"Birth of Sistella Black"

a new poem, work in progress:

The Birth of Sistella Black

(in response to the question -- "what are you?")

I.

The question, then the stare

I begin with a smile and exhale

Cause maybe you just see a tattoo’ed freak with locs

Or a racially ambiguous, ethnic something or other

But what happens when you hear me speak or discover I am a learned woman

Do I become more than…  my marked-immigrant-colored-body?

I am female-bodied human, Gendered She

Light-skinned, Multiracial Black

Caribbean born, Raised up in Fyah

I am grandaughter of Mabel Sistella Charles and Viola Nixon

I am great grandaughters of Mamas Willabie Black and Mary Burrows Lee

I am daughter of Kim Grace Louise Howard

I am a reflection of my ancestors

especially the ones I never met in the flesh

I am golden light in accents

yellow, brown, red, and black

I am the color that makes some feel safe

I am the underbelly of shame and desire

of what you do not remember.

I am hypervisible yet you do not see me.

I am coming out and up for air everyday.

I am the flip side

the pink of a conch shell

the layers you pull open only to discover

what is silent

I am what you cannot ignore any longer

I am the product of colonial mishaps

and inconvenient, no other choice, sexual relations

I am the sistah soldier in the struggle

rocking your world

disrupting your imagination

fueling your fantasies

I am remaking and renaming myself

I am Sistella Black

II.

I have carved on my skin lineage of meanings

of who I am, making you see me

I have studied and read, written and learned

shared and transformed by, transforming knowledges

I am light and love manifesting conscious vibration

I am blessed, opportunities grasped and ridden high

I am all that I dream of being

sexy and spirit centered

I am evolving and growing

the storm of revolution

I am sister and daughter of the earth

orange moon goddess under sun’scape showers

communing with forests and troubled sweet waters

I am what makes you feel discomfort

III.

I am years of education

I am questioning, critical, idealistic, cynical

hopeful even when there is none

I am same sex loving, bisexual and queer

I am freak nasty, vibrating on high poly-rythmic freak-quencies

I am love dancing and fucking

under a wolf’s full moon

sistah to the night's warm healing touch

I am daughter of Oshun reflecting Erzulie

I am star gazing, moon worshipping, night loving, conjure woman

I am wrapped in histories and herstories

of my people, never forgetting

where I come from

I have done things to get here

you will never understand

I am dark and dangerous, loving and creating

in spite of you, holding the earth, humanity’s elements

spirits close        to me