Poems
paint | watercolor | charcoal | pencil
The Things They Tell Me
This boy told me I was art, This man told me I was walking poetry, He saw a glimpse of my body and said it would be greed to never share it with his world, While he saw the clusters in my mind and said it would be selfish to never share it with the world, He said he wanted every part of me, While he said he wanted every piece of me They said they were explorers. He wanted to discover the terrains of my body and conquer all he could, marking every part he could with a flag of his identity. While he wanted to pioneer my universe, only taking notes which he would only leave with trace-less marks. They said they were explorers.... They never told me they were colonizers, And I was never one to be conquered.
Stripped
They have mastered the art of bleaching, Crafted in the methods of the usurpation of tinted voices, Skilled in the craftsmanship of the one-sided-blinded jealousy, Because they want the seeds of our culture but never our roots, Because they only want the aesthetics of our livelihood but without the tangled gallery of our past, Because they only want the beauty of our land but not the beauty of our people, They only want to strip us of our golden skin, because they’ve seen the sun kiss our skin more times than they felt we deserve, because how could the sun ever love something other than light. Or maybe, they want to paint themselves with our color in hopes to paint over the guilt passed by their generations, Because maybe the gold will shine over crimson, or at least make it ruby red, similar to Dorothy’s slippers but rather when they tap it twice it sends us back to where we came from, that way they can keep our identity without having to look into our eyes to see the reflections of a murderer, But it doesn’t matter, because at least they sent us home, but not to the home that they’ve stripped from us, but rather to an unwanted land we’re forced to call our own, But it wont be long until they’ll want to call it their home.
Clogged
Being with him was like Living with clogged ears Waiting To hear the music that was you.
War
I know one day you’ll break me, I’ll hear whispers in the back of my ears of women I know nothing of, Tell me, what part of my back should be prepped in war paint, I’ll cover it in red so you wont know how much I’ve bled, I’ll practice my war cries enough times, So I can no longer say your name once it’s over.