The Words That Have Kept Me
I asked a writer I was inspired by how to get over writer’s block. Her answer: “Read.” That’s it. At the time the answer didn't rub me in the nicest way yet I filed her advice under the things that may be useful tab in my mind. A peer later suggests that I go on a reading tour within projects. I decided to pick several books and power through them. What started as merely a task to develop my skill and voice has now become a ritual that keeps me grounded in the midst of my own creative chaos.
Years later into my career I have incorporated reading as a part of my creative practice. There are many things I can say about books and how they find you at just the right moment. The way they make you feel seen and affirmed while also challenging your thought. Books in the multitude of genres are each an individual voice in society and that is something that remains found in me. So I am constantly asking myself, what do I want my voice to say?
I figured what better time than the present to share with you, the words that have kept me. Lately, I have been reading a lot of poetry as a practice in abstract language and I have found a beautiful message in the smallest of stanzas. Sometimes the most powerful things do not take many words. That is the beauty of poetry. Its ability to give life; a seed if you will. Allow me to plant in your mind, fruits of the labor of language.
Dressing Our Wounds in Warm Clothes
by: Ntozake Shange
we’re as fragile as slight tree limbs
laden with ice on a fierce winter day
we lay up by the escalator in Penn Station
eating our cures & way / our tuna in cans
our clothes in a shopping cart from
somewhere / the big apple store / not
Balducci’s or the Jeffeson Market
we wear three & four dresses at a time
walk barefoot down 8th avenue
we have sometimes a peculiar odor
but no worse from the women’s room
at Penn Station / people carry
suitcases & travel bags / take trains
go places / they’re sturdy & mindful
this spot / our rags protect us
see I designed this myself / no one
anywhere looks quite like this
is my beauty
Conversations With the Ancestors
ancestral messages/composition 11
by: Ntozake Shange
they told me to travel toward the sun
to lift my feet from the soil
engage myself to the wind in a dance
called my own/
my legs, wings of lavender & mauve
they carried me to the sun-cave
the light sweet shadows eclipsing our tongues
we spoke of longings/ yearnings/ the unknown
we spoke in the tongue of the snake
the hoot of the owl
tongues of our ancestors
dancing in the wind
we traverse the sun
fully fired violet beings
directly overhead the sun-cave
lifting me/ coaxing my eyes
to see as theirs do
crisp stalking spirits/ proud
swirling spirits/ my blood
they’ve made themselves a home here
blood relatives converging
wherever my soul is lurking
telling me now yes now
go to the center of the sun
we are sending sepia stallions
headstrong appaloosas and cypress carriages
to carry you home
Hymn
by: Ashlee Haze
lean in,
let me tell you of a wall-less church
a congregation of women in the business of saving
women who do the heavy lifting while the world gawks from the sidelines
women given the trash and the broken
yet refused to think you disposable
women serving as a second womb
for the motherless
for grown men intent on not doing their own emotional work
and we let you bask in the greatness
should you be so lucky to be granted the magic
because we might side eye you to kingdom come
might roll our eyes till you disappear
and aint that sorcery?
the way our defenses protect us from the elements
from a winter of the undeserving intent getting all our harvest
you so vain you think we do this for you
as if we wake up in the morning pandering to the world’s gaze
as if the women of Alabama and Wakanda had nothing better to do
than to save men from themselves
lean in,
we save ourselves and you get saved in the process
and aint that the way it always goes?
we get dressed in all the work we do
and you are saved just by touching the hem of our garments
black queer women create social justice movements
and you make it about the people oblivious of their own privilege
men who demand we be black first and women when it suits them
our intersectionality is an inconvenient myth
misogyny is a weed that keeps growing back
mo matter how many think pieces we spray on it
the trouble with being savior, though
is people usually don’t think you need saving
don't think we need gentleness
to my sisters, I vow to be more gentle with you
know that you ate worthy of someone who helps with the work
too long we have dined with the world
serving food from our own gardens
on tables we bought and built
all that I have I owe to black women
I say glory to the women who thought I was worth saving
glory to the women who think I’m enough
even on days when I fall short
I say I see you
you be visible
and you be worthy of all this praise
otw
by: Ashlee Haze
I have lived my life
with the promise
that somebody is coming
whether to save
or share
or hold me in the still of winter
I understand that loneliness is, indeed, a temporary phenomenon
yet, in this moment
I am aware of the possibility that this could be lasting
who am I if no one is on the way?
what of the little girl in me that peeks through the blinds?
who then to fill the space I been saving, huh?
tell me again, how I must show up for myself
tell me again how foolish of me to desire company
and I will proclaim
I am so full that I don’t know what to do with my own running over
what sin have I committed?
to want?
what penance for the audacity to yearn?
I have made room in my new house for multiple truths
yes, I am enough all by my glorious self
yes, I want to share this glory with you
I will end this with the opening line, which I find to be a poem in of itself,
by Toni Cade Bambara in The Salt Eaters.
“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”
May this seed grow in your heart, mind, and soul
Till next time,
Peace ♥♥