My truth lies within the rivers that are my fingertips
Weeping water finding its way through my blood,
Reaching slowly into every root of every strand of hair
Of every freckle that once used to dot my face
Truth lies within my throat,
Curdling at the sight of any lies
Finds itself trickling its way up to the mouth
Like frothing
, it seems I have been choked yet again by the the cyanide they have fed me
My lips zipped closed, suffocating internally,
A plastic bag is placed over my face,
The light switches off
Like a horror movie, I have been inflicted in odd torture
When people shout, I laugh
Curse words don’t curse my bitter skin,
I have here the thick skin of slaves, of refugees, of warriors,
My truth lies within my tongue that speaks ancient lullabies,
My hair a net for the weeping voices of drowning bodies that lay innocent in guilty water
These cursives that you speak in,
find refuge in my body,
Like a trap it lays here to capture all your dirt,
I was taught to capture dirt,
to make it pure again, to make once was so dirty clean again,
Your curse words are accepted here,
It seems they do not trigger a reaction anymore
I have become a vault full of darkness,
Flight or fight, now becomes a default fight
My shoulders raised, ready for any attack,
I have a skeleton that cannot support it’s own body,
For so long I was told to lie,
To cover up the litter of bruises that were given to me as gifts,
I was told to smile, hide your stolen tongue with laughter,
Allowed my lungs to drown in bitterness,
Allowed my chest to collapse,
To cave in so much so now bats seem to come out when dark falls,
An Orphan I was born,
Already disavantaged at Birth,
A Brown Woman
Already weighted down by an Ocean of terror
Ready in all shades of Brown and Anger
Every time I speak now, I feel as though I am releasing a bird
I used to call myself a paralysed Phoenix
Used to want to destroy myself over to begin again
Used to weep at the sound of God, in churches, mosques and temples
Found myself at my knees in a way of a Gift to the One Above
But even He has left me,
He too has left me
Or maybe I left him
Maybe I have this all confused
Maybe I wasn’t made for this world
Maybe at my Birth,
I didn’t cry, already knowing I was predisposed to calamity
But here I stand today.
In this fight, I stand today
With a burning soul,
I fight.