Black

Maybe I could lie naked in your cheeks

Crushed by the pink flesh of you

If only all of my messages could be recorded and saved in your voice box

I would be the faint reflection of a woman waiting for a fairytale instead of writing one

about seven dwarfs plagued by the seven deadly sins who take the seventh day to rest only to find a sense of completion in the theory of sevens…

but there’s only one way to say FUCK YOU in a million ways, I guess

But lying naked in your cheeks

Surrendering to a wetness other than my own makes for a better story

Nobody remembers the martyrs anyhow

The villains get to have all the fun

and sainthood is a kosher dream never willing to rise simply because I’ve never seen a saint with cocoa skin or with hair of wool

Let’s face it, if you don’t have a mane like mother theresa, you don’t have angel hair

I don’t need an invitation for Heaven anyhow

I can hear the choir just fine when I’m sleeping in your arms

and I’ll be damned if I hear another white baby considered to be cherubim angels if we’re not gonna call these black babies queens like BIG MAMA CLEOPATRA

but what do I know?  I only gave birth to one and I have a million where that came from

I don’t mind sitting here between your sandpaper skin and resting on lips as thick as my thighs

ain’t nothing black about black love

ain’t nothing dark about it

ain’t nothing dark enough to make me afraid to fall asleep in it

I mean, what do I know though?

I remember being raped by black men and being afraid to bring them to white justice

How fucking dedicated am I to the black mankind even when the kindness escapes the man?

All I’m gonna do is sit here perched on a porch creaking like the voice of Maya Angelou looking at a sky painted with the visuals directed by Zora Neale Hurston and listen to Oprah narrate the story whites taught us not to read, but how to write

Excuse me, I’m getting too big for my britches now

I’m getting too wide for my Nile

I’m getting too smart for the language my people created

and I’m getting too black to matter

I am black, a combination of all things and since white is the absence of color, how come you’re so full of yourself when you were born lacking?

I’ll wait.

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