nejma

by Nayyirah Waheed

when words take off their clothes. for me. so i can write. them exactly. as they are. — skin

and so. we are here. brown babies. worshipping. feeding. the glutton that is white literature. even after it dies.

there is no healthier drug than creativity.

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

all the women. in me. are tired.

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.

you wear my culture around your neck. bask in and praise its jewels. pick it up on days when you want attention. put it down when it starts to stain.

a poem can eat a person whole. for years.

as a black woman. a woman of color. writer. artist. creative. my work is not a literary zoo. for you to come observe. learn. about the animals. or a space to come and dissolve into a plastic empathy. or a space to publicly. loudly. dominantly. flog your privileges. nor is it a warm. indiscriminate. cavernous. lap to lay in. it is a boundary. i am a boundary. — unmammy

i walk into a poem and walk out someone else. — writing

whenever i think about my mother and father. and the amount of cruelty i have ate at their hands. i remember that i am the best of them. and i am at peace. — redeem