Gorgoneion...

You expect triumph here.

Don’t.

Decapitation is not climax.

It is quiet.

You know what they don’t tell you about losing your body?

You keep thinking.

Even after.

Especially after.

I became portable power.

Weaponized.

Held up like proof.

“See? Monster slain.”

You still expect triumph here.

But listen —

When you are reduced to a head,

you finally see everything.

No ego in the limbs.

No performance in the hips.

No seduction in the spine.

Just consciousness.

Do you know what it feels like to become a logo?

To watch your face stitched onto luxury?

Versaced.

My serpents frozen in gold.

My agony redesigned as opulence.

My myth marketed.

You really expect triumph here.

I was once violated in a temple.

Now I hang in boutiques.

Tell me which is holier.

Existence is cruel like that.

You suffer.

You rage.

You’re hunted.

You’re severed.

And then —

you’re aesthetic.

You expected triumph here.

I am not proud.

I am not redeemed.

I am not even angry anymore.

I am aware.

The patriarchy created me.

The hero ended me.

Capitalism accessorized me.

And somewhere a little girl sees my face on a handbag

and thinks:

“She looks powerful.”

Maybe she is.

Maybe that’s the tragedy.

There was never triumph here.

I was never a monster.

I was a mirror.

And no one —

not god,

not hero,

not designer —

survives their own reflection forever...

Early Harvest

Before I begin this next piece,

I want to say something clearly.

This poem deals with themes of grooming,

manipulation,

and the targeting of innocence.

If that touches something personal for you,

please take care of yourself.

Scroll away if you need to.

Pause. Breathe. Come back later — or don’t.

You don’t owe this poem your discomfort.

You don’t owe this page your retraumatization.

There is no weakness in protecting your peace.

I wrote this poem in response to a challenge

from a spoken word curator during Mental Health Month —

a challenge to write about pain.

But instead of doing something generic,

I wanted to write something raw,

something layered,

something that hits.

This piece is called Early Harvest...

Eve was such a narcissist—

Self-centered and selfish.

Pulled out of Adam’s rib so cleanly

That her heart was left behind.

Her chest cavity lined with lead and filled with ego;

No wonder she was easy prey for Shaitan to snake his way in,

Like manhood entering a Vagina Monologue about low self-esteem.

You gotta catch ’em young.

Why couldn’t Eve just leave well enough alone?

Just follow one simple rule: don’t eat the fruit.

A rule so simple, the fruit didn’t even have a name,

But her brain was so stuck on E(go), she got played by the game.

Using her wiles to confuse poor Adam,

Who acted like a bull with a ring in his nose,

Following Eve right into eviction.

Heaven's loss was so traumatic

Every generation feels its absence coiled in its DNA,

And Eve just walks away,

Stamping her heel down on the devil's head—

Red bottoms dancing a toxic tango.

You gotta catch them young…

Because when they get older, they only pretend to love you.

Pain and misery will be your lover,

Malice your mistress,

So you decide to love her horizontally—

For only as long as her id stays vertical.

Play her private parts like a piano,

Her blood on keys,

Making dots only you can connect.

Kisses on her navel meant to save her from herself,

So she doesn't become Jezebel or the liar who locked up the Prophet Joseph.

Kiss her and turn her into Aaliyah,

Instead of that Hooters girl who tells me lies

Just to get me to buy a few more buffalo wings.

You gotta catch ’em young...

Okay, maybe Eve shouldn't bear all the blame;

After all, the wife before her left chasing the kiss of demons,

Rather be a succubus than a servant.

They say trauma demands retribution.

So if I stab stubby fingers at the flower of my four-year-old stepdaughter,

Just pretend I'm not being abusive;

I'm just being a shaman with the healer's touch.

I pray hard she keeps quiet;

If I get caught, it won't cost me too much.

I'll just keep pretending I'm Muslim.

Maybe wear my kufi tighter,

Lift my prayer rug a little higher,

So the community can sweep its complicity under it swiftly,

Hiding away all our pain while we point fingers at other religions.

Even though the mosque is no different than the cathedral—

We both got pulpits that sit on deep pits of dark secrets,

Secrets that I whisper in her shivering ear.

Let this be justice for all the Salomes that killed Johns,

For Cleopatra, Medusa, and Nicki Minaj.

This is reparation for being blamed in long poems and for deep pain,

For Lot’s daughters who preyed on their father

All because he went ghost on their mama.

I caught you young, but I think you're ready.

Don’t tell nobody and I will buy you that Barbie,

That Brat doll, that Easy-Bake Oven.

And when you outgrow me, I'll buy you the latest teen fashion and your first cell phone.

I’ll pop up at your school and cheer for you on field day,

And no one will know why you tense up or glance away

At family get-togethers or at the end of Ramadan.

And I’ll be okay—I’ll always remember what your tears taste like.

Knowing I am in your pores will be an intimate satisfaction.

Subconsciously, you will compare all of your boyfriends to me.

The only place you’ll spill our secret is a marble journal,

Because I have ingeniously sculpted you

Like a maniacal Michelangelo,

Convinced you that no one could love you like I do,

That only someone my age could see you for who you really are.

"This is nothing sexual," as everyone is told;

It’s just... being with you makes me forget that I'm old.

You gotta catch them young—

It’s not my fault -  you came on to me!

My arms and lap became your solace because

Your mama doesn’t really love you like she does the job she leaves you for at night;

Your daddy doesn’t love you as much as he loves hating your mama.

So don’t worry, if the weight of me on your mind gets too heavy to carry,

I’ll teach you to transfer your anger onto the next

Man your mama marries;

After all, he’ll probably be tall, mean, and scary.

I’m confident your scars will heal if you keep them out of the light

And keep me away from your little sister.

And in time, the mistake of your mother Eve will be forgiven,

And we’ll all eventually be able to get back into heaven,

Where we’ll get to eat the fruit,

And finally learn its name...

Chaka...

I was four...

when rhythm became religion.

The television glowed like revelation,

a static halo around a Black woman

who did not ask permission

to be magnificent.

It was Soul Train—

dancers like orbiting planets,

lights blinking like a spaceship headed somewhere holy—

and then there was her.

Chaka.

I didn’t have the vocabulary for desire.

Didn’t know what a crush was.

Didn’t understand hips or heat

or why my small chest felt like it was opening

from the inside.

All I knew was something grabbed me.

The bassline walked in first—

confident.

The drums followed,

like a heartbeat I hadn’t yet discovered in myself.

And then her voice—

Her voice wasn’t singing.

It was commanding atoms.

It bent the air.

It told gravity to behave.

And there I was—

four years old,

too young to know what longing was,

old enough to feel it rearrange me.

Something happened in my body.

Not yet sexual.

But seismic.

Like my spirit leaned forward

and said:

There...

That...

That is what beauty sounds like.

She shimmered.

Hair wild like freedom.

Skin radiant like she had swallowed the sun,

and decided to glow on purpose.

I fell in love without knowing

that love could even fall.

I wanted...

I just wanted to stay in that sound—

that place where rhythm and woman

became indistinguishable.

Years later I would learn words:

attraction,

aesthetics,

erotic,

divine feminine.

But at four?

It was more simple:

I saw a Black woman

unapologetically powerful.

I heard music that felt like truth.

And my heart—

still soft with baby fat and innocence—

recognized something it would spend a lifetime chasing.

A man's first crush

is not about the woman.

It is about awakening.

Chaka did not know

that somewhere

a little boy sat cross-legged on carpet

having his first lesson

in beauty.

But she was the first woman

who made me feel

that rhythm

and reverence

could live

in the same body...

"You Made Me" (Medusa)

You want a monster?

Fine.

But say my name correctly.

Not curse.
Not cautionary tale.
Not bedtime warning to fragile sons.

Say it.

Me.
Du.
Sa.

You made me this.

Before the snakes.
Before the stone.
Before my hair learned how to hiss.

There was a girl in a temple.

And a god.

And silence.

And men who protect power more than they protect women.

You made me this.

Patriarchy does not birth monsters — it drafts them.

It needs villains so heroes have employment.

You call me venomous.

But who crowned him divine? Who translated violation into mythology? Who edited my scream into scenery?

You made me this.

You say I turn men to stone.

No.

Men turn themselves to stone when confronted with consequence without reflection.

And yes — I inked my body.

Layer after layer.

Armor disguised as art.

Freckles tattooed across my face — tiny constellations of control.

Every needle said: “If they will look, then let them look on my terms.”

You call it vanity.

You call it chaos.

You call it attention-seeking.

You made me this.

Sometimes I say “victim” because it is the only language people respect.

Sometimes I stretch the wound so the room stretches toward me.

If the world only gathers around broken women —

watch me fracture beautifully.

You made me this.

But listen carefully now.

I was not born with snakes.

I was crowned with them.

I was not born monstrous.

I was renamed.

I was not dangerous.

I was unprotected.

And when protection fails, transformation begins.

You made me this.

So do not tremble now.

Do not act surprised that I learned how to survive in the shape you handed me.

You needed a monster.

And I needed to live.

So I adapted.

And if my gaze burns —

it is only because you taught me that softness was fatal.

You made me this.

Say it.

Say it louder than the myth.

You.
Made.
Me.
This.

© Brother Taj

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