salt. (3 page)
Authors: nayyirah waheed
you will not remember your name.
–– oshún
there is a phantom language in my mouth.
a tongue beneath my tongue.
will i ever
remember what
i sound
like.
will i ever come home.
–– african american i
i lost a whole continent.
a whole continent from my memory.
unlike all other hyphenated americans
my hyphen is made of blood. feces. bone.
when africa says hello
my mouth is a heartbreak
because i have nothing in my tongue
to answer her.
i do not know how to say hello to my mother.
–– african american ii
can you be a daughter.
if you have no
mother language.
–– african american iii
how beautiful
that you can lay down a map
and with a straight finger
show me who you are.
you say
'show me, show me who you are.'
i tell my soft tight finger
'do not be afraid'
i slow and lightly
lay it on africa (as if i do not belong to her)
and
then
you ask me
‘where.’
–– african american iiii
we are afraid.
ashamed.
of
africa.
–– the secret we never say | african american iiiii
i like
the heat
in certain words.
the warm travel.
the low sun.
you do not have to be a fire
for
every mountain blocking you.
you could be a water
and
soft river your way to freedom
too.
–– options
sometimes the night wakes in the
middle of me
and i can do nothing
but
become the moon.
i want to see
brown and black folks
photographed
by
brown and black eyes.
–– eyes
to not be safe on the earth.
simply
because
of the color of your skin.
how does a being survive this.
–– trayvon martin
if
a man
can
only show vulnerability
for
what is between my legs.
can
only
be
a
heart
during
sex.
if an orgasm
is
the only way
he
can
weep.
what is his life
but
a cage.
–– prison
listen to my poems.
but
do not look for me.
look for you.
–– you
i am not yours.
i did not make the long hard journey through and across
the spirit world
to
be a man’s ocean.
my body is not yours.
my mouth is not yours.
my water is not yours.
nothing i am belongs to you.
unless i decide
to
open my hand
and
give it to you.
–– birthmarks
you will find your way.
it is
in the
same place
as
your love.
–– seek
when
you tell your self
‘you can have your energy back.’
after years
of
giving
it
to white people.
and
their
requirements for acceptance. for supple colonization.
digesting
their beliefs.
thoughts.
opinions.
of
you.
when you remove them from your nucleus.
your being is then
allowed
to
focus
its power
on
turning your life.
into.
your soul’s work.
you become yours.
again.
–– decolonization | center
to
call me
black.
is
one of the most beautiful.
incredible.
compliments
you could ever give me.
–– insult
your skin
smells
like light.
i think you are
the
moon.
i broke myself
dreaming of you last night.
the
water and flowers
have been
working on me all morning.
–– seamstresses
if you show
someone the sun in your bones
and they reject you
you must remember.
they hurt themselves this very same way.
–– unable
‘no’
might make them angry
but
it will make you free.
–– if no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger
there is a tender thing
i am made of.
i have always felt before i breathe.
and what if i write of you.
is that more love than you can handle.
be a lion.
i will still be water.
where are my legs. where are my legs. i had to give them to my babies so they could swim back home to me. back home to me. back home to me. i rubbed the sun all in their hair. every single birth. i rubbed sun in their hair. so they remember who they look like. who they look like. who they look like. me. to lose love that way. to have to watch them be opened like that. all the way down to their mouths. time will never know my skin. wild with everything and nothing but them. i sang into their blood. each and every one of them have my voices in their bones. they will come home. i know they will come home. the whole sky had to hold me when the world came to eat my children. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. that fear. that pain. wake up my loves. into me. i will come to you every night. every single night. because you do not understand your nose. or your feet. or the boats in your eyes. you do not remember me. and you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. you suffer. swept with banzo. swept with banzo. swept with banzo. you suffer. you hate yourself. you hate me. this is death for a mother. how many deaths. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. i am your mother. remember me. remember me. remember me. my hands in your heart. i will not let you go. i will find you. worlds away from me. i am your beauty. i am you. no matter how much bleach you must drink. every night i will come into you and repair. relove. undo everything that is not me. i memorized you. i will walk over all waters to come and get you. bring you back to me. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not
know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know. they do not know i put salt in each one of your skin. each and every one of your skins. they do not know that salt preserves not only fruit. but children. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you will remember. you see. my love. you see how your body is beginning to slow glow with stars. you are remembering. you are mine. you have never been anything else.
–– africa's lament
these are not tears.
this is the sea.
–– tides
never
trust anyone
who says
they do not see color.
this means
to them
you are invisible.
–– is
when i am afraid to speak
is when i speak.
that is when it is most important.
–– the freedom in fear
what i never
learned
from my mother
was that
just because someone desires you.
does
not mean they value you.
desire is the kind of thing that
eats you
and
leaves you starving.
–– the color of low self esteem
being in love with my people
does
not mean i hate others.
how ridiculous is that.
–– self
i am relieved.
when
i see the feminine presence
in a man’s eyes.
it means
he is a peace
i do not
have
to
bring to him.
–– ease
apologize to your body.
maybe
that’s where the healing begins.
–– starting
the most
gorgeous thing
on
a human being.
vulnerability.
–– want
put
some salt in that honey.
warm it up.
heal.
–– stove
a black woman
can write of
loneliness.
or
love
or softness.
or the moon.
you may try valiantly
to cripple her
but she will still grow flowers in her flesh.
–– a genocide of flowers
you blush like an ocean in love.
wild with blueness.
–– yemanja
i have always been the woman of my dreams.
open
your eyes.
even if
the
sun wants them.
–– see
audre wrote
of
the
‘secret poetry.’
we all know
this
poetry.
lining our arms.
rusting our teeth.
walking through our hair.
feeding
our wild stomach.
soothing
our
mouth tears.
folding itself into waists.
between legs.
always
climbing up our sadness
into
our necks
to
sleep.
–– the secret poetry | audre
there is peaceful.
there is wild.
i am both at the same time.
–– sum
all that was
taken
from me
is still here.
–– root | immortal
this
hard vulnerability.
–– black
even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone.
your light is extraordinary.
–– reminder
a woman
is
not a girl.
and
a girl
is
not a woman.
–– misogyny | synonyms
i lost my hands
in her waist
and
that is the softest detail.
you
are
my favorite kind.
nothing
that i can
name.
some people
when they hear
your story.
contract.
others
upon hearing
your story.
expand.
and
this is how
you
know.
if you are softer
than before
they came.
you
have been loved.
consider this place.
consider this place
as safe.
when you take off your throat.
lay your voice in the middle of the bed.
open your back up to me.
–– slow
if someone
does not want me
it is not the end of the world
but
if i do not want me
the world is nothing but endings.
something as simple as
the
sun
asking me
out.
–– the perfect date
my silence
is wet and hot
and
drinking my mouth to death.
you are not a mistake. you are too many exquisite details to be a mistake.
- rub honey into the night’s back.
- make sure the moon is fed.
- bathe the ocean.
- warm sing the trees.
–– tend
the warmest light is your body.
it is being honest
about
my pain
that makes me invincible
–– yield
when summer comes
the air runs hot with fever
and
so do i.
–– alchemy
you took off your mouth
gave it to him
and
now
you secretly
weep fire
in the bathroom
before making love.
how much burning
will be
enough.
–– dowry
your soul is inflamed.
good.
pay attention.
find water.
come inside.
–– map
i am a dream still dreaming.
i do not expect my child’s respect.
just because i have given birth to their life
does not mean they owe me.
anything.
what i want most is to look into my child’s eyes
and
see
that i have given birth
to
a
heart.
have
honored.
held and fed.
someone’s heart.
from the moment we first met.
and they love for this.
–– first
there have been so many times
i have seen a man wanting to weep
but
instead
beat his heart until it was unconscious.
–– masculine
you are a story.
do not become a word.
one word.
because you want to be loved.
love does not ask you to be nothing
for
something.
–– name
is t u„„,m b l e in this lan guage.
i fa ll down in this lang ua GE.
i am p & a & i & n = in this lang | uage.
my (mouth). heart. arms are losing muscle + in this l a n g u age.
my body does not $ recognize the taste $ of this -language-.
i long _____________________________________________
in this LANGUAGE.
i am not/ {myself} in this l anguage."
–– e.n.g.l.i.s.h./ for all of us who are held captive
healing
begins
