Little girl

Brown dipped sun queen with eyes heavier than the Atlantic

With sinking shoulders and sagging lips,

With feet dragging dirt-darkened memories

Hear this:

You sparkle

You sing majestic

You glow against the black of your yesterday

You belly big laughter, wide mouthed smile

Face fat and lush with the victory of your survival

You create space with your body

Make portals with your imagination

You build countries from sand castles

You swim past the moat of outer space

Dance across the rings of Jupiter

Find mermaid kindred in every galaxy

You art nightmares into healing

Poem resistance so delicate it feels like pleasure

You latch-key sorceress

You goddess of the hood

You fat bottomed princess, lobe-backed decadence

You brag, sun-child, sing your praises like you aren’t afraid

You deserve every accolade your diaphragm can belt

So you sing like your voice is perfection, like your song is the oxygen we need to survive

You make music like you’ve never known an insult

You miracle woman, you early morning angel

You thunder lightening thrust with your chin

You hold your head up high girl

You smile, you scream, you rage, you yell, you fight, you laugh, you rebel, you shout out at the top of your lungs

You sing those battle songs even when you’re told to forget

Tell those tales of nights spent fighting tears and suicide

Of prayers to foreign gods for an end

Of knives and scissors so close to arteries

Of needles ripping deep into adolescent skin

Of self and group inflected bruises

Those black swollen abscesses you hid beneath bandages

Of hair ripped and blood spilled on playgrounds

Of the times you were afraid to fight, the times you lost, and the times you won

Of lunch money stolen

Of broken teethe and sprained joints

Of bottles and bottles of Tylenol swallowed

Of ulcers before you turned thirteen

Of blood clotted periods, homicidal poems, and Satan nightmares

Of days locked in taunt-filled classrooms and school yards of torture

Because they are as much a part of your truth as the sweet-kissed tenderness of your today and the infant-wild potency of your tomorrow

These are the muscles that seed your strength, the pillars that convey your fortitude

You own your own words sister; you write your own dictionary

You are the legacy of a stony faced Diaspora

A garden springing fresh life-fruit from a soil nurtured through the glumness of death

You are alive, sun-queen brown child, you have survived

You ascended beyond yesterday’s moon; you float revolutionary lullabies

You speak womb truth; bleed love down the inside of your thighs

Liberate your erotic and dance hot fire in front of every audience you can find

Know you, study you, love you, worship you, god you, poem you, free you, celebrate you, preach you, nurture you, dream you, be you because you are the most magnificent there has ever been.

author, Jezebel Delilah X