My grandfather likes hot chocolate His skin is as dark as night He believes in big breakfasts With half a grapefruit for good measure And taking your hat off at the dinner table And checking in on your nieces and nephews He is a good Baptist man A church deacon An Alpha man A college... Continue Reading →
How can you go home When you don’t know where it is? The map I see in textbooks is unfamiliar yet comforting Like meeting a cousin for the first time Who looks just like you I study it And can only dream and pretend That I know the route back I study eyes and noses... Continue Reading →
A little life update: since my last post here, I have been admitted into Wake Forest School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I am working towards earning a Master of Divinity. I definitely can go into detail at a later date about what grad school has been like thus far, and I know... Continue Reading →
*Throwing a temper tantrum* I don’t want any more angels I don’t want any more memorials We want to live *Crying and whimpering* I’m really starting to get scared I could be the next one What if I forget to signal when I’m driving? What if my nose twitches From an itch And someone thinks... Continue Reading →
Sometimes I think about a woman’s belly The kind that is soft and just a little warm That cups into your hand And puckers under your lips Bellies are underrated Attention is often given To more explicit places But the belly is tender A windowsill made of cotton to rest your head With sides to... Continue Reading →
A brown-skinned celebrity of African descent Made a post on Instagram today saying she was happy. Understandably so, Her song is doing really well; Number 4 on TikTok. A fan of unknown ethnic descent commented on the post Saying they were sad That Black men are being murdered in this country, And asked how she... Continue Reading →
I remember sitting on your bed in your dorm room- It was a single, just one of many signs that you were often lucky in circumstance- Listening to you talk about the guy you had a crush on, who was white, But you thought it could work, even though your parents were conservative and African.... Continue Reading →
To make an old fashioned cocktail,Preferably with rye, You take a small glass tumbler, Put a cube of sugar on the bottom, Pour bitters over the sugar, Then muddle. Put in an ice cube, Then pour the whiskey on top. Garnish with a rind of citrus. This is an old fashioned love poem. Old fashioned... Continue Reading →
Do you ever feel like some feelings Come from different moments in time But feel the same way Like how watching a pretty girl curl her hair with a flat iron in a TikTok tutorial Feels like when you were 18 dancing in a club with pretty lights And you had X’s on your hands?... Continue Reading →
I am a Black woman living in America. My whole life, the culture that surrounds me has taught me that the value of a Black woman is largely extrinsic. Like Aunt Viv in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Regina King’s role in Miss Congeniality 2, the Black woman is most often portrayed in the... Continue Reading →
Sankofa Virgo 