nejma

by Nayyirah Waheed

to you. my people. of color. you are an altar of stars. remember this. always. do not ever forget this.

i sang a god alive for you.

the sun cleanses itself. i cleanse myself. for both of us. it is morning. — wudū

you are a private gold.

you are a flood in my hands.

there was an evening in what you said.

grieve. so that you can be free to feel something else.

‘you are afraid of love. but love is not afraid of you.’

we need to share our wars.

the little bits of langston. phyllis wheatley. and angelou during black history month. are the crumbs. are the minor boats. that give us slight rest. to be waterdrugged into rejecting the nuances of my own bursting extraordinary self. and to have this be called education. to take my name out of my name. out of where my native poetry lives. in me. and replace it with keats. browning. dickson. wolf. joyce. wilde. wolfe. plath. bronte. hemingway. hughes. byron. frost. cummings. kipling. poe. austen. whitman. blake. longfellow. wordsworth. duffy. twain. emerson. yeats. tennyson. auden. thoreau. chaucer. thomas. raliegh. marlowe. burns. shelley. carroll. elliot… (what is the necessity of a black child being this high off of whiteness.)

(years later. the conclusion: shakespeare is relative. white literature is relative. that we are force fed the meat of an animal that our bodies will not recognize. as inherent nutrition. is not relative. is inert.)

your novels. the classic novels of a minutia. i have no interest in. pale. in comparison to the novels of my world. the novel of my mother. the novels of my grandparents. the articulate novels of how my people walk down a street. the novels i have been reading my whole life.

(all the places the darkest light lives in you.)

poetry. is an infusion of scale and feather. bruise and mist.

you are the thing. that comes from your soul.

‘as you are.’ says the universe. ‘after…’ you answer. ‘as you are.’ says the universe. ‘before…’ you answer. ‘as you are.’ says the universe. ‘when…’ you answer. ‘as you are.’ says the universe. ‘how…’ you answer. ‘as you are.’ says the universe. ‘why…’ you answer. ‘because you are happening now. right now. right at this moment and your happening is beautiful. the thing that both keeps me alive and brings me to my knees. you don’t even know how breathtaking you are.

the words. they are in love with you.

what happened when you left madiba. they came to dissect your body. wanting us to smile and nod while they plucked your eyes into their pockets for later. for the time when they will make your name. a science. a war. against us. (madiba. you are a different grief. for us.) what happened when you left madiba. your people. we softened. and broke. and kneeled over in pain. and sang. and threw ourselves against the walls. against each other. and hid. and caved. and opened. and tossed ourselves into work. and danced. and shrank. and closed. and ate. and bled. and held on. and ignored. and accepted. and lied. and laughed. and created. and undid. and drank. and drugged. and loved something. someone. somewhere. ourselves. fiercer. and hated. something. someone. somewhere. ourselves. fiercer. and swam. and rejected. and yearned. and distanced. and clawed. and touched. and some of us will disown you. because you hurt too much. some of us will have to say your name for a year. before we are able to sleep.

i have been eating flowers. drinking honey. every day. for every meal. all this sweetness eases my blood from missing you,

i am trying to remember you and let you go at the same time.

(how do you return the sun back to the sky. with someone. and let them leave you.)

we return to each other in waves. this is how water loves.

precious. is a word we barely know. but know we are not. so then i say this to you. you. with the low sun face. with the burning mountain eyes. you. with the skin is that is always dusted with stars. you. with the soil in your thigh. arm. lips. you person of color. you are precious. you are precious. you are precious. spend time with this.

i am a soft revolution. the one whose hair is bleeding.

my mother gave me islam. my father gave me the god of absence. and here ii am. a ...

what happens when the war. no. longer wants. war.

there is dark. and there is anti light. these are not the same things.

the thing i know as poetry. is that feeling ii get in my eyes.

the first time i met my mother. i knew sh...

the house i grew up in was all ways sweating. all. ways wet. all. ways hot. all. ways crying in another language. this is why i’m this. malleable. wh...

all the women. in me. are tired.

there is a god in writing. a soft. roaring. unconditional. home of a god. who prays to me.

i am mine. before i am ever an...

melanin is memory. is the blue weight of the ocean. sewn into the red dusk of sky. living in the soil of your body. it is alive. leaping and sweeping you. against. into the sun. your skin was the first astronaut. the first in space. you touch. talk. are intimate with the sun. everyday. and do not perish.

melanin. is the world. before this world. before the word. slave. during the word. slave. after the word. slave. it is the books. written into yourself. wild math in the pads of your feet. soft science in your hair. language down your back. invention in your mouth.

melanin is why you are still alive. after. the torching. it is a second lung. the next heart. and the next heart. and the next. a never ending. regenerative. breathing thing. a ceremony of life. whil...

melanin is a wisdom that knew. hate would be the anti light come to devour. defile. destroy. a wisdom that did not flinch. a wisdom...

melanin is memory. future memory. past memory. your memory. the memory of l...

i will make you. on my back. ii will raise you this way. a child of the gravity. and the light.

your father left. when you were in the womb. took his blood. and walked out the door. while you were in the house of your mother. in the house of your mother. took his blood. when you needed it most. if he could keep searching his hands. in the midst of your creation. could hear you forming on your mother’s life. on his life. and gather all his feet in secret. all the other wild adventures of missing. he would drag you through. would only ever be this wound. over and over and over again. your father left. when you were in the womb. took his blood. and walked out the door. it would be the first and final. of all the leavings.

mothers who leave. for no other reason. than children are water in their throat.

there is a baby in my blood. and what am i to do. my neck barely carries my head. and i don’t have enough to hold a baby in. what will become of my small name. my little laughter will they be filled with milk. and this water mountain (in my waist.) my sister says i must say goodbye to my old voice. (even though it is still hot from my mothers’ pushing.) she says i must untie my tears from my eyes only at night. she says ‘lua, you will smell like a woman now.’ and i am lost in the way the sky is falling through her hands as she tells me this. there is a baby in my blood. where will i live.

if i give birth to twin poems. a year apart from one other. they may look as one person. but they are really two. two lives. breathing from the same mouth.

poetry alters my dna. every poem is a different life. every poem brings me closer to myself. and breaks open a new future inside of me.

you want a romance with my blackness. and how it holds you. how it illuminates your skin. makes you break your breath. against itself. and how is this possible. when your world has never made you breath. not once. ever. but my blackness makes you think about yourself. in a way you have never. and you are open. a question. alive. and now hungry.

a poem can eat a person whole. for years.

i am taking a bath. i am washing a war from me.

‘she is the dirty sea in broken lingerie.’ i hear you say. this. as you throw and throw and throw ones down her throat. and i think about how beautifully her skin guts you like a fish. how she is warm gold on that pole. and the physics of her thighs. the way she breaks your eyes. the home her body makes for your money. but not you. each and every night. and i think. ‘you are the one who is really in pain.’

teach you. i cannot. i am too busy making blood.

there were times when i needed. no. and it was not there for me.