As a young girl I was always expected to do as I was told.
Don’t be too loud, don’t talk back, don’t appear to be sassy or bold.
Mind your manners, hold your tongue, there is no space for being rude.
Tone it down, cover it up, we don’t want your black girl attitude.

Forced into boxes with no space to move.
Restricted and restrained with everything to prove.
Constantly combatting the narrative they paint.
Making us look like animals while they look like saints.

We are said to be angry, bitter and loud.
Troublesome, uneducated, following the crowd.
Masculine, impute, stubborn and broken.
Accessories, trophies that ”one” friend, the token.
These strings of disrespect will no longer be allowed.
I don’t care if I’m not polished enough, I’m unwilling to be cowed.

Take back your subtle hate and blatant prejudices all wrapped up in a bow.
Served on a platter with fluffy words of disapproval and the saying “that’s just the way things go”.

They say we are stubborn, unmovable and complacent.
Well , consider how our feelings are always compartmentalized and latent.
Our cries go unheard, our request are unmet.
No one to protect us, left on our own to fret.

This debt that we carry is too much to bare.
It’s just as heavy as the onus that  we all have to share.
We are ethereal, complex and fed up with your satire.
You can have whatever you think of me, I’m done being your Sapphire.

Do you watch the sky
The way I
Watch memories rewind
And sink your hand
Into pools of midnight sea
Searching for wet sand
Rocks and seashells
To build a clock tower
On the edge of this receding shore
That rests half in my heart
And half in yours
And gaze for dawn
While swimming in these
Pools of sapphire blue
dreams?

I can't help it when I look into his eyes

When he tells me that his mother's middle name was Theresa
That he loves the smell of the supermarket and snow
And that he doesn't like the taste of pickles
Because they're too sour for his tongue
When he tells me that he's never loved a woman like me before
I want to know everything he has tucked away under those sapphire stones

Eye contact
From across the cafeteria table
Maybe you were saying something
But now we don't speak
We just sit quietly
And we might as well be alone
In this room together
Your blue green eyes
Locked on mine
Until we look away
I'll just bathe in your smile

I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth
Mine was made of diamond, sapphire, ruby, and jade
Far more precious than those spoons of silver and gold
Because I didn't know money
But I knew love
The most precious gem that you can't buy