Lullabies

Written one night when I couldn’t fall asleep and I was tired of the way I was writing my old poems.

Growing

Written when trying to challenge myself to identify who I am for a poetic bio. #Fail

Does every poem need a title?

You’ve stretched out over six feet of spaceThe only six available in a tight cramped hospital roomThe timed whir of machines processing their functionsManufacturing life for the fathers of crumbling daughtersWakes you from the slumber you keep attempting to stealBetween Catholic prayers bleeding through overhead speakersAnd the methodical ticking of another plastic heartbeat If youContinue

Disjointed

Broke my finger when I touched myself Couldn’t find where the vulva was supposed to split And it was too slippery down there, Too foreign for my comfort Lost my voice when I called your name Lettering like kola nut in my mouth Slicing my tongue When I tried explaining myself To myself, or whoeverContinue

Day dreams

I left mine on the playgroundWith the other un-serious things about lifeThe laughter, the games, the boys and excitementI left mine flapping in the windFodder for some other lifetime

Work Woes

Whiteness masked as coloured-ness is not quite as violent as whiteness parading around as itself But it does make me wary in the same Guard your shit, and watch what you say Way that white supremacy does ‘The bus’ When I was too much Too Black, too full of myself You made me road-kill ‘ofContinue

Power Rising 2019

I’m leaving IAD Headed to where the Black Women convene A tight fist forming in my stomach And a sudden realization as the plane ascends That the ground has always been there Greens and browns so distinctly natural I mistook my bare feet for the roots of an oak tree And watered myself, often andContinue

Octavia St. Laurent

I want you down on your knees

The pussy Poem

Today I took a hand mirror and stood naked in my bedroomI decided I would pick my pussy apart and find the self respect the worth and the valueHidden beneath between and betwixt the pink fleshI took that hand mirror and placed it between my legsStuck my fingers between the two fatter lips and feltContinue

The gift of giving

wilting treesand houses built on sinkholeslost traditions, andblood lines soaking into the eartheating away at the long-forgotten corpses of our lineagebroken mirrors holding disfigured reflectionsof little brown girlswith twisted mouths and charred fingertipsthese rest on creaky floor boardsand against old wooden wallsdraped in white sheetsbooks with no spinespages out of order and words that don’tContinue