Under a year-round summer sky,
She sits her almond brown, mocha dipped, sun kissed melanin in elegance on the corner of NW 3rd avenue and 11th terrace
Longing, to be seen and heard like wrongfully imprisoned innocence
Sentenced to a life of silence. Locked, behind cemented walls of Domestic Violence
She sits, and every time I visit, she begins to shake to the rhythm of PTSD,
Causing words to quaver behind twitching lips
As she gathers enough strength to tell me, that she remembers
she remembers, the feeling of imprinted hands
Collapsing the walls of her trachea, impeding any oxygen she fights for
I…can’t…breathe, three words, that happen to be sharper
Than any man-made blade carved out of desperation
She remembers, the days when her neighbors
Would physically and emotionally degrade her, by profaning
the exterior of her sacred temple until the interior
of her soul feels inferior with abusive words like blight and colored
Before being pinned and slapped with federally funded acts
plagued with vague diction strengthening the hate
behind negative depictions of her children until they were faced with evictions
She remembers, the day she was *****, forcefully ran through with an interstate
Leaving survivors, to experience the long-term side effects
Of common economic depression caused by the perpetuation
of Eisenhower’s vision of systemic segregation
Building roads through middle class black owned businesses and homes
This is for her, who’s hips would sway to the rhythm
and blues of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday
Hoping the day will come when she can reclaim her name
The Harlem of the South, formerly known as Colored Town
Where dreams seem to be as barren as vacant lots
This is for her, because she continues to persevere in elegance
with her almond brown, mocha dipped, sun kissed melanin
This is for Overtown, so please do me a favor and watch your mouth
when you decide to come around NW 3rd avenue and 11 Terrace
