Visibility

The south doesn’t see it

Because they are still blinded by the bloody
lies smeared into their eyes

Put there by fingertips pricked by the

Cotton bolls they’ve had to pick themselves
After their free labor left on June 19th

They have always been told
That too many sweets will kill you

But they do not know

That’s not diabetes that has them peeing blood

That’s ground glass mixed into their sugar bowl

In the slave shacks we call that recipe:
Sally Hemmings revenge

The south has wrung their hands and
scratched their heads in wonder

They do not comprehend the irony
Of calling a nigger lazy

And they cannot seem to fathom

How we’ve gotten so uppity

So uppity that we literally floated away

Like a million Muslims making pilgrimage o
magic carpets

To a mecca called "the north"

The south doesn’t see

How blurred the mason Dixon is

They think it’s etched in granite

But we’ve always known its drawn with invisible ink

That everything below Canada w
always consideredt the entire south

That We did not burn Watts, Chicago,
and Harlem out of boredom

But the south never saw the fires as familiar

They never assumed the projects were
the siblings of plantations

So they simply marveled at our audacity

How could we be so ungrateful

Towards the liberty of their slavery

How dare we assume their mantel of humanity

How dare we enter polls and meddle in their polity

How could we not want to swing anymore
from their poplar trees?

The south doesn't see

There is no such thing as the past d
in the Bayou and the old farms

Because things have never changed into a future

They still have watermelon eating contests

And say nigger with the same accent on the R

And now there's new language for old meanings-

The slaves quarters are still there

They are just called cellblocks now

And the fugitive slave act cocooned itself

Only to burst forth as a butterfly called probable cause

The south doesn’t see

They are too busy building border walls a
detention centers

To notice more of themselves are being locked down

That the war on drugs has taken them as new POW’s now

And their own mothers and fathers have
become the wardens who can offer no explanation

For the incarceration of their own offspring

The south doesn’t see

The fire in our bellies lit first o
the gold coast and Florida swamps

The fire that made mommas throw babies
Into the sea to drown free

The fire that burns in Cinque eyes

That lit the torches and towns
Walked by Denmark Vessy and John Brown

That tore Harlem and watts and Detroit down

That fire that put furrows of pain on Rodney King’s forehead 

And caused Reginal Denny’s loss of memory

The type of amnesia that OJ and Tiger caught

And our own forgetfulness,
because we still cheered them both on while they
Disowned us

The South doesn't see
The Crip walk of Serena like she was dancing o
the embers of burning crosses

It’s that flame that we all carry in the pits of our own bellies

That makes us grit our teeth and clench our fists

To tear down confederate flags
And hurl blood on General Lee's statue

To want to resurrect Oakland’s lunch program

To run for Ferguson’s city council

The south does not see

We are learning that participation or presidency 

Will not make them view us as equal or fully human

We are learning that we must break it, tear it, and burn it all down

We are learning to abolish the black caucus
and charlatans like Jackson and Sharpton

And to say fuck an image award

Give me instead a hammer and a crow bar

We are learning that It’ll take more than a hashtag t
stop these assassins with badges

We have to bring noise, thunder, rain and pain

Destruction and then resurrection

And then the south, north, east and west will finally see 

We have learned what it is to be finally and truly free

Shoe Game

She told me one day that a do-over relationship with me

would be like slipping on an old comfortable shoe

There are two things I learned from her confession

1: we have always had failures to communicate

Struggling to see things the same way while standing on uncommon ground

Me? My old comfortable shoes are, first: old

Beat up and faded

Leather cracked and sueded

Shoe strings dingy brown with the tips missing and frayed

Factory insole long gone, replaced by a Dr. Scholl

That’s well-past its recommended time for replacement

It’s a shoe I only wear around the house

Generally to do yard work or work on the car

I would never ever ever wear them to the mall

Hell not even for a 7/11 slurpee run

And this is what I am to her?

And, just what is an old comfortable shoe to a woman?

A Croc?

A smelly Ugg?

Do women even want comfortable shoes?

I mean, with all those heels, wedges, and stilettos

Red bottoms and Jimmy choos that give them

All those bunions and hammertoes

Making them walk oh-so gingerly a
And fall oh- so hilariously

What do women really even know about comfort and shoes?

She said being with me would be like slipping

Back into an old comfortable shoe

And so, the second thing I learned from her confession,

That came to me while I was buying

A brand new pair of crisp and clean Air Jordans,

Was that we are never ever ever…

Ever going to get back together

Cardinal Sin: A Reply to the Period Poem

Lesson number one:
Fables and nursery rhymes
Are told to children at bedtimes
As apologetics for plagues and the treachery of royal families
Which is why I’m sure Period Poems are just well-recited fibs
Meant as a cover up for mental malignancy 

 
Lesson number two:
The word "period" can cause linguistic confusion
Not unlike the word "napkin"
Because it Ends and begins something at the same time
Because it can be a culmination or A Dream Deferred -
I'd like to think that Dash or Ellipsis 

Is a more grammatically appropriate word 

 
Lesson number three:
Period Poems are  protests of patriarchy hijacked by hypocrisy
You’ve come such a long way baby
You kick us out of the kitchen
Smacked our hands if we dip our fingers in The Sauce
But way too many dudes still rule Gynecology
Still dipping fingers in The Sauce 

And when it came down to the wire, way too many of you
Picked a Pussy Grabber over a First Lady

But I imagine that’s a consequence of you letting us convince you 

That the cure for hysteria was to rip out your uterus 

Oh and that black girl magic
Didn’t work out so well when it came to Omarosa did it?

Lesson number four:

The word "amazon" is thought to linguistically mean "not having breasts"

Legend has it, that in order to be as good as a male archer

Amazon Warriors had to cut off the titty that got in the way of their bow string
These days, when a woman starts to become an Amazon,

Breast and periods are the first thing to go 

And the next thing you know
She’s lying on her husband and forging her mama’s name 

In order to make Mama pay for stolen titty implants 

Lesson number five:
Never confuse a period for sacrament
You only pray when it doesn’t show up
Go ask Onan of the Old Testament
Which bodily fluid is really the holiest of holies

Lesson number six:
The wifey stays when the hubby gets paid

So you got played
If you drank Beyonce's lemonade 

 
Lesson number seven:
Periods are not power
Real power lies in the postpartum aftermath of slave mothers impregnated by their master
Real power lies in the hand of the slave husband who raised those kids as his own
Real power is in the handful of sand
That some sistesr packed into their own vaginas
To avoid being raped by government soldiers and the KKK
Their tears mixed in with memories
To give birth to the concrete children we call our great-great-grandparents 

Lesson number eight:
One of the mothers of my faith was a 6th Century slave named Summaya
Who died the first martyr of Islam
Because she refused to reject her Lord
And so her master laid her on the desert floor
And impaled her through the uterus with his spear
The river of blood that flowed out of her, 

Gave birth to a thousand points of light
Like my daughter 

Lesson number nine:
A Kotex it’s not the Holy Grail -
Its contents are not meant for communion
But the prophet-of-prophets taught us
There exists only with women 

A real place of Solace and absolution 

 
It is not to be found running down
The inside of your thighs
In a Cardinal Red River of regret
But it is at the feet of mothers that the gates of paradise rest...

Just waiting for us to enter -
If only we stopped remembering to forget