Now exhale and repeat after me.

On days I’m alive,
A universe blooms in my lungs,
Joy finding home within a body
Once thought a legend, poured from
The cups of the ancestors.

In this country, Black futures are my reason,
Because our freedom is chiseled in the grooves
Of ancient stones. Older than gaslighting texts.

If we were made in his image, then call us by our name.

My light, a gentle lover, touches everything differently,
Inheriting the fire of stars. Crafting my form
With a tenderness reserved for deities,
While the air holds its breath in a moment of reverence
Gathered around me like a poem’s blanket, or
Love letters folded into my pocket since birth.

I am only invisible to those who see with mortal eyes.
But if you’re looking, find me like the solitary dandelion
Dancing in the gales, each gust a kiss from full lips.

The first one placed on my big forehead—
Just like my momma’s.
The next placed on my wide nose—
Just like her momma’s. 

There I will be navigating chaos, vibrancy,
Filth and fervor. Finding myself no longer a stranger
In the anthems of the living, a paper character sprung
From someone else’s imagination,
Cast adrift in the waters of absence and confusion.

I am a continent, known in the language of my foremothers and fathers
Yelling on the edge of forever until hope is truth:

We alive, beloved!