Water in the Basket
How many more shades of grey
must we palette, canvas, scratch—
away // tears—through just to leave
noire squares? Yet purple hearts bleed true
Black is Beautiful
Oh, how beautiful it is to be Black,
although “the land of the free” placed targets
on our backs
we prevail, lift our heads to the sky.
WE/R\VB/R\
The cunning, clever spider Anansi wove wisdom itself, teaching the West African and Akan people lessons in intelligence and humility. In the Eastern Hemisphere, spiders embody knowledge, patience, and creativity; yet in the West, they often evoke fear with the association of danger and darkness.
wash day requiem.
you’re seated on the cold countertop of the kitchen
her hands tugging at your hair like god
she pulls this way
and you pull away
they dance with me
folks sing the same old songs
sang em just about every day
calling on home,
somewhere to return to
A Dream / The Archive
I saw the night fall unto midnight
and the sun make its neverending rise
I watched a baobab grove grow, my life
never on my own
The World’s Eyes
I have known you for all your days
I guided your first step
and breathed your first breath
and will give you air for your last
in defense of “angry”
Papers fly and pigs will too when
they don’t look at me with contempt for
what I have accomplished in spite of their
war crimes that go unpunished. Days
Threads
White stitching on navy fabric presses ridges into my thumbs.
This dress is perfect for those pearlescent pumps bought for her two weeks ago.
I register that I don't wait, returning to see if the price has dropped
like I did with Mother–
instead I buy it and pay extra for gold wrapping paper.
and then I’m reminded of my place here
The yellow orange body part of trees crunch underfoot as I cross 14th,
The murmur and running of engines sound like the thrum of people passing by. Walking through our Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, a woman shouts, “Go on kids, go play!” I watch her lifeblood grip and trample onto the sculpted stone structure,
Joro, Jara, Joro: An Ode to Fela Kuti
Hours flow, traffic stops abrupt.
Corrupt zombies go straight
Collection 02.
My relationship with sleep borders a crutch, maybe an addiction. It is not simply the rest a nap brings, it is the unrest of the rest of the world that I am trying to avoid. I wrote these poems about sleep, and I put them together after a much undeserved nap.
AFRICATOWN, USA
In the autumn of 1860, 110 of them bound and chained together, enslaved Africans from Dahomey into Mobile, with one person whose soul, so filled with song and sorrow, flew back home–
Ugh, Not Love again…
I titled this collection “Ugh, Not Love again…” because I wrote these poems at a point when I couldn’t take the push and pull of Capital L — Love. Going through the motions, I was winded at the intensity that Love brings and stunned by the feelings left in its wake. While frustrated with the constant theme of love, these are the ramblings of a scared, hopeless romantic, who uses cynicism as her disguise.
A Reckoning…
I haven’t thought about what life is, or what it isn’t, But I’ve acknowledged time and time again just how unbearable it can be, how profuse the struggles seemingly appear, how stressful it is in nature, how abundantly depressing it can be…
Trauma’s Legacy, Unity’s Triumph
At its heart, this poem encapsulates the essence of resilience, demonstrating how meaningful connections only occur within vulnerability. It emphasizes the profound strength that emerges when one learns to give themselves the love they have tirelessly sought in others. It unfolds a story of redemption and renewal through poetic language, illuminating the path from pain to power.