some things can’t be given back
your father’s chin
your mother’s knees
the kiss of melanin
the fullness of your lips
the curl in your hair
somethings define you
whether you want them to or not
you can reject the burdens
packed for you before birth
they will weigh you down anyway
like wolves eat sheep
even if they don’t know
they are sheep
somethings are yours
you can lay them on the
sidewalk hoping someone picks
them up but they are yours
they will not go with the buyer
they are your song of self
even if you refuse to sing
I have hunkered down
in the pile of burdens
lifted them up
shook them off
followed the threads to find
the places they come from
I have smothered some to death
others I have breathed life into
painted them blue repacked
them into the bags that came with me
I am on the road singing the song of
me in the land of cotton
the mistress of midnight ink
rising after falling falling to rise again
still standing remembering
before the ships
the ships
the fields
how the bags of burdens are packed
where the ocean turns into a graveyard
& where the center of the whirlwind
touches down on desolate street corners
where Oya howls the possibility
of transformations to young warriors
off the path burning possible to survive
the night as Oshun whispers to broken hearted
mothers consoling them over spilled honey
promising the return of love the end of trauma
Ogun walks before me Shango got my back
I have become a deeper shade of black
singing loudly shining in the dark
black thoughts a full black heart
dreaming black dreams of oceans
rising after falling to rise again
black as a raven’s wing
black as crow song
black as night sky
black as the inside of the
thing & then some
growing blackness like
the precious fragile thing it is
like a place to stand in the storm
like being on your own front porch
somethings are yours
owned from within
inherited
like your mother’s knees
your fathers chin
where you start
the story of the genesis
the very all & all of it
not to be wished away
squandered
misunderstood
or frighten of
they are
the song
of
you
where you been
where you going & probably the why of
it there are things that even if you try
you can’t really forget so I embrace it
lean into it rest on it grow from it will always
default to it I am it wrapped steeped immersed
joyfully reverently bottom of the ocean with it
deeper in the deep than you can imagine with it
a deeper shade of black
than indigo shaded drum slapping
past midnight into the dawn
& back
Esu bless you
open the road for me
Olukun guards my legacy
Yemoja mothers me
Ogun walks before me
Shango got my back
I am a deeper shade of black
Beautiful!!!
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