Throwing Words Out There

How am I to stand up for men

Who don’t want to protect me?

Black men

Why are too many of y’all a part of the men

Seemingly terrorizing me daily?

History really is a circle, ain’t it?

That’s sad, ain’t it?

--

Black men really have me feeling

Like if I'm not flirting with them

Batting my eyes

Begging to suck them off when I meet them

in any

and seemingly

every situation

At the grocery store

Walking down the streets

When they slam doors in my face

Whenever they try to flirt with me

If I'm not grateful

That a black man

has even turned his eye towards me

Then I need to be exiled to farthest corner

Or

That I'm an uppity negress

An ungrateful wench

A prudish bitch

Who they will gladly let suffer

Or will go out of their way

to cause harm to

For their own pleasure

Ironic

Pretty sure your homeboys

would question your sexuality

going after a woman like me

"[You] still hit, though!"

--

Black men

You don't want me

Permanently

You want me

As a booty call

You want me

As a one night stand

You want me

As a starter baby mama

So you can have a comparison

When you “come up”

Or so you can have

Your polygamous harem

That you're too apprehensive to admit to

You don't want me as a wife

You don't even want me as a girlfriend

You want to hit it and quit it

But you won't admit it

You'll lie, coerce, withhold,

persuade and/or Pressure

Your way in between a black woman's legs

And then denigrate them

For even allowing you access

Black women want y'all, that's for sure

So many of us die single

Waiting for one of y'all

But the majority of y'all

Would seem to see us

The same way as so much of the world:

as unlovable whores

You contribute to our pain and weathering

And you won't even admit to y'allselve

Or check the other black men around you

For being this way

--

Black women

I don’t know where to start

All I can say is

Y’all were my first bullies

Y’all will revile

And hate me for saying that

But it’s true

And continually

Throughout my life

Not as a way to correct

Redirect or protect me

Y’all have ostracized,

Belittled and traumatized me

Yeah, the world around us does that too

But why y’all?

Because I’m a reflection of y’all, right?

And y’all really don’t like what y’all see

In Me?

So you have to break me?

Force me to fit into a box

That y’allselves struggle every day

To fit into?

--

With all the pain

That I write about Black people having caused me

You’d think I’d hate us

Maybe I'm a masochist

Maybe I'm naive

Maybe I'm too optimistic

See only the best in people too often

But I can tell

We’re all scared

We’re all trying our damndest

Just to make it in this world

Meant to crush our beings daily

I love being black

I love black people, in North America

And the wider diaspora as well

I just wish it didn’t hurt getting close to one another

The hedgehog’s dilemma

I’ve spent so long thinking

It was just me doing something wrong

But nah,

Nah

We have a deep seated fear

and hatred

towards difference

And we don’t like different people

And we feel the incessant need

To force each other into boxes

Thinking it’ll spare us harm

Respectability politics

Texturism

Fatphobia

Queerphobia

Colorism

Misogynoir

If only we could fit

The Upper Caste’s ideals

And be “good” blacks

Then everything would be okay

And I

Am part

Of what is standing in y’alls way,

apparently

So y’all have felt the need

My entire life

To “cut me down a few pegs”

And force me to conform

Even if it costs me my life

I get it,

where the need to hurt me comes from

It still hurts

It hurts every day

I don’t hate us,

I just want better for us

Does loving someone have to hurt?

In opening yourself up

to love and vulnerability

There's a chance you'll get hurt, right?

But

We’ll end up going back and forth

For hours and weeks and years

Wasting time, wasting lives

Talking, debating

Solving nothing

I’m living so as to make room

So that there is space for me

For black people like me

To, one day, be deeply,

truly loved and accepted as we are

I don’t hate us

I guess I just want for more of us

to not hate the ones that are like

me

--

My Black Joy

My black Joy

Was walking and running

And then my body

Got really sore

Became so inflamed with pain

That standing up hurts

Walking hurts

Running hurts

Sitting or laying down

is barely a relief anymore

My black Joy

Is like a sun that shines down

Behind the clouds of my

Sadness? Depression? Exhaustion?

Bleak perspective of my life?

There is joy, little and big,

But it always feels,

Like something comes along

And overshadows my joy

I need

Big Joy all the time

To counteract the Negativity

But

I can't feel joy all the time

And every day isn't going to be joyful

So I sit

In my Black sadness

and ache

And wait for my black joy

to come around again

--

Black sadness

Black grief

I don't know

how much more

I can stand

To hear

or read

or watch

The pains and atrocities

Of my people

Of people who look like me globally

I don't know

how much more I can stand

Of the cold stares and hot glares

The side eyes and quick look aways

The micro and macroagressions

Y'all just want me to be angry

So you can point and laugh

And more easily weather me down

Be reactively abusive towards me

Justify terrorizing and eliminating me

Now that I write about it

Y'all do that with ALL of our emotions

Why is my existence funny to y'all?

It's not schadenfreude

To be endlessly giddy

At seeing melanated people struggle

Unconsciuously feeling like

it is our given status in the world

to suffer

--

Black intersex woman

You are a ghost

and folks want you dead

You “have it easy”

Because you pass

and are so

beautiful

The fact

that you can't have babies

Doesn't matter

Until it does

I see us though

Try to stay loving

We (I) Matter

We (I) deserve to live and be happy

Cliché, but it's true

Make it a daily affirmation

--

Who likes to say

"I told you so"?

Especially when it's something bad

I don't like saying

"I told you so"

--

I wanted to soar

But y'all shot holes into my wings

So I learned to run

But y'all broke my ankles

Now I don't know what to do

Because I know y'all're sitting there

Waiting to see what I do

So y'all can pounce and attack me

--

How many people

Have we

Let fall by the wayside?

Not "how many have fallen

And we (y'all) just didn't notice?"

No.

How many

Have we (y'all) knew were struggling

And couldn't be found

To give a single iota of a damn?

Would rather shade online

In y'alls groupchats

And ignore

And when they're (we're) found dead

SUDDENLY

(optimally?)

Y'all have the motivation

To set up a fund

For the family of the deceased

I feel alone and unwanted and like

The only good part of me

Is my corpse