FIRE
“...but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.” -Eldridge Cleaver
Your shoulders’ blade was spiked--sharp, but my head still found a comfortable home
You carried so many bricks--how would you know how to carry a feather?
I found a cave the size of your chest and I prayed there, preyed
prayed on everything in the stance of a hunter--everything that tried to break your sleep
Like a lioness--I leaped
I've been up days now--I don’t get much sleep here
Your tossing and how you turned all night kept me up days now
When you’re gone, I’m still up tryna master your turbulence, your ways
You’re not here now and
I’m up watching the memory of your back muscles burst off the white of the blinds
trying to catch you in the open spaces of the shadows to keep you here with me
Watching you reminded me to--count the ways--trying to keep you reminds me of an explosion balancing on seas
Gold was created here–the color and the rock in this spot
I never saw this coming
You are the pressure of a prayer when the pastor hears it
You’re the meaning of life when God has to do with it
--you have taken me back
Me
a woman who lights up & throws the match on the ground before walking on it
I’m not surprised by anything
–you have taken me back
Your power has made my own reflections harder to digest
I like how your teeth space out when you demand shit and I combat.
I don't have a problem galloping in your certainties
There’s nothing in me to control--I like that I don't have to work on you
--even if the love has me sick to my knees
–I still pray for you
Don't have to put up an SOS to make sure you follow a path
No tweet--just both of my arms stretched wiiiide
To the siiiidee
Don't have to put you up on game
--it’s good to see you ace me
I like that I don't have to use Bermuda’s triangle to get you from point A to B
my point and position isn’t your first thought --
I like that you “been knew”
that I can ask you something I don't know the answers to--and we figure it out together
You’re the accuracy of a history book not jammed into the soil and people not pages
I like your silence before answering a question
It takes you years sometimes to make things clear – your tenacity makes things clear
You’re so good at what everyone else is bad at
Like complete sentences
Eye contact
Strategy and style
Charm
A countenance of poise
Speech and sex appeal
Your faith is appealing
I love you with no strings attached
just respect enough for me
to show up when I’m called on
This is Gods’ work
I want to wrap myself around your finger
For breakfast I want us to make up our minds together
Draw up reasons as to why the Harlem Renaissance was just another prelude for black folk like us
Subjecting our genius to thievery
post traumatically after the seas submerged our bodies into relocation
the thievery--and here we are--clear hearted and confused
We found a way and a cure for homesickness
--from jump-- we been reaching heights barefoot--pregnant with babies
--the answers and possibilities
Some of us are born mothers
Having been offspring of what they thought they killed in us
they thought they killed us
Some of us are village keepers and have villages to keep.
We never knew survival --we just knew we saw things with our eyes that no one else did
Felt things with our hands that no one else could feel
- unbeknown to what may be stolen next
And over & over--again & again
Our voices crept like veins up wintertime walls
The Big Apple ripened with our blues, our snapping, and our singing
We hustled our God given gifts through man-made jungles & basements
Got splinters but clapped--got splinters but danced
Got splintered but created with the plaster & paint and memories
And
Like a shotgun of cold air through a tight fist--there goes free game again
I like you enough to change the world with you
Rather tell our own versions of great stories
how words got their names
with you
I don’t need to be excused
with you
My abdomen gets swollen with Cleaver like metaphors
Blowing up and bursting with brighter ideas
Both Queens and Kings
Redemption and Pride
Anticipation and Glory
Truth and Patience
Peace
I like you
For the revolution and for all the main organs
That
Make
Me.
Brown and woman
Drawn to the map of you
Progression and prose
You are travel
The backseat of a lonely car on its way to a fascinating city
The wonder the excitement, the anxiety of a world that’s supposed to change
You are conversations that changed my life
Even if we’re just talking about maple syrup or
The speed of the rain --or how time stops every time we remember what ourselves look like together
How rain falls like molasses when we see it fall together
rather break bread & bad habits with you
and when you’re not here anymore
say your name every time the wind blows
Hold my arms out wiiiiddee to the siiiddee of my body
Wait on the birds to flock together
Compose & get you that song that sings to you about fire
Reminding you of what it feels like when we love each other
Reminding you that love is you
I would save your life and live through you if I had to
A warrior on your own time–
Sunni (Ali) How you’ve maintained your anciency is brilliant