winds carried the dusty remains
of a nation across the land
burying bleeding women
in breeding graves
dug by their slave masters
who thought to teach them
of their homespun place
woven in a tapestry
of chains
the remains devoid
of time’s progressive thread
that once contained
something more
than the prison
of being named property
I grasp this beast of kinky
curls that sits upon my head,
attempting to tame it into submission.
First, the wire brush stretching strands
straight as concentrated hot air
dry the water from the beast.
Slowly the taming comes.
Finally dry, frizz left there,
making me aware who the boss really is.
I break out my next weapon
against this frizzy beast:
The flat iron.
And while it heats,
I tune the speakers to a podcast
about the missing women of Juarez.
Sectioning my beast hair as I listen
about women missing,
women found dead,
women to whom no one paid attention
because
they were
women, girls
because
they were
brown
because
they were
poor
women, girls
brown
poor—
The things
that do not grab attention
that fade away in the media
easy to say of these—
They ran away.
They ran away with a boyfriend.
Oh, she’s a drug addict. Who knows where she went?
And on I go to straighten another section
Of hair with my hot flat iron.
My beast neatly tamed.
I think it would be easier to braid my hair into rows.
Decorating the braids with small beads,
a bead for each missing woman,
a bead for each murdered woman,
a bead for each missing, murdered, indigenous woman of color
in this land, across the globe.
Each tiny bead
with a name microscopically etched
and then braided into my hair
as beads of grief,
a bead for each woman, each girl—
If I could then even lift
my bead heavy head
like the mothers who carry
sandbags of grief searching
the world for daughters
gone missing—
what could I, one person, do?
The world spins on.
Despite the burden of beads,
these beads braided
into the fabric of motherhood
across the globe
for girls gone missing,
girls glanced at, ignored
by a society that sends up invisible prayers
then turns forgetting what it deems valueless,
girls marked by the violence of poverty,
Then I think of 22 year old, Mahsa Amini.
dead in the twisted irony
of morality police custody for a hijab violation.
I should shave my head in solidarity
with the women of Iran
who protest.
But what could I, one person, do?
Would beads or a shaved head here make a difference?
Would anyone know the meaning?
My neck cannot bear the weight of braids with beads enough for each woman.
My bald head would not be understood as sign of solidarity.
So I send out my chicken scratches of a poem
into the world, and I choose to leave it as it is,
Untamed and ugly.
Anger paralyzes,
I search for words—
Pour what I feel
Into them—
But my anger
Melts them,
Turns them molten metal,
Defiant to the forms,
The constraints,
The molds I attempt
To use to shape
This gob of white hot liquid metal
Into meaning
For feelings
Overwhelming me.
Paralysis crushing,
Submission—
It is what they want—
Make us heavy once again
With chains and shackles,
Place and close the Master’s padlock,
A designation of second class,
Something much less than they,
Round our necks once more,
Making of us an example,
So others live in fear
Of what they come for next
And so acquiesce—
Staying silent, eyes lowered,
Hoping to escape notice
By allowing them to feel smug and safe.
My anger burns bright white stripes,
Others will not die bleeding the red.
Remember the stars provide the light
Of what we know is right.
We will not live on our knees
Or on our backs, being beggars
For shredded scraps
Of what is the promise of our nation.
Brevity of years
Right, paid in blood + death, destroyed
Fiction drips history
Brevity in 12 words
Spring threatens to melt into us. Summer follows soon enough. Birds will return, seeking seeds and worms, Building nests for the young to come. Will the birds remember the songs they sing? Songs of summer, songs to mate? Flowers will emerge, warming their petals And leaves under a brilliant sun. Will they remember how to open Their blossoms? Will they remember how to dress themselves In glorious color? How can the birds or flowers remember When the world walks a tightrope Over the abyss And sunflowers may never grow again Tall enough to bow their heavy heads to God?
Darkness gathers upon the horizon of our land:
A land we have loved with the lives of our sons and daughters,
A land we have bled for,
A land we have built upon golden ideals,
Shining as a beacon to other nations
But the darkness gathers upon the horizon of our land:
For which we have done things of shame and sin,
For we have killed our sisters and brothers
Of all different colors,
For we have kept others in chains of injustice
Because we saw others as less than.
And now the darkness gathers in our cities,
Creeping along the horizon of our land.
Now. Now is the time to carry that torch
Lifted above the water of a harbor
And see its light spread across our land.
We must be the promise
For which our daughters and sons died.
Driving out the darkness,
We must all be the promise of the dream—
Liberty and justice for all.
Although I am not white, I admit I enjoy white privilege because most people perceive me as white. My mother was Melungeon, a mix raced people of Appalachia, and my real father was of Hispanic heritage. Most people look at me and see white features and assume a Greek or Italian heritage. Yes, some ignorant people have said stupid, racist things to me because of their assumption of my whiteness. In light of recent events, the privilege given to me by my features and skin color demands that I stand up to help.
We sat silent, complacent too long
Our children safe.
Between threats to our black and brown
Sisters and brothers,
We must shield– intrepid, resolute,
taking spit, hits,
gas, lash, bricks
even death, should it come to that
So nothing touches them.
We must fulfill the promise of our nation—
All are equal
A battle won,
Time now to rise,
Rise in the streets to remind
Of a time when
With a banging shoe
Our damnation tolled
As shouts and threats
Of our burial
Brought us to the brink.
We must rise,
Rise, take to the streets,
Stand beneath the feet of great ones
They plan to topple and disgrace,
To show we see the link
Smelted and forged in gold
With the man behind the curtain.
We once caused a wall to fall.
Let our numbers now rip down
A curtain made of gold.
The Lady went dark,
feeling the decline.
The dawn trembled,
as the power of the mother raised
a sisterhood united.
While the capricious one
and his band of merry fools
turned tiny hands
to the magician’s tools
of distraction and deflection,
whipping their devout disciples
to a rabid, foamy hate,
ready to trample their different siblings.
Thus, the mother within the sisterhood
and a faction of the brotherhood
joins them to rise,
persisting in resisting
to protect a nation
for the next generation.
What we know of words upon a page
Read, learned over again until sated
In the richness found
Then turn to the electronic blue haze
Where even words resonate, echoing fade
For the sweetest lies hate mongers craved
Swoon over one hundred forty plastic flowers
Like the words of a lover’s refrain
Written once too often in wooing others
As cheap plated jewelry’s shine
Turns black in the bitterness
On the day the Mother of Exiles cried
For the words beneath her feet crumbled
And the book she holds nearly fell,
Upon its cover, the date when something pure,
Something of meaning and hope was born
No longer revered, respected, held dear
By those with a need to instill hate and fear.
The Mother raised her head,
Found her footing once again,
Held close her book of law
When she saw the children of her nation arise,
Stand strong against the peddlers of fear
And by their numbers shout a resounding, “NO!”
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