Nejma

i am mine. before i am ever anyone else's.

the truth is you were born for you. you were wanted by you. you came for you. you are here for you. your existence is yours. yes.

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

do not choose the lesser life. do you hear me. do you hear me. choose the life that is. yours. the life that is seducing your lungs. that is dripping down your chin.

be easy. take your time. you are coming home. to yourself. — the becoming

and i heard her say, 'you are afraid of love. but love is not afraid of you.

the first time the caregiver saw it on the child. they said ‘no. don’t you dare. you will not grow up thinking you are unwanted. because your parents. chose themselves. over you. this will not be your story because it is not the truth. the truth. is your creation is not about them. you came through them, my love, they were your vessel. the truth. is you were born for you. you were wanted by you. you came for you. you are here for you. your existence is yours. yes. you will want them. (and on odd and warm nights they will think of you and hold themselves tighter.) but. what you do not get. from them. does not make you less. does not make you unwanted. (trust that all you did not receive. all you need. will come to you. in time. the universe is infinite.’) — a love poem

all the women. in me. are tired.

i will always be a translation.

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. as you are.’ says the universe through tears. — as you are | you are the prayer

Some words. The way they look at you...

the cure for apathy is memory.

sometimes i want to say it. and there is nothing in english. that will say it.

a poem can eat a person whole. for years.

put some honey and sea water by your bed. acknowledge. that your being needs sweetness and cleansing. that it is sore. that you are. soft. - orishas

yes. yes i do. have the right to be this lush and neverending.

whether with a lover or none. i reek of love. i stink of love.

the poem. the one that is running through your life. pay attention. to that poem.

but this was never a relationship. i have no idea who you are.

i have a life to garden. a multiverse to wake from sleep. — giants

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

there is peaceful. there is wild. i am both at the same time.

a friend. is someone who supports your breath.

our tragedy begins humid. in a humid classroom. with a humid text book. breaking into us. stealing us from ourselves. one poem. at a time. it begins with shakespeare. the hot wash. the cool acid. of dead white men and women. people. each one a storm. crashing. into our young houses. making us islands. easy isolations. until we are so beleaguered and swollen with a definition of poetry that is white skin and not us. that we tuck our scalding. our soreness. behind ourselves and learn poetry. as trauma. as violence. as erasure. another place we do not exist. another form of exile where we should praise. honor. our own starvation. 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.) and so. we are here. brown babies. worshipping. feeding. the glutton that is white literature. even after it dies. (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.)

you are a flood in my hands.

every poem. here. is an unwrite. of all that has been written in me without. permission.

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

i learned shukran. (thank you) first. shukran. (thank you) for this meal. shukran. (thank you) for making this for me. shukran. for everything. and in the midst of all of this. gratitude. la. (no) was lost. before. i ever found it. — the blunt force of gratitude

we need to share our wars.

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.