WISH YOU WERE HERE
The sun breaks through storm clouds and forms
double rainbows like echoes in the sky.
I stopped asking “Why?”
and started saying “Thank you” when I see you
THE WATER WILL COME
“On the release sheet, it says
DEATH.”
Locked away like unwanted knick-knacks in an attic,
overcrowded like a slave ship with
cramped selves on top of cramped cells…
THE BLESSING OF THE WOMAN WITH THE ISSUE OF BLOOD, THE CANNABIS SEED, AND THE LIBERATED MIND
“To be blessed,”
said The Woman With The Issue of Blood,
“is to spend as much money on self-care as
I do on super plus tampons and extra-long, overnight maxi pads…
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!
THE QUEEN’S DANCE
The queen danced to Queen. Rebirthed and free she felt, shaking her jelly cuz jam don’t shake like that. Fear don’t shake like that. Thank God the vinyl record didn’t scratch. Box braids in a bun bouncing, beat face pronouncing the announcement that…
SISTA FRIEND
Sista friend, ‘member when
we barely knew each other?
Stuck with each other involuntarily,
tight smiles concealed rolled eyes and sucked teeth
til a fateful Saturday when we saw red and entered the ring,
Happy National Poetry Writing Month!
You could never be me.
First, you’d have to
update your vocabulary. See,
I speak unique, eat and drink
words for breakfast and aperitif
they’re nutrient-dense and fiber-rich.
I’m nouveau riche,
top 10 percent,
MoCo girl, Nigerian,
Poetic Response to Beyoncé’s “AMERIICAN REQUIEM”
Them big ideas are buried here
watered by salty tears of ancestors who feared
freedom would never come.
But here I is,
barefoot but standing tall
busting out of boxes made too small
raspy voice yells, “Hee-haw!”
Y’all done doubted me too long.
27 Mantras To Increase Your Willpower
“We hold the power to change our own lives, one word at a time.”
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…
