15/05

take notes from flowers:
turn to face the Son so you
experience growth.

02/05

a young queen is ripped from her castle.

men stick their generals inside her.

she is ordered to kill or be killed.

her castle was nothing grand. the crown jewels were love and joy. she wants to go back,

but if she escapes,

the stigma stuck in between her thighs will follow her around like a bad smell

and they will say she is good for nothing.

17/30

the butterflies are
slightly confused now, but they
are glad to be back.

16/30

not sure I want to be here anymore 

I do not want to stare pain in the face anymore

a woman has given birth to her dead baby today - the sort of
tragedy that should only happen in plays,

why is a futile question,

but the only word that springs forth from my lips,

when the cruel of this world becomes apparent again…

I do not have to wait long.

objects around us are not made of molecules, they are made of
melancholy,

and I want to say sorry to every mother who has buried her
baby, but what can ease that pain? life forming in a womb,
ripped from the source, starved of life before even getting
to taste it.

perhaps it is better that he did not stay, what is there for
him here but sorrow. 

I’ve never been one for pessimism, 

but woe is gathering in the hall of my lungs,

and I can hardly breathe. 

15/30

see
no-one looked at you funny, 
it’s all in your head.
the hair that grows out of your head
is quite ordinary.
pretty even.
the word my friend used to describe it,
she had no idea what it meant to me.
more than 10 years of rejecting what God had carefully designed,
believing I was only beautiful once my head had been doused in chemicals 
and I looked like the few women in 
the magazines who looked like me -
no weave necessary, my pride was not pretty 

superiority complex derived from a false notion of beauty,
now I feel less beautiful,
it has taken getting used to,
it will take getting used to,
but yesterday,
my friend told me that my hair - tight curl, braided, a little messy - looked pretty, and she had no idea how much it meant. 

12/30

this morning,

as i shovelled spoonfuls of frosties + hot milk into my mouth,

i looked out of my window and stared into the heavens,

watched as a sky of grey and foreboding

transformed into a sun-soaked blue.

i basked in its warmth

and praised God for moving on.

all the grey clouds have shifted now,

the sun has taken his place.

he shines fearlessly,

and his very presence demands our joy.

praise God for grey-cloud sorrow

and the sun-provoked joy that is hot on its tail. 

11/30

make your home in my chest.

bring doubting drawers

and worry wardrobes,

bring fear futons and

uncertainty underwear.

i don’t want us to hide anything.

come, make your home in my chest.

let our foundation be friendship, our walls be warmth.

the door will be devotion and we’ll be roofed in reassurance.

make your home in my chest,

we’ve got good music in here -

stevie wonder, lauryn hill + amel larrieux for the winter nights.

5/30

my mama always told me i was beautiful,

but sometimes she’d mock my big feet, and she doesn’t know
why i have forsaken the chemical formula which turns my
no-trace-of-asian-genes mane into a product of society’s
standard of beauty.

i have been told i am beautiful,

but still, when i stand before myself staring back at me, i
can’t help but pull at my chub, critique my proportions,
despise my breasts for their uneven and lack of similarity
with the women in the magazines (i know everyone’s are uneven
and i know what photoshop is, but that doesn’t really help
anything)

i am grateful for the woman in my form, how my flesh has
blossomed and i am no longer the stick thin, gangly awkward
pre-pubescent kid i once was.

there is beauty in the parts i do not love, beauty in the
fact that i know one day i will cherish them.

i rub my hand over my stomach and dream of the day when it
will swell and transform into my beloved’s 9 month only
condo,

that my body is capable of such is magic to me.

i am magic,

no-one else on the entire earth ever has and never will
look like me,  

black woman, miracle in my smile, pride in my step,

believing in my beauty is revolutionary

4/30

the butterflies are 
back, they have been missed. beauty
flutters where pain perched.

3/30

you’re a tree,

i don’t know much about trees so i don’t know what type,

but I’d know you’d be a strong one,

a sturdy one,

one that bears fruit and has huge branches

because you were never one to live for yourself

your foundations are steady -

winter will come, but you will never fall

maybe you might even grow to be the biggest tree in the world,

and people will come to visit you from all over

they’ll see how grand yet humble you are

your rough bark tells of where you’ve been

and the struggles you’ve lived through

but the sweetness of your fruit will be a foretaste of the glory to come

and a reminder that the suffering is never in vain.

1/30

i’d like to take a hammer and a nail to my skull,

tap – crack it open,

and find, then exile, the tiny man who has parked his car in the little gap directly between my messy thoughts room

and the creativity and coherence channel

the last truck.

aortic lane

dead of night

the last truck slowly pulls away 

and i watch as it hurtles off into the distance.

i am alone,

but it is the most wonderfully alone i have ever been,

a most liberating alone,

all your stuff is gone.

that was the last of it,

there in that truck.

i thought this day would never come,

and damnit, it feels good.

we watch our prayers billow upward like smoke
fresh off our lips, these newly birthed sentences are immediately aware of their higher calling and they soar
wipsy words intertwining, rising,
they mix and kiss and dream of their heavenly abode
the room comes alive with fragrance and like the words on the air, our hearts dance
hopeful and expectant is the melody; faith is the bass line
God will taste our prayers
and we hope that they’re sweet enough for him
for we spoke them
having heard of His kindness
having remembered His good of old
having run from the world’s empty promises.

heartbreak.

they tell you it hurts,

but until you live it, you

have got no idea.