mom sat in the car 

next to me 

the heat breathing all over us 

keeping us blanketed 

my girls climbing all over 

our legs our shoulders

the gray seats

she listened intently 

to me 

share my little poems

little tiny snapshots 

of the inside of 

my heart.

I look over and tears 

are streaming down her 

face. 

her voice soft and urgent

“share them”,

she says.

“wrap them in a book

and keep the stories in there” 

“share them”

she says again. 

-the best kind of validation 

what 

massacre

happens to my son

between 

him

living within my skin

drinking my cells. 

my water. 

my organs.

and 

his soft psyche turning 

cruel.

does he not remember

he

is half woman.

-from

yrsa daley ward, in her book

Bone 

"you know she's going to be 

really really dark, right?”

they said disdainfully to 

my mother,

as though she was going to 

be given 

a lump of coal, 

a blackened and charred thing.

what they did not know, 

and what my mother knew, 

is that i was a 

diamond. 

i always thought white beauty 

was the best beauty. 

because who would want

skin that drinks at night

hair that is a wild raven

body that is damp soil.

i place curses on my flesh

call them diets

tell my ancestors

they are ugly.

we are ugly. 

i claw at my hips, my generous stomach that was 

meant 

to cradle a life.

i am dying

to be beautiful.

but beautiful is something

i thought

i could never be.

-messages i've been hearing since 1st grade.

 i have been wearing the sun all day.