by Roya Marsh
“Cruisin’,” Smokey Robinson plays for Glynis
the genes in my family are strong. everybody got a doppelganger. at least 10 years their senior
take my sister, sam. got my mama whole face 33 years later. look like my brother spit my nephew zay right out his left nut. and he aint even his boy. bricyn make it seem like akil was born twice. all the way up to the autism. me,
i lent my likeness to joe//in more ways than one. he got my gap-tooth’d smile
the twinkle in my eye & the twinkle in his
wrist too.
me, i look so much like my aunty glynis, in my gramma’s last years there wasn’t even a chance she’d tell us apart. aunty say i’m her bonus daughter. in secret. out of wedlock. say she let my mama borrow me on account of what they say about women with kids but no man.
no man. i ain’t never seen her with no man.
baby daddy dead.
husband dead.
dead, years before my mama even thought of havin’ a baby girl.
aunty got a daughter of her own tho. a pretty brown- skin thang with a gap like the best of us and eyes light something like Smokey Robinson.
& ain’t no man aunty love more than light-eyed smokey.
no man.
i seen her eyes light
up at his tender pitch. a perfect kind of soft and bright.
i ain’t saying she never longed for a loving touch. that she never rolled over to an empty bedside
and wept a river of lonely.
i’m saying she make flying solo look like a drop-top drive down the pacific coast.
i’m sayin i ain’t never felt more felt than when watchin’ her live out her every dream with a passport in one palm and unlimited freedom in the other.
You’re gonna fly away, glad you’re goin’ my way
I love it when we’re cruisin’ together
in broad dayliGht black saviors look grandma
or, i think i built that wall myself or, my grandmother would never play craps
i ain’t never liked gambling. my grandmother’s last hoorah was at a casino in atlantic city. she could talk then. i remember because she called home in a panicked haze when the jackpot lights were all too much and she forgot the bus that took her there was the same bus that would take her back. my family took a gamble when putting her in a nursing home. she could talk then. i remember because she hated that place and was of course fed up with the incompetence of those in power. she saw the country take a gamble on its first black president. the best eight years of my life. the last eight years of hers. she was mute for years before the end. i remember because she never wished me a happy 21st. or maybe she did, but i wasn’t close enough to hear it. i guess i forgot how to listen. i forgot how to talk to someone who couldn’t talk back. months before she died this country took a gamble on red. she couldn’t talk no more. i hadn’t been listening anyway. but i bet she had a few choice words for what’d make this country great. for the first time. he been ruining this country for 457 days. she been gone for 251 days. i been going double or nothing with my sanity at stake. like going broke gon’ fix anything. i was gon’ write this to her but i keep telling myself she’ll never hear it. i think i built that wall myself.
in broad dayliGht black daughters look gossip
No one in my church knows my father
but I carry his name. head bowed
in prayer. in shame. in offering
empty palms turned up at the altar.
i am nothing more than his daughter
begging another man i have never seen.
for mercy. for love. for saving.
there is never a good enough lie to tell.
the truth is always gone.
i am a lonely audience while
the choir hums & the congregation peers over their shoulder. they say neighbor
and the air whispers lonely. the whispers whisper
come forth. no one whispers forgive. so i don’t.
i just carry my void on my shoulders. at the dance. on paper. on my tithes. on my wedding day.
on my smile.
everyone says that’s my best feature. says it lights up a room. could light up the sky.
i think that kind of metaphor is what killed christ.
i was born and named and left.
this smile was born with a window
all my sacred keeps slippin’ right through.
& i just let it. ain’t no sense in chasing what ain’t tryna be caught,
that goes for liquors.
that goes for lovers.
that goes for leavers.
Remember,
no one in my church knows my father
they just know his name.
and pray my strength in His name.
But this name
is mine & all its history.
this smile
is mine & all its fissures.
what comes and goes from my mouth will have been crafted of my own legend.
& who i choose to worship is the one facing me in the mirror
of my own altar.
in broad dayligGht suicidal black girls look guilty
cross-examining myself while on trial after my third failed suicide attempt:
Please state your name for the record. Roya Marsh. You were working as a poet, activist, and educator for a nonprofit at the time of the assault, is that correct? Yes. Is it true that your work doesn’t offer you a real chance to clock out? Yes. Is it true that you have never refused to work overtime? My job is to be as real as possible. You can not turn that off. Your family craves more attention than they are owed, correct?… They are often the last on your list of priorities, isn’t that right? No. What of the dead?… Your grandmother died on your birthday, is that correct? Yes. How often did you spend time with her? As much as I could, I swear. Is it true that you spent your entire summer writing poems and traveling to perform? No. Well, yes, but not entirely. Is it yes or no, Ms. Marsh? I, I—I don’t know. I was with her every chance I could be. And you only came in second place? Was it worth it?… Again, what of the dead? Not just your grandmother, but what of your brother? What of the one with no gun? What of the one with mental illness? Dead. All dead. What did you do for them? How do you feel knowing you’re still breathing? Would you rather trade places with the deceased? Withdrawn. Of course you would.
Objection. Can you…? Can you object? You object-ify your sanity on a daily basis because you have yet to learn a better way to survive. Sometimes wanting to die and trying to are the only reminders that you are still alive. Ms. Marsh, you are still alive.
In direct examination, you stated that you are in control, is that correct? Yes. But you failed. You are a failure. That’s not a question. What do you know of control? You are a failure that fails at failing. That’s not a question. Why were you unsuccessful? What went wrong? Where are you now? What of the body? Where is the body? Where is your body, Ms. Marsh?
You wanna know what I did with the body? What is a body, anyway? Known only because someone called it so. Without my consent. Awarded me this trophy. Covered in fingerprints, dust & grime. The body should be on trial. Fuck, the body is a trial. My memory, a field of landmines. I blink and everything I have tried to forget blows up in my face. The shrapnel, that is where I exist. In the rations of everything that has happened to me. Not in a body. So, I tried to get rid of it. Use it against itself. If you look hard enough down the throat of a bottle. You’ll find it. Lying, almost lifeless, somewhere between death and freedom.
in broad dayliGht black girls look grave
name one thing you can’t find buried in the core of a black woman …
I’ll wait …
The scariest thing is the way we hate ourselves. How we are taught this. How we oblige. Where we let them burrow falsehoods into our notion of self-love and sow a name on it—watch it grow. And watch us reap. And watch us weep. No cedarwood box. Our living corpse casket enough. Mummified in misogynoir. A dark place
to hide the weight of the world. They gon’ throw dirt on our name. They gon’ throw dirt on us. Each grain of soil another tale they told. Another foot dug. Deep. Deeper. Sorry. Silent. Sister. Small. Sexy. Slut. Solemn. Sick. Sadness. Sanity. Sinner. Sinking. You clawing your way out. Or trying. They keep on shoveling.
Who knew SOS meant save ourselves.
in broad dayliGht battered black women look grazed
Our double standard as a community stares back at us through the battered eyes of Black women who live under a doubly oppressive system of racism and sexism.
—EWUARE X. OSAYANDE
q. How come abusers say I love you the most?
a. we believe them
angelia
tjhisha
dee dee
karrueche
keke
kasandra
marissa
tina
janay
rihanna
halle
christina
evelyn
emily
latoya
nene
robin
karen
mariah
gramma
ma
me me me me me me me me
i left for school on a tuesday of junior year and never returned. i abducted myself into a safety no one in my world was willing to offer. i freed myself.
a space for the black man who knows no better than his oppressor
___________________________________
even black will crack if you beat it enough.
in broad dayliGht black girls look grim
she delivers her own eulogy
from the casket
a to-do list
a sort of laundering
things to cleanse the world of in her absence
i ask how she prepared for death
she gives me a list
things to bury with me:
myself
regrets
the asks: if i’ve ever thought of being with a man
the man (bury him beneath me—as close to the core as possible. that he may burn with no chance of root/rebirth/resurrection).
the truth
the lie
i write about the molestation
but never the rape
bury the rape
i read it
attempt to talk myself out of death
out of casket
out of trauma
out of nothing
i don’t know
i don’t prepare
this is honest—
to myself
i am the opposite
my influence lives beyond me
to be some-thing / one
to matter
to resonate
idk
i guess—not to be like a person
a dot in the universe—then nothing
idk
if it doesn’t have an ending, i don’t need to end it
what are you?
practical
irrelevant
replace—form new meaning
it has to be a choice (seed, speck, glimmer, spark—become a flame).
frustrating / to have an end
& keep revisiting
in broad dayliGht black dykes look ground
i used to think there was a dead end at my intersection
i can’t unwoman myself
i can’t unqueer myself
i can’t unmolest or unrape the safety back into my body
i will be black even in death
all of the traffic lights are lit
there’s a STOP sign on each corner
above it reads NO OUTLET
Kerrice Lewis is shot and burned alive in the trunk of her car
this neighborhood of traumas melts together
as the onlooking man wants to know
if i’ve ever been with one—
a man
the answer is yes, but not in the way he fancies
he straight & hungry for my kind of winding road
and this here is the dead end
i still gotta perform, for him—here
where one avenue say Me Too, and the cross street is Solidarity
but the next block over ain’t Healing
upkeep your own route.
butch, you strong. rugged. like salt-rusted winter road
every corner a speed bump—snow-chained tires over your living corpse
you gotta go out the way you came in
naked and weeping
in broad dayliGht kinky black girls look g-spot
If I had a dollar for every time someone said I remind them of their ex when they really meant they wanna fuck me with no strings …
Thank God/the music was so loud/whispers echoed our spines/we laughed/right into a memory/the whole time/we danced/you were somebody else’s/in front of everyone/in the back/forgot your heartbeat/not/my common sense/got lost/in someone else’s back seat/i accepted/your gossip/nontransferable invite to your pity party/hotel suite/tv was fast and furious/like you/time melted/into sex/sleep/I never undressed/in the sheets as pale/as your skin bitch face/told me everything/i knew was wrong/before you/no one had ever asked/to kiss me/like i belonged/to me/you tasted like something/i wanted/’til the sun/tiptoed through the blinds/you mentioned the unmentionable/cast me as the scholar/asked me of the younger/all the reasons/she can’t know/now I’m your secret/the only difference/between prey and predator/is how wide/you can open/your mouth
in broad dayliGht black daughters look greedy
My father used to say “the kitchen is closed.” When he was there. Even though it had no door. The kitchen was an oasis of leftovers and snacks and juice and red dye number 5. The kitchen closed when he decided we had enough. Food. Drink. Nourishment. When he wasn’t there, my mother kept the kitchen open. We were never hungry. Never left to want for anything. But our father. When he wasn’t there, she kept the house door open, too.
in broad dayliGht black girls look gleeful
I don’t owe anyone more joy than I owe myself.
in broad dayliGht black dykes look good enough to fuck
DeJ Loaf tweets, I’m not a dyke / hoes just love me
A$AP Rocky says, I be fucking broads like I be fucking bored / turn a dyke bitch out have her fucking boys
Kanye says, Heard they’ll do anything for a Klondike / I’ll do anything for a blonde dyke
Nas says, It’s only right that I was born to use mics / and the rhymes that I write is even tougher than dykes
The title of this poem is
“Homophobia vs Homophilia”
or
“How girls kissing girls became a fashionable thing”
Lessons: to the pretty boys with long hair and gold chains that rap about fucking lesbians
there are worse things than being a homosexual
like NOT being a homosexual
like believing your dick is hard enough to fuck a brick wall into stilettos and a miniskirt while still maintaining your masculinity
like how being gay becomes sexy and profitable so long as you’re not
like not understanding the possibility that your dick or any dick has nothing to do with my sex
dyke: noun
dike1
dīk/
1. a long wall or embankment built to prevent flooding from the sea
2. a boundary of defense
meaning I am the levee
the arc
and you, sir,
could not possibly handle all this wetness
For God so loved this girl,
he gave his only begotten tongue
A$AP, Get like me,
your girl prolly wish that you would kiss like me
self-trained in the game of such delicacies
So no you will never lick her clit like me
Question: When you fuck a dyke, which one of you is the daddy?
rhetorical
I had a man tell me
once he didn’t respect me as a woman until I opened my mouth
ironic
how I only become his kind of woman once I open my mouth for him
funny
how an open mouth can be synonymous with bended knees
sucking off his ego just enough to validate my vagina
this poem is less 10 things I wanna say to a Black Male Rapper
& more 10 things I need to say to colored dykes who consider suicide because rap music don’t think us human
I tell him, it is not his penile compulsion that compels my tongue to beat
it is the love of a woman
the body of a woman
that body is mine
it is not built for any man’s consumption, depletion,
or rhyme scheme
It is built for nature
to nurture.
For the record,
we all start out sucking titties
for survival
Some of us are still surviving
in broad dayliGht black dykes look glow
for what it’s worth i ain’t never wanted to be no man, ’cept maybe when i gotta pee at the club.
i’m such a fucking lady i can smell my period before it comes. i knew womanhood before I knew women
i’m Geraldine’s granddaughter, which means I’ll smack the shit outta you and make you a mean plate of food.
fuck no I ain’t sorry for how I come off. fuck you if you can’t understand it. i’m still gon’ reap all these blessings. making out like a bandit.
i ain’t looking for a handout or a handback. fuck your courts, fuck your fields. when I say reparations i mean i’m taking my land back. my grandkids’ grandkids gon’ draw family trees
with treehouses and hammocks.
i say Black Joy they faces go into panic. like how i know happiness when they didn’t plan it?
forgot I’m the blessing. been praisin’ the game like a reverend. wondered why I’m still stressin’.
i’m Gayla’s daughter! watched her make a way of no way