't even know what its like
when your soul is being ******
out of your body
yet the only name you can still think of
is of the one you love
and they still choose to walk all over
your dying breaths

fck your sorry
and fck you