Black Girl

Black girl

I know they have chained you to a home made of cardboard

They told you that your address is their box

A box where you’re limited to mammy and jezebel and anger

I know they tell you that you’re an antonym

An antonym to beauty and whatever they define as worthy

I know you were given a blueprint to build and be

A blueprint that is confusing yet familiar

Because it was drawn in your handwriting

But you’re told you don’t fit the vision?

Black girl I know you were given a giant glass of milk

Meant to dilute yourself with a caucasian calcium

sparkling with toxic minerals minimizing your truth

A hefty serving of self hate thick enough to choke on

Potent enough to poison your pigment

I know you wish your oppression came with a big bag

To help you carry the weight of that color and coochie

A bag that had clothes to hide what they will oversexaulize

And a can of unfair Febreze covering up a blaccent

Which they will use for their Tiktoks and appropriated versions of hip hop

Do you feel the shavings beneath your feet

From them trying to erase you?

Trying to replace you with reduced resilience

And watered down histories

And unsolved mysteries

Of rapings and lynchings

Like oppression is something outta Disney

Black girl

I know that magic is heavy

I know you use that glitter to cover up the shame and pain

And the prejudice fact that you're underpaid

And cultivate it into a fake it til you make it facade of survival

Until the arrival of spaces that can fit every ounce of your skin

And womanhood

Because you can’t carry that skin

Without carrying what men like to grab

I know when Malcom X said

“The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

You didn’t feel that, you lived that.

But black girl

You can become like Michelle

And be as phenomenal as Maya

Your purpose doesn’t have to be backbone

Black girl you can be all the things

The most educated group in your country

The breadwinner in your household

Your blackness doesn’t make you an Avenger to save the world but

You can be strong and sensitive simultaneously

You can be country and hip hop

You can be supervisor and stripper

You can finesse with a “finna”

And have dissertations for dinner

You can be beauty.

You can be magic.

You can be savage.

You can be heard

Black girl transforming into black woman

You can be Black

You can be woman

You can be black girl.

You can be.