Mama’s smile has wings
and her arms- warmth.
She’d make sure our water always had sugar and that the stench of poverty never sat on our clothes too unevenly.
She tried to build us with blocks of her own making-
Trust and confidence,
love and faith,
endurance,
strength,
pride and self worth.
Mama sat hiding crack pipes and upturned bottles
Throwing all the nasty bits behind the couch where she thought we didn’t see them.
Sending us floating on smiles.
Mama’s love set foreign standards on our project block
She meant it to carry on . . .
But you can’t make love real for another’s heart.
No more than you can stop the passing sands
And mama’s love can over carry over only so much into the world without her.
There comes a time where us got to find our own.
And grow in it for ourselves.
And you should never mistake the intimacy that comes at the start.
The feelings moving about between moist flesh
and the thoughts dancing about like wonder
The quiet on his face.
Id wish to reshape it-
the space, touch his face and rest.
But sometimes smiles can mean other thangs
and a kiss can be empty.
Love like there is in this world misleads.
Misinforms.
And mistreats.
Leaves you alone and believin’ friends to be lovers and lovers to be eternal
and so on and so on.
I found my love in my wash bason.
Clinging to dirt, reaching for me.
I took a rag and wrapped it.
Whispered to it.
Held it.
Read it for what it was and placed it down.
Talked it off the ledge it was on, in my room.
Amongst all the misfortune and patriarchy.
In my heart theres a space for hope to land.
Dig roots and lead.
And theres a place for my love to breathe.
Move past the manipulation and define itself for itself.
Something like a resolution came about as I went to sleep.
A promise to do better with ourselves.
To teach others how to treat us through how we treat ourselves.
To be able to stand to them and say:
“I am the somebody I want to love”
