 So, wake up, fade. Wake up, fade. Say your name. Hold your bellies empty. It's weird. You're not going to leave with anything but a poem and go home. Go back to sleep. Try and get comfortable. Then I wasn't ready. Then I sacrificed myself for myself. There ain't nothing wrong with you. I mean, me being one of your own. I mean, my own choices. But now that I'm of age, and something baby's a boy, there's no way. So, I read one about it. Drink myself into someone that doesn't give a damn. I'm not saying I want one. I'm just saying. I want the choice. Complicated. The fibroids are max. I mean a rock. I mean, I guess that's why. Congratulations. I hate you. Who's my tongue under my mouth like quicksand? I wipe the gel from my skin. Take home a photogenic memory of the inaccessible caesarean bowtide scar where my belly used to blow the fibroids. Meanwhile, everyone can feel the life move in your womb. There, I said it. That's done. It still hurts. 7am, hand moon walks the page, sun up, feelings out. Maybe I should write about sea walls and crashing waves. Mothers and daughters, power and politics. Her one affects the other. Give her daughters. Call them waves upon waves. A body's disturbance. How we wouldn't be nothing without her mother's love. That after she's gone, we'll no longer have her mother's love. Some hard memories and a reason to cry no matter if they make us happy on the inside. My mother is a single parent working on both sides of the door. So we don't know the core. So we don't know my daddy didn't pay child support. I guess that's why he feels like I shouldn't write about him. Cause I got what I need. Mama. Mommy. My mother, I have to show you her stretch marks, a fingernail, a jaw bone. I have to say you're the man jokes on me. I have to take you to the middle of the ocean to show you that calm and angry can be the same person. I have to let you hear her laugh and you wonder is she drowning? Is she choking? I have to show you her eyes. You wonder if she's ever been asleep? I'm gonna say no. And I believe she's ready to die. My mama is. Biggie, Tupac, and Tina Turner. Tina Turner. In the same way, I get to be the writer. She will always be the queen. Something or someone I will always need. Mother. Ocean. It's 9 a.m. and I just want to go back to sleep. You know I'm gonna stay in bed. Keep tossing and turning. Slow kissing, some romantic kind of feelings. Not depressed, something. Writing about my depression makes me depressed. I try not to be depressed. I try being the girl that writes herself out of depression, but if you cry out with reason for no reason, then you don't understand what I mean. Being alone is the new north. I'll break plates in my head. Two more, I mean. Rocks, I mean. Five more. Some built up something I've never said before. One asked me to write about it. About ways, call her ways, rules. Let them orbit. Making forces of magic or sorcery call them sheep. A herd call them strong. So strong they don't know how powerful they are. Call them stars. Generational proof. Watch them shine and shine and shine. Let them dance and dance and dance ever closer, even faster. Shine, spin, hurt. Keep smiling. Smile but keep spinning. Look how tired they get but keep going. Be one. Watch her tears run away. Her face. Watch her dance and lose her mind. Be a pond and a stone. Let her radiant. A spell accidentally cast it upon herself. Let her spiral. All that darkness. She's catastrophic. Let her collide. All that pain. Watch her body destroy itself. Call her womb. A supernova. For several months Eve is a forest fire. Makes her body a place no one can afford. Feels like she let someone borrow her and now they never want to give her back. There's a quiet riot inside of me Eve said. Anyone who thinks women are delicate and breakable. She must have left like she knew she'd see us again because I don't remember a lot of kisses or back cracking hugs. I don't remember having to peel her fingers from mine or my sister's shoulders. All I remember is a window, a massive bedroom. My sister and I sitting on the edge of the bed, a telephone and a lot of crying. This time it was coming from my father's mouth. He was welly for my mother to return. This, my first witness to a man who had done wrong begging a woman to come back. He was crazy red in his eyes and tears ran down his face. And all of a sudden he threw his whole head through the window. Deep rich maroon color sauce ran down his face with a phone still in his hands. He was crying about how he killed himself he had to and I knew that was the case. My sister and I weren't exist. And my sister just cried and I threw my whole body onto the floor. Jolting back and forth. This, a body having had enough. Oceano labor, hello dust. Trissot, hello wannabe love, hello drought, sun is blood, hello wannabe woman. Oceans tank and sharks and teeth and shred and chewed limbs and Jamaican rain shadow and second line, hello dry fruit brass tongue, a steel native to this body. There are still people who weep when a girl comes into this world. I mean 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 picnics all from home behind. And they none of them twins. Which means she started having kids when she was 21 and had one every 2 or 3 years until she was 41 years old. And I don't know what she wanted all of. She meant to get pregnant that big time. Maybe she just like having sex. Maybe she just like being pregnant. You know the pregnancy glow. How out they way folks go when they find out she's pregnant. Maybe she never had a random leaking. Hemorrhoids, morning sickness, feet swelling. Maybe it's as she say she never took stuff to stop stuff to mess her up to keep her from having kids. Whatever the reason. Any time somebody ask her why she had so many kids, she'd breathe in child. Say the fruit of the womb is a blessing. Blessed be the man with a full quiver. Yes quiver. That's loud. Sometimes. How y'all bring them? They warm my teeth. Her tongue is a story. The lady with the silver, shoulder length hair, raggedy like mom, raising tongue, Valensky. Was not accepted here in a language understood and dripped like her own own. Arms, big enough to wrap around that she like her, no. The way no trumpet sounds or rose petals thong at her feet. America is not always a proper greeting. No, no, no. Mining herself and me. The tongue is a story. She said to kick you here. To bring all of us. I made a boat out of my mind. Backtired to my whole self. Waved in the waves. Chilling and pleasant as they may. Only when I prayed and only when I bit my whole self over. Splintered and stretched into gully and to groove and to call. No matter how far out I swam I am still the Caribbean's pulse and pure heart beats come. Oh, no, pre-medee. Adiabra, ma'am. I really feel over for my children. And my children's children. I ask her how. Teach me how to breathe without fear. How to hold to my own. Teach me how to be strong. She say, your bones are swollen with rhythm. You could dance your way out of anything. You want to part gumbay drum without thick old skin, two parts float. Soak and sun as in everything is ivory. As in everything is good here, I believe her. And I can feel her washing. Detective. She say when she's scared, she grab the coconut by the throat. Drink the sweet. Say she love a taste salty like her own. Laugh like the jungle she is with the congo showing. Say I inherited all of her wild and song for finger survival. Say I got spice. I got dice. I got a tongue sweet like a machete that is spice like her own. Tempted. Me not giving her ocean. Yeah, I become one. That. And then I look too. Don't worry, baby. I, they can't swim. Now I want to get their head wet. Either way. Rockets come. Say we use that backwash to pop up grease flyer. Make it sound like reggae. Make it waterfall dance. For fun. Mmm. Trouble. Bad eyes gone to trouble. Just fly. Say I am. What I am to some of us carry out prison with us wherever we go. B. Same family. Different colors. C. Water mixed with blood. Call us month babies. A thicker version of war, race and freedom. D. Mashberries. Sugar cane. Stewed fruit. A boiling mixture. Some parts sweeter than others. And a quiet text. E. All of the above. We. Wrecked in order of importance. The white man by default. Writer of the best seller. Teller of the number one lie. Got us believe a woman came from his rear. Because his rear white didn't come. The white woman. I. The most important. The most beautiful. Better than greater than in conclusion. Life is always right. Always wanted. Always valued. Always loved. Me. Dark skinned black woman. Three stripes. So. She be wrong. Ain't got to answer none of these white. I mean. Right questions. Not a problem. As long as I don't look up. Don't move forward. Don't want for nothing more than what I've been taught up and given. That I keep believing I can only be the Holy Ghost of Spirit. But. Never a God. So. I fantasized the river. Dreamed it had a beautiful flow. Gave it all of me. Gave. But when I walk. Now. When I go to dip my toe into the creek. Debate. Play a drink. All my children be damned. From taking on too much of somebody else's shit. Be block fools. Keep expecting to be successful by drinking from a cesspool. You know. Some say we too dense to float. But my great grand made a boat out of her mouth. Splintered and stretched into gully. Into groove. Into gold. So. Where did I come from? Big mom. A storeway on a ship to Corinth. A dry land tourist or. Cesspool is a little plumber line. Should I just call where I am home? B. A reservoir. A fancy word for suppressing floods. The overflow of emotions. Coming as one. Leaving as many. C. The block in my room flow. An interruption in greatness or. Sometimes when you think you drown it. All you gotta do is stand up. D. Bits and pieces of a story told from a larger body, Chancey. We. We. We are not. Not. What has tried. Tried. To kill us. Kill us. Kill us. We. We. We are always. Always. What learns. Learns. To survive. Survive. Survive. Or refuse to die. E. All of the above. How do y'all grow now? Especially in reality. He never looked your way. So. One day. When we was leaving my grandma's house. And my daddy he come to pick us up. And his loud engine pick up truck. To take us home. Where my mama wasn't. And he still ain't know what to do with it still. I let the clouds guide me. Me got to the point where the cross underneath the freeway. We saw a little champagne red max with whip-up. It was my mama. And my daddy who must have been surprised to see her too. Peel the tires underneath us. Turn the quick brakes. And he was. I recognized that right she was going. That's how we go to get to my door's house. My daddy be a fool if he followed her all the way though. Shoot a man dead between his eyes. And I got you in. Yo, women. And that's what she danced in the drums. Resti is still excited. Look how tired they get to keep going. I don't remember how my mother got us back. The words she used in her embrace. All I remember is. Forgiving her. And. Understanding that. Let me protect each other. The best way we know how to protect ourselves. Create galaxies. Call them grandmothers. Give them daughters. Call them waves upon waves upon waves. Sometimes I wish his own ass could hear it. Speak softly. Don't lose your head just cause. Miss Neil say. She got more pants than she got dresses. Don't forget your girl. The world ain't never gonna let me forget what's between my legs. I be wanting to say something to her too. But mama say. Keep your head straight so y'all can burn. But Miss Neil will burn you anyway. All this hair. Let not be tender headed. I always wonder what she gonna die. But then you gonna do out of here. Wait until I make you a boy. I remember my mother having to ask me about my pregnancy. Telling me she wanted me to finish the experience in being a teenager. A young woman that goes to college is in college. You can be there by one. I have to add a struggle with being black. You know what I mean? I remember her asking me what I thought about terminating the pregnancy. That's the word she used. Terminating. As again. Let's continue. I remember my mother having to ask me to finish. But there was an epilogue inside of me. We drove past all the flowers on Fanning Street in that last blue. The buildings. All look like a small prison for young girls with numbers on our bellies. The nurses all looked the same. The faces wilted. Some old pity for new faces. The nurses talked to my mother and I. Remained a disappointment. Invisible unless I asked them. Date of my last period. Being this cup. Sit on this table. Won't even ask me how I was feeling. I thought she cared until I looked up. Some standard questions she's forced to ask but not give a damn about. She didn't even notice when I didn't respond. A spoken paper dress crumbly. Making just enough of her fumble for someone to know I was alive. The last time I wore a dress. I called Johnny Hart trying to look up it. What I do? I take him down the street with a pushy knife. See how many pushy you want to look at after that? I bought that. There's so many names for it. Boys act stupid once they figure out you got one. The Jamaican Creole Simon call it a cuti or twat. Whatever you want to call it. Johnny Hart wouldn't go and see mine. I like boys okay I guess. I read this one book by Arthur Mahoganyel Brown. She said boys are dumb. Throw rocks at them. And no throw rocks. I kind of look at him at me one time but he stopped. He must have known I got one. A cuti that is. You're not a local Sam. Mama always saying some men don't know what they want so you expect a boy to. I say you do like a girl who wears dresses and hair bows. You'll never look my way. The only thing he'll find in my hair is a pencil. I heard Miss Porter say at the church one day. Don't know man. Won't know one. Always reading, writing and thinking all the time. They say neat writing poetry is a dead getaway. Mama say I'm talented. And hers. And that's all that matters. If they were really reading the Bible they know how that one scripture goes. He who finds a woman finds a good thing. Or something like that. They don't say nothing about what she's wearing, reading, writing, or thinking. About last night while minding my own fucks. Looking moonshine and moonshiners eating shrimp and grits in conversation denial. A random white woman adopted a man's strength off. Broke her mouth open to look and say and give some unsolicited advice. Slipped herself in like they do. Comfortable like they are. Knowing she won't protect it to me she say. Smiling your face. Ain't nothing to do with smiles. She been able to drink her whole life. I say it's resting bitch face. As in I'm resting, I'm thinking. As in even if there was something wrong she ain't to answer. As in my face be my whole body all you shit. As in bitch this is my face. You know I'm still beautiful when it ain't doing nothing. Ain't thought of a reason why she deserves me smiling all the time. Long as she comes to the line of threat. Long as she thinks me beautiful I ain't got no frets. I might have been thinking of a reason to smile but my smile she interrupted. She walks away wounded. Me. Angry. Every time I turn around I'm too hard, too much, too tough. You can pull back up back don't say it like this. Like that. Like that. God damn. I base your solace. I didn't replace my solace. I try looking for it in my homeless purse. Usually that's what you looking for in that prayer room. Then I thought maybe it's in the kitchen. In the spray of some household cleaning products. Laundry. Soft clean clothes I put on for somebody else's appointment. Softness. God I like to scare it away with my big mouth. Softness ain't in a growl at me. Ain't me a cutting. Softness probably got a low even tone. Don't ask too many questions. Don't talk back. I messed around and had too much to say. Too much of my own opinion. Just too much of one. I can have an opinion. As long as it shrinks. Appears small. Don't take up too much space. Somebody probably stole it. I'ma tell you what they did. It came over here. It took my salt. It asked me out of the street why I'm so broken. Got all these sharp edges that cut people open. And I tried to explain. Every time I've used restraint. And by God did not use all of my God to destroy you. The fact is what softness can do. Trust me I needed my son. Every time I've had to begin. Definition. Boyish girl. Unaware of gender or roles associated with said gender. Yes ma'am. Beach. A girl. Short. A body of water covered by sand. Give a little bit of light. Always stay close to yourself. Too. By definition. An energetic, sometimes boisterous girl whose behavior is more typical of boys. Yes ma'am. Ocean. A sea. A woman. The expanse of salt water surrounding the earth's surface. Saviour. Detective. Son. By definition. Girl who is probably lesbian. Yes ma'am. Girl or girl from the south. A deep inlet of the sea. With a narrow mouth. By definition. Girl who don't attract boys because she be too masculine. Yes ma'am. When you're the strong one. People don't check for you much. Because you can't get hurt. But you don't get hurt. Yes ma'am. Harbour or girl or woman. A body of water with ships and boats or soil. A sea shelter. I don't know how to be soft. Not also being terrified of losing something. By definition. Gully or black girl who is street of good. Attitude, dark skin. She's probably loud. How's her lips? Sucks her teeth. Rolls her eyes. Swayes her hips. Who longed it? Because you can't get it. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. I'll fuck you up. Three. She grits her teeth. Stretching her bones and eyes wide. Man can only offer breathing. He is still afloat. The room smells like shit and burning sky. All she can do now is hope something else doesn't break again. God will reach in and pull back baby wearing her first. Man, forgetting woman will say. That's mine. Look at what the Lord has made. Then after, woman will be mispronounced. He said, it's a boy. She said, let the baby decide. He said, God damn woman. She said impossible, ungrateful man. It is my emotions that saved you. Without me, it's unlikely you'd survive. Holding one leg. Nothing has ever existed without her. Not even your body. I was there. I got proof. Eyes watching Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. Her body shakes the blood, the mud and the jelly. This is the potion for making human beings. The room a sacred place. A comfort holy but somebody's smells being born again. We worship here. A mouth making sense. Everything she say is spent. Eyes watching its body rust. Give you life. To give you. You. The original right to passage. Did you forget? We all came from a woman. The stretch, the woman giving up nothing. Not even your ghost. She is curvy current. Ruby red iron. Come as one. Leaves as many. Shay, how are you? You from Austin? You are. For 10 years, so you just go here to claim. After a show one day, this woman came up to me and was like, how often should I masturbate? And I was like, how often do you masturbate now? She was like, not at all. What? I thought she was joking, right? So I looked at her face and she was just playing a joke. Right? So I was like, okay, well, yeah. So, you know, masturbate when you're alone, when you're bored, when you can't sleep, yeah, when you can't. That's when you just want to feel the power and the rock. Right? You don't need permission to touch what's yours when you live. It's like, damn, how dare you leave you in the hands of mountain, someone that can also misuse you? How dare you not know your own? Wet. Swishy. Shut up myself. Yeah, I was like, girl, I didn't even know your own rise and fall. Have to be a black girl, understand? Show me how it all got started. How the bricks got laid. What happens when you eat spills? When your ass has to stand to work the way? Dear black girl. My skin taking shape. A reminder that I am never alone. Your mouth. My mother gave me to swim from her uterus to her opening. Once small, now broken. Look how much we've grown. Everything that tried to leave me but couldn't. What saves? What belongs to me? A tally of blessings? A reminder that I am a sea creature? Prum. I knew how to swim. I swallowed you whole, son. You 65% me, I made you. You only got your head above water because I ain't drowned you yet. Because I run these seas. All seven of them. My body bigger than yours. I weigh more than you. I straddle worlds. I mourn for anything I turn into can destroy you. Woosh. Ask Graymore. Trumpets storm. Hurricane. Tsunami. Tornado and monsoon. Ask ice. Snow. Blizzard. Avalanche. I'm too cold. Shield of bones. It's winter boy. I'm Neptune. And your reign is the whole galaxy. Boy, I could break you if I wanted to. Watch out. Be dangerous. Spunk too. Boy, be lightning. Thunder's with the sky. Go boom. I could suck the air from your lungs and burn everything you own. I'll live by it this time. And next time too. Boosh. Out of my mouth too wide. Get too shook. I'll spend the whole earth with you. To suffocate you if I wanted to. You want to breathe? Thank you. I gave you tears. Don't forget where you came from. Don't forget you ain't nothing without me. I'm Eve. Luna. God, myself. Oshun. O'ranny River's foe. You're my god. You don't want to be a big fella. Keep testing me. And I'll show you what a woman can do. You're all what your mother is. God is a woman. The beginning of everything.