OUR SELF-LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY!
In a world that often challenges our worth, self-love becomes a radical act of defiance. My poem, "Our Self-Love is Revolutionary!", celebrates the quiet strength and resilience of melanated beings. Through each smile and every embrace of self, we reclaim our power and write our own narrative.
From Busy to Well: How Cancer Taught Me to Truly Live
Cancer forced my life into stillness. In that quiet, I noticed the silence of artistic colleagues who knew I was sick but never reached out. I felt the emptiness of achievements that once seemed so important when my health was on the line. Slowly, I shifted my focus inward, learning to embrace the profound value of family and spirituality over the external validation I once chased.
DIARY ENTRY from June 17, 2024
Anger is my birthright,
but so is peace.
I remind myself
of the highest version of me,
slowly morph into her
PRODUCTIVITY IS A FORM OF STRUGGLE
Productivity is a form of struggle
when it forces one to ignore their needs
to achieve the vision of a corporation.
“You Should Write a Book!”
If God granted me $5 every time someone told me I should write a book about my journey through breast cancer, I’d be able to buy a new pair of retro Nike Jordan 4’s by now. How do you write about a journey that is not over?
ODE TO OVEREXTENDERS (Poem)
I start to overextend;
a raspy voice over my right shoulder yells:
“Girl, save yourself!”
YOU CHOOSE (Poem)
I rudely request, require and desire a refrain from chronic pain
because this belligerent, bony, buss-down bundles to her buttcheeks b*tch
is insane, bringing broken bridges and invisible incisions,
THE HAPPIEST PLACE (Poem)
I stare at the sky
and instead of asking “Why?”
I whisper, “Thanks”
and drop tears as tithes.
THE SQUATTER
A squatter lives in my shoulders
she tore down the drywall
and built boulders,
armor for words of judgement to pierce less
THE HAUNTING
That feeling of foreigners invading my temple
hunts me.
I am hunted by emptiness behind the detectives’ eyes.
I am hunted by the ugly yellow linoleum floors
FOR THE SURVIVORS
Forget the men who saw buds on your chest and declared them breasts.
Forget the rain showers and the smell of hot guilt rising from pavement.
Forget the new moons in the sky, the clouded nights of hidden stars.
PEARL FISH
I am like a pearl fish.
I swam in treacherous waters,
Nigerian-American daughter.
A thick black-girl child ain’t safe
in an ocean full of sharks!
27 Mantras To Increase Your Willpower
“We hold the power to change our own lives, one word at a time.”
GOODBYE, WINTER!
Goodbye, Winter.
I leave you with love.
Though your cold cut
through my bones…
Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself!
My name is Farah Lolade Aduke Iyabode Harris. Most people know me as Farah Lawal Harris, a name I love because it identifies some of my intersections. Farah means "joy" in Arabic--My Muslim father and Christian mother gave me that name because I shifted the energy of grief…
