Untitled (Inspired by For Colored Girls)

Your laughter
Her clasped hands white knuckled
That woman's chatter
reckless spilling of excess words
trying to explain
away...
Her defensiveness
Her powerlessness
And all of them in me
force the question:

What if we decided
to tell the truth about ourselves?
What if we trusted each other enough
to be honest?
What if we found God in ourselves,
and gave up pretending
Pretentious
Fairy tales of Righteousness?

Gave up the hiding game
masking our hurt with designer outfits and degrees and hobbies
Church functions
and relationships and Righteousness?
Gave up clenched teeth
holding back screams

***

We are alive
Because nobody ever told us that death
was an option

Life
is a choice

but we are slaves to it.

***

Centuries
spent wading through
Dark and freezing cold
slimy bogs of
Hands

Strong Hands grabbing at my ankles
but i don't look down
i just pull and tug and
twist and kick and FIGHT
until their grips slips long enough for me to
take that next step.

that next vital step
is all i want
all i was placed here for
why? toward what?
that next step is my reason for struggling
my reason for fighting
my reason for being
alive
i must continue
to be alive
keep moving... keep moving
keep... moving....

***

clenched teeth holding back the screams

meanwhile those
hands
attached to bodies with hearts
that stopped beating
bulging eyes
drowned alive
held under water
ignored

those hands
dead now, but still moving
for mouths, wishing they had screamed
moving
needing you to acknowledge
their existence
their struggle
their fight
that is their reason now
to keep grabbing
keep pulling
keep moving... moving
but they are not alive.

And your clenched teeth holding back their screams
do none of us any good.

trying to be a lady
trying to march onward
trying to maintain your sanity
in a bog of pain!
too busy preserving your Righteousness
to let yourself go
down with them
into the bog

go
look your pain in its bulging
eyes and let it embrace you
love it back
let it whisper to you
and remind you of the things
that you know
look into your dead self
and choose to live

No more clenched teeth
Smiling propriety
No more worries about being loved or left or ladylike
No more high roads up back-breaking hills
or self-suppression in the name
of being the bigger person
No more laughing at jokes that debase me
or just plain aren't funny
No more soft words and averted
eyes as shards of reality wielded by a Bold spirit
pierce me and
beg me to curse and scream and cry
No more false choices, or concealed options

No more swallowed moans
turned into heart-wrenching hymns
That someone called 'spiritual'

And it is
Pain is Spiritual
but it is also inevitable
not meant for the cause of your Righteousness
The lie we tell ourselves
That fairytale we created to
explain away the pain
to make existence worthwhile
To ease the sharp absence of 'why'

It didn't happen because, baby
Not because you needed to be
Stronger
Wiser
or more compassionate or mature or humble
It didn't happen to transform you into that silhouetted
Black Female Face
closed eyes closed lips
ears muffled under hair or hat or wrap
always tilted up toward
the sky...
Righteous
silent strength
clenching back screams!

It didn't happen because, honey
it just happened
And you are still Whole
Don't be so shocked by this
because you've always been Whole
The day you were born and centuries before
You were Whole
And you will always be Whole
And you can never be made un-Whole
You can only ever be made more Whole

So scream!
Curse and cry and kick!
Stop taking all of that shit!
Yes, they praise you for carrying
their burdens on your shoulders
But it's time you realized
that's a damn trick!
And that your strong back and good teeth and quick mind and
fertile womb and creativity and healing powers
and love
don't have to be for sale
anymore!

***

Maybe,
if I would just
tell the truth about myself
I wouldn't feel so misunderstood.
And maybe if I really believed
in love
I could draw it to myself
just being myself.

And perhaps if
I gave up the act
I would gain the key to
Everything...
The Wholeness
The Holiness
of Myself
Released