bone

by Yrsa Daley-Ward

because writing is a soft and a hard place, all at once.

Stop inciting stirrings, movements between us little rebellions, causing chaos in all of my darker places.

Some books are bound tightly for years for reasons.

battle Loving someone who hates themselves is a special kind of violence. A fight inside the bones. A war within the blood.

My new lover has a fridge full of beer and can almost make jollof rice also the sex is good and we are falling into something we will soon mistake for love

Until you put soft leaf to lip touch tongue to flesh, bite the lobe, swallow the juice she says will purify you until you open it up, sigh at the colour, see its very middle and learn what fingers are best at

Before you are dismantled, fixed and broke again you are not yet a lover.

Remember on the right night and under the right light any idea can seem like a good one and love love is mostly ill advised but always brave.

You can’t quell depression by making love. But we tried. But we tried, oh, we did.

See, they never held you back. It was you, only you.

something about the way black women hold your heart. You can leave them all you like but you can’t stay gone.