| ;
“‘We was girls together,’ she said
as though explaining something.”
—Toni Morrison, Sula
to understand black girlhood
we must
know we was girls & that
couldn’t explain when .
protagonist is not a lone individual
but a community, not limited to
special
vulnerabilities
traces
in
the archives
no other person would go
near the remains
how do we dream
their lives
common specter
haunts
reticent until forced otherwise
—undertakes resistance
through a nighttime healing
mour
n
truncated
futures,
time and its remains
after years of discipline
in a sweet environment
the swollen corpses remains
ambivalent
struggling
against divine
(in)justice,
the dynamic negotiations ..of
power
as tenacious as the violence they seek
to counter:
there is a lesson
in uncertainty
offering their body as script,
they locate themself ..
in the spiral towards freedom
find
happiness
a little more
down the
road
the certainty
romance,
tragedy,
of
knowing
, |
|
history, seemingly dormant
beneath the skin ,
keep secrets
a presumption of innocence
denied
brave
the multitudes of ^ nameless
leave such lasting
impressions
we grapple
with gulfs of time
conscious of being seen,
glimpse
familiarity and
belonging
how black women and girls have lived
the girls growing up in idleness
who would otherwise be
jailed .
in the shadow
of the boys,
embrace the shards
of history and memory
that remain
cannot be afraid;
vulnerable
freedom is deferred
but remains
a possibility
i will only
later
sow pigs,
pickled
lobsters,
..
be able to understand
the so-called
“girl problem”
leather “breeches”
—and people too
historically entrenched
they are not the “dead girl,”
but incorrigible, or,
in what remains extant
capable—and
desirous
—
of
becomi
ng
imagining futures gone
pasts to come
innocence is dubious:
where would
the future be?
the unexpected power
to remember,
to make a person have meaning
to root
a healing practice a discourse
of love
dreams can
be dishonest
hell put you high
through water
and high hell and water you put
through can |
