i breathe them in each night
a shallow breath of scaly skin
i breathe deep & think
of the shrimp’s crooked smile
i breathe deeper & am thankful
for the lobster’s claw
i know this is a type of love
and dream for their flesh to never know harm nor hurt
to never know run and hide

i know this is a type of love
because my cheeks grow warm
               my hands fling at the stars
               i dance a dance all my own
               there is music in my chest

i know this is a kind of love
because i think of my family
how they smile & i smile too
i always think of love & soft feather beds
because the water is perfect for me & when i close
my eyes i only see a garden growing upwards
towards the sun that is really a smile
& the water washes away the dust
of my night screams
love is an open door
a boat swimming against a purple glory
& syrup spun sugar
& i breathe & breathe & breathe
love ’til we become

I know who I am because I believe it

The breath in my chest
Insistent in its choice

The skin that I’m in
The bones and blood and veins
It carries like a promise

          Have you witnessed the ocean

Moving with so much gust and life
Have you witnessed the river
Still waters bubbling the rebirth of school

           Have you witnessed your body

Its own country of water
Moving against the tide of a world
So heartbreaking      it’s forgotten its own voice

Be still friend
Be still
Be kind to yourself in the gift of stillness

I know who I am because I believe it
I know
I know
Who I
Who I
Believe
Believe
Believe
In three’s we will come
A drip of water moving against a boulder
Water slow and steady can turn rock
Into a pebble
Like anxiety
Like self-doubt
Smaller
Smaller
Until gone
Let your love for yourself be the water
Be the rise
Be the mist
Let you be

I know who I am because I believe it
I believe I am my mother’s daughter
I believe I am my grandmother’s prayers
I believe I am my great-grandmother’s backbone revealed

I am I am because I believe so
I am because a woman believed in me
What a continent I became
What a country of water I be
I flow and fluid and rise and ebb and I believe in me

           I am not wrong
I am wronged

In this skin I’ve reclaimed
From this trap of this country’s tourniquet
Only to find the sweet solace is a river bed
Its mud beckons me closer to its silt
Small fish and forgotten glass unearth themselves
Like baby teeth
Only one can cut into flesh purposely
Only one does not know what it is capable of

I believe in the air as much as I believe in the fire
I believe in the fire as much as the water consumes
I believe in a higher source
Energetic and wise
I believe in my ability to thrive

This body
        This body is a good thing

Turning two miles walked over a bridge into a family’s meal
Creating poems that become cashier’s checks
Dentist bills and rent
I’ve three holes in my teeth
And a nation that pretends I didn’t almost die for it to survive

I am I am still here still here
I am still here and like the ocean, full of salt and shells
Full of ship remnants and noble ones
I bleed and the sand grieves
I be because someone survived for me to be here
Today

Breathing this almost air
Marching for cleaner belongings
My front seat beneath the deadening stars
Is still a seat
Is still a ground
Is still a home that I can pronounce my given name
To write amongst the forgotten names
The taken and the ignored
But today

            There are no tombstones

Today
There is no true death

Only life
Only life
Only a song of the living
Maybe even a belief system
With water as its minister

            I am water

I dive into my own currents
I dress my dreams in the satin breath
Of my ancestors

I know
I know
I know who I am
I know who I am because I believe it

The Slave Castle in Elmina isn’t as beautiful as her name suggests
I enter the clay arms of Gorée Island’s ancient grounds
and let this be the last thought that steals my attention

The red fortress still leans against the volcanic rocks
as stunning as any glossy travel magazine cover
it’s hard to distinguish eloquent architecture from its destructive design

Listen, beauty can kill more beautiful things

It delights in possessing the bruised, sweet fruit, whether it bursts or rots

The stubborn door of Maison des Esclaves fastens shut after we enter
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
suspicious as a stolen bride

The spirituals in my chest 
are eager to return to a home I know

“The Door Of No Return” waits patiently ahead 

Have you ever stared at a hungrier death?

The dank, stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
I imagine they were the color of my great-grandmother 
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives

The murder pen is flanked by stone-structured quarters 
where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
where island-bound women were taught to slice her sister’s flight 
a math problem divided by no living answer

I can still see the blue-black neck of the gun barrel 
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit
signaling the shark’s breakfast with screams from the bullet’s prey
as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved

What other hell is there to believe in?

In the belly of the mausoleum, where the echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I hold my chest like a machete and weep for the lives stolen until shadows

I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman 
But I know the heaven we jump towards is merely a holy crawl
You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut 

After months and months and months of steel rust blisters
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives 
in the jaws of a sea beast or a stolen country’s mineral pit

Hollow, be the manmade purgatory you believe in
I swear, on everything I love

hell looks nothing like this

The Sound in my Body¹ (Murmuration & Echo) 

I enter the clay arms of Goree Island’s ancient grounds
The red fortress leans against the volcanic rocks
it’s hard to distinguish eloquent architecture from its destructive design

It delights in possessing the bruised sweet fruit no matter if it bursts or rots
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
The spirituals in my chest 

“The Door of No Return” waits patiently ahead 
The dank stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives

where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
a math problem with no living answer
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit

as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved
In the belly of the mausoleum, their echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman 

You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut 
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives
Hollow,      be the manmade purgatory you believe in

I swear on everything I love
 

^{1. The murmur is an acknowledgment of [Cathay] Williams’s being the only Black woman in the Buffalo Soldier’s 38th Infantry. The final construction consists of three parts. The first element, “The Sound,” is a thirty-eight-line poem written by the poet. The subsequent construction, “The Murmuration,” is a poem that takes the even numbers from the previous composition. These lines, nineteen in total, will then be divided into six tercets. “The Murmuration” closes with a declarative statement from line 37 of “The Sound.” The final piece, “The Echo,” is composed by taking the first line from each tercet in “The Murmuration.” The collection of these three elements will complete the full murmur.}