All It Took to Get to You
The chances are slim that I should come to you—
& I gutted my way through hell to get here
blood begets blood salt-running earth as does the gates of women
unpacked unceremoniously my body, a cannon in sterilized rooms
hospitals beget wombs my child, a stone cracked open in unison:
two hundred & fifty-five rips a pillar of salt every minute
begets five point two suffocated potentials murderers/lovers
every one-thousand souls we were the same once /anchors survived
every black body daughters to gorges survived
begets the chances that my child, a weapon we—even make it
to this moment we were the same once we found love
or became something more both daughters to machines we made it out
alive & we gutted our way through hell to get here
& into each other’s arms
For the White Girl in the Poetry Workshop Who Says I Don’t Belong Here
i cut out all the parts you wouldn’t like about this. decided to leave only:
the femur.
the fibula.
the thorax.
my neck, swiveling skull
a clicking vertebrae, the spine
or the tail. what is left of it, anyways.
my knees—still bleeding—fresh.
for you, my sweet.
the jaw grind. my ground teeth.
chatter. chatter. chit. chit.
i sleep with too many words in my mouth.
mouth, in.
the catcher.
the dream—catcher—in my chest.
the left shoe. the wrong foot.
the note: read for further instructions.
a single tube of bitch. the lipstick, my dear.
my ruptured lung. the slinky.
a pastor. green.
a pen like a pink tooth. i wish you ink that bleeds.
a well. blxck & fat.
a hungry thing.
the hand.
the Saturn.
the binary four.
the digitus medius.
for you, my sweet.
Lil’ Mama Gets High
remembers she got a degree in “bitch. please.” minored in proper english but these white folks still don’t know what the fuck she mean when she say: us restless daughters forage under neon lights for leftover liquor & boy-meat, never pretending perfection, we discuss the cons of your heaven climb concert speakers & swallow full moons. petition deejays with our chocolate-filled hips. make it rain on them. grind the earth & give you gardens. rub our legs together & give you smoke. suck hoodoo down our parched muscle. cough up glitter & gore. sometimes for your amusement but never for your approval. us restless daughters have waned on the idea of separation from our spiritual selves. are no longer your cannibals. are no longer your christians. have gotten into grand discussions about no longer covering up our baartman bodies. have learned to covet our scars. learned to worship the skin we survive in. question the purpose of religion & other nonsense shit like that. believe in the spirit: the measurable force—like light—pushing & pulling between here & whatever comes after. us restless daughters believe in [ ]. curate its space in our homes. seek out our equals. get lit up—talking about transitions & transformations. get lit up—talking about the scientific evidence of good vibes. get lit up—& that’s the problem. we are still wondering how we always manage to end up alone & face down in a pool of gasoline. we have got to love ourselves out here. us restless daughters stone the silence—our black bodies hang from the stars like hot oil under blemished sun. shimmy when everyone else is asleep. dig into ourselves. dig under—blocks & blocks of black bodies—for fresh water. under the side-streets. groan for our broken pipes. our stolen gardens. look for where it all went wrong. dig the ruined parts out. reach inside ourselves because somebody—somebody—has got to fix the goddamned plumbing in here.
