 Born provocative with buried rituals, an heiress to an unknown culture colored, my conglomerate, a civilization drawing water from the river with abundance bundled in head, while dilating birthrights passage and humming spirituals bursting from new skin. And humming spirituals bursting from sutures, old patterns aren't meant to be new skin. I remember to remember, I remember to remember, I remember to remember. With this knowing I call my name, slick with parting lips spit of her stories. With this knowing I have a name, coagulated monthly moon blood. With this knowing I drips my name from shadows, borderland parables so the others of us can midwife the others of us whose wombs portal the others of us into the hands of the others of us catching the others of us as we birth the others of us too. As we birth the others of us our memories reach back, summoning old speaks so we spit new tongue, a dialogue of mud and white magnolia flowers learning to water ourselves from earth's root upward. We become a diaspora salvaging paradise inside cement cities speaking feral beliefs through our inner chambers of solar symphonies. We festival their premeditated, premeditated funerals for us our collective visibility triumphs when we summon the spirit of undoing past patterns. We stage refusal against myths attempting to statistic us chaotic. They can't stuff us inside chaos that only exists because it can't contain us. Our breath becomes unbound pamphlets fluttering in zephyr winds ensuring our dreams find our seeking as we seek dreams spun within three. Born provocative with buried rituals an heiress to an unknown culture colored my conglomerates a civilization drawing water from the river with abundance bundled in head rising from bone black bones from fire's ash we are no burning phoenix rising our energy is etheric ripples of healing dilate and negotiate language of space with these bodies spilling across identities us kind forage of vision with our bodies waters what have we done with these bodies breathe within our primordial waters what are we doing with these bodies coloring in legacies lacy accent what have we done to deserve these bodies transmit the medicine of our nations as we chant ascension from false decay of these bodies our bodies the others of us inside these bodies for the others of us mining the gaps and invisible and gentrified spaces awakening these bodies making passage with precedent locating our presence within the present carving theories with restless urges drafting resistance to oppression building epistemologies with western northern eastern and southern african aboriginal rhythms we center our dark and light bodies black matter of worlds coming out of worlds coming out of worlds where the sun comes into our lap as the moonlight drips pata pata drips from pussies speaking home to the legacies of pre-colonial Africa colored negro black african-american black american black womanist feminist duality of multiple identities shifting, queering american ramblings as we pray with the internalized silence to which we were born burrian seance elevating crones who birth maidens who birth mothers holding ceremonies so the others of us remember to make offerings to those of us who forget to offer ourselves to ourselves and shift the legacies undulating within and so it is. Thank you. And thank you. Nice to see everybody here. I don't know y'all but I feel y'all. And my wife who drove us five hours up here. It's called Falling Bodies. Okay, I'm just going to keep going. Falling bodies black bodies black as in quietest core within earth womb where mammon and scientific uncertainties hasn't theorized a probe black as in when eyes lower at rest at sorrow at ecstasy as in yes deep spiraling joy black bodies bodies as in 90% water towing spirited flesh experiencing layering as keloids as in bodies following respire following thoughts as in tense bodies with short staccato breaths as in inhale aligning matter between pores and sweat black bodies red from a TV newspaper online chatter distant tiny desk perspective as falling falling as in failing losing dying unnamed martyr without care for resuscitation but these tiny desk distant perceptions forget we have these black bodies our bodies be palindromes our distance among us red in front of us is inner distance within creates remoteness with false convictions not our subscriptions we chime to our needs as in no I don't want this because it feels uncomfortable as in I'm in my right to give or take away your consent to engage with me as in I can't breathe when I'm confined in a choke hold as in if I die in police custody I didn't commit suicide as in prostitution doesn't mean I should be susceptible to rape as in aborting a baby doesn't mean I'm a murderer it means I'm pro-choice my choice and you don't know the experiences that have led me here as in closed mouths willingly not fed in prison hunger strike as in I'm whole tender mesmerizing complex infinite love as I'm not the history his story you're fed by what you believe you know me as in when affirms me because I have feelings like breeze and hurricane as in all hands off a sod and a boundary moved as in I'm in the structural box wake the fuck up stuck in this box awaken the box and let the box be inferior as in an orgasm is part of my personal orbit so lick me up consentingly as in as in your projected phobias signify your inability to rectify borderlands littered with your own fear as in a slow dance with self as in bombs and war for freedom equals genocide happening now as in we are all human black bodies black bodies gliding in place not always falling yes we do fall but we never get up alone we rise together our breath is eons old black bodies counted seen as many falling that all we do is fall fall and fall falling to fail failing so we fall in life and love in place and grace yes falling is our place it is any person's place to fall yes fall into our places our uses our erotic our feral hearts for us are in a markets yes we fall into it absorbing it get into this be bound by us these black body bodies a light what is there to adjust if our place is traveling ninety three million miles below the sun to nine million miles within moons pool being out of place is place out of places these black bodies wound suture because there is space for all of us we hold spaces for each other's spaces as we pace our complexities we deserve healing for ourselves ourselves our communities we hold pain bladder full it is our time of release it is our time it out its hours collect our change tenderly touch our places our center our center is a sign of itself birthing us these black bodies fluid crossing over delving into unfurling beyond our bound bodies where we is escaping only pathway is within resort into body let us fall beyond exhaustion made from identifying explaining reclaiming defending our bodies to the tiny distant desk pinholding perspective that isn't us instead drift into this constellation sitting in our black bodies lap thank you okay I'm keeping up with the time I think I'm good for one more okay so this one okay so this one is called to descend upon ourselves so it's weird I wrote it's not weird I wrote this one because it's having a conversation my sis uncle he's super homophobic but still figures that he can love me in a way by telling me I know by telling me that I don't know what love is but I'm happy if you're happy which is really BS he's still homophobic it's really weird so I wrote this poem to like summon all this queerness and just celebrate myself and hope that if I write this to uplift myself and somebody else will also feel uplifted right so I didn't get stuck in his in his homophobia and internalize it which is very easily for a lot of folks to do with anything if you're gay or not gay you know or however you identify make sense okay so that's just a little backstory on that okay so it's called to descend upon ourselves to descend upon yourself while holding dusk as you dawn witnessing your brimming rise necessitates no other approval but your own word waiting for another's approval is like a brittle aluminum fence overtaken by a weather of perspective binding you a plot inside someone else's fence casting you from you a nation amongst nations and you a field of wild nettle needs water to liquidate those knowings that aren't your own for what you know as an ancestral asset irrigating your rise bounding past worn posts attempting to conceal you undetectable because your dialect is a polyrhythmic reality where your presence of flesh swept with the winds of wisdom opening a threshold like a smoking bundle of cedar pine and rosemary so too are the others of us witnessing you chanting yes chanting yes chanting yes activating your body's water and transforming any and all this ease in your transformation of believing in you you begin to starve that uncertainty crackling every moment another voice douses you with I don't approve of you as you wish to express your yawning adoration your love but I'm happy if you're happy for then you give back that brittleness that dry well of thought attempting to bend your being because you a vessel clearing the ether with your light invokes the abundance in the others of us triggers the wealth with which we stroll flowers are remembrance that we too are normal and our garden shall nourish and because of you we too can sever from old ways spit back those rested fences and hold reverence for the medicine that is us the medicine that is me the medicine that is you the medicine that is we are she