the BlackHer the berry/ed the sweeter the juice

they stole black brains and put cyanide in our veins

look look look

here are my veins, here is my proof.

everything i touch i sustain

Black Dame murdered, laid to “rest”, then resurrected.

---

"after slicing me alive, they set me ablaze.

on fire.

out of the earthenware

//-from which

they had planned to eat

me-\\

& ashes, ashes, ashes. i rised, i rise, i’ve risen.

in/different."

would you, wanna hear the story, about how i caught them red-handed blood from my entrails on their jagged claws-no, hands?

bloodshot-beady eyes peering through talons-no, fingers,

that were supposed

to be clasped shut.

i knew they’d lied when they promised me they wouldn’t peek.

peck. pick. at every piece of me they could engorge themselves with.

till they were full of me.

full on me.

BLACK woman like,

you love me, but really, you want to eat me,

alive. 

absorb me,

make me

nothing.

make yourself,

everything.

---

BLACK girl like, the dark around the flame.

the space often forgotten.

space matter,

the kNight shade,

tilted,

disturbed.

---

her

me

Black,

we, the Dark.

that

touches

everything.

look,

your

fingertips.

i told you they’d be stained.

---

BLACK woman like, slip inside of me,

quietly.

never loud enough for the ones outside to hear that

you, you, you

love

to get lost in the dark of me too.

---

inside myself, besides myself.

i turn myself inside out

to make room for you to shit in here, too.

garbage, called me dirtied

i yell

from the rooftop,

“you swim in here too,

you live in here too,

you’ve loved—yes you did that here, too.”

---

i remember everything. i'll remind you of everything

no one is listening

She screams, she’s sinks, she sings

---

when i fuck in the dark

i keep my eyes closed shut,

my hands become eyes

and

would you believe me if i told you i see everything?

undulating beneath hips,

i’m inside of the s/hips, underbelly.

its black in here too.

believe me i saw it,

with my hands,

look.

closely,

at the dark, you can see it.

the ships, my hips, still visible in the distance

swaying and weighing

the cost of what it means,

to act,

to reach for you.

considering,

the price id gladly

pay to wake up to this body,

wake up in this ship

to move,

shift my hips, tilt the ship, till it slides me closer to you.

closer to true.

---

BLACK girl, that will never, beg-but she’ll scream it.

with her mouth you forgot you sewed shut. she’ll scream it.

through lips sewn-up, she’ll sing it.

BLACK girl like,

globs of black JAM

on the tip

of a beaten down rat-tail,

comb covered in

severed beedabees

laying in pools of their own

severed teeth,

she learns

real young

the hot way,

you never, ever, ever,

leave a kitchen unkempt.

i hear Sonya moving towards the screaming water,

“they taught us young” i yell in her defense.

“they taught us wrong” i yell for her attention.

the kitchen can stay a mess if

that means a mess of you won't be made.

leave it.

black stare say, “put the comb down”

black smile say, “fuck you, I love my kitchen wrecked.” 

---

BLACK girl misery,

business of paramours and late night sneaks,

20 open tabs and theres one open riddled with chatroom freaks

begging, begging, begging for me to be their little Black treat.

they tell me my Black is beautiful,

they say open up and for the first time

someoneeveryonyanyone

wants to see me,

maybe even free, me.

believe me. i'd go back and tell her to close the tab too. to go to bed and pretend, tell her "you know better, promise me you'll never go on that shit again." i know now, that those people were lying. i know now, that's not how you make friends. but, i wouldn't stop her now and i honestly, couldn't have stopped her then. young Black child of an unyielding nature, forced to be wreckoned with. energy focused and concentrated, she was unstoppable, a girl that wanted to live.

i understand only now the lengths one would go to, to find what you think is a friend,

someone to pour your secrets out to,

someone who won't be disgusted,

someone,

who'd want to hold you in the end.

---

Black girl like the web,

not the internet,

the web. in the dark.

the one you notice only after you’ve walked into it.

flailing around barely - visible strings

you try to get it off you, get me off you.

i say

"i'm right there, i'm right here"

and you swat and you swing.

does it bother you?

how you hear my voice in every quip you utter, in every song you sing, every "bit" you can think of.

how i'm everywhere because you put me everywhere.

does it infuriate you?

to be confronted with your lies and incompetence everyday.

shit, i'd be mad too,

if everything i thought i thunked came naturally

and i got told,

"this right here is Black peoples' too"

it's the truth though. you should swallow it, i've been forced to swallow shit

i didnt like too.

remember what i said, everything i touch i stain, forever change,

"invasive species" divinely created to rattle the mainframe.

reader, i ask you

what is the power of black people?

tell me

are we just

quiet pillars,

silent webs,

meant to hold and absorb every natural and un-natural thing,

because it's the truth we've been beaten into believing.

i say

i don't believe in what you believe in

that is not my power

i won't play that role for you,

you won't hit me again,

i was food for you once

you should've savored me then.

fool me once but you'd never ever

fool me into feeding you again.

---

Black girl dead. Black girl alive. Black girl died. again. Black girl never cheat death,

no no no

luck don’t extend so far,

luck don’t be so kind,

so colorblind

and that black was unmissable,

out of the ashes,

soot covered my soles,

i said black like the dark.

around the flame.

so luck never came.

but death did.

a whole lot of death, did. 

---

they cut me alive, then burned me, and when my black finally cracked and my insides glowed alongside the growing fire incinerating me, they screamed, laughed, and danced in painful pleasure. jerking and gyrating, dancing like they just knew i couldn'tshouldn'twouldn't come back.

i'd never forget what they looked like, i'd never forget the smiles on their faces, the way they lapped up my blood, drank up all of my fucking juice.

they praised me, in their perverse and sick way they praised me, the "hidden god", the one they'd never write a book about. i couldn't watch them get away with it, no, i said "return me, i need to go back, there's something left behind, something i've got to go back and claim." i can't let this be in vain.  

BLACK life like if not righted in this lifetime, then it will be the next, or the next, or the next....

a call for a rebalancing act has been placed,

scales tipped to far one way,

tip you too far, Black, into truth.

---

it took a while for that to happen, you know, for me to find the world inside of myself again.

to remember what i returned here to claim.

like i told you, they chopped me up and tried to eat me, no one was eager for my memories to be regained. 

my love my grief my guts and teeth turn into an iklwa i can't see but feel only, in my hands,

on begging knees i promised the trees

with my shaking hips and unsown lips i opened my mouth and said

"they'll see through me, how we get free,

using my ancient weapon of revenge."