Blax Hx 2023: ☮️ by ✌🏾

I was born on an army base in Texas. With the word ‘kill’ leading the way – war shielding a precious love. Near borders. In desert-like summer heat. To parents who inherently knew the importance of 2×2; but too young to realize the gravity of the nails placed in wooden boards. Around the corner from docked slave ships dripping in blood. Women speaking in tongues that everyone knew just by the sheer gut wrench of their cry. These are the women who’ve been made to swallow their tongue else it turn into a serpent in the garden. These are the women in the good book that no one wants to be like. But these are the women of whom I take my likeness. The bayou will always be so. No matter how many doctrines have attempted to flood out the shore. No matter how loud the gunshots are outside of libraries. No matter how much tar we’ve placed on the bottom of our feet. No matter how circular the journey due north becomes…. We hurt everywhere. How did we manage to leave anything but an apology behind? I thank God for grandmothers smart enough to take on coverings that were foreign to them. Strong enough to hold the secret through generations. Sometimes I feel as though I am coming out of my skin. At first it was a crawl, then a gallop, and now a flight. But then my baby smiles into my eyes. I get some reprieve from gazing at the cross her father, grand, brother, mate hangs on. And I remember how far we’ve come just by apologizing for the time and place of our births. Slick yet loud. Like black ice and pool balls. And I remember His footsteps looked slightly off center because I kick and scream in my sleep. And I remember now is the time for something different. Finally. And I remember. That this time the journey may not require an underground anything. May not require a bridge burned or flooded. Maybe this time the softness will come to us. And I remember that we are worthy of just that. And I remember – whether alive to tell the story or speaking from the grave…none of us have been brought this far just to be left behind; for it took grace to get us here, faith to lead us home.
And I remember… ☮️ by ✌🏾