Throwback Jam

Dear Black woman…

by me.

Your love….
I don’t know — there’s something about it
It just hits…different

Marvin Gaye plays through the speakers
The CD always skips at this part,
But you don’t miss a beat

The smooth melody of his voice
Moves through your soul
Like a dancing cobra winding up your spine

Your hips sway
With the oceanic rhythm of the drums

Your energy
It just feels so …. Alive

While you’re lost in the rapture of Inner City Blues
I’m lost
In You

I watch you
Quietly
And wonder about you
I always do

Do you have any idea
How beautiful you are?

The chains of society attempt to bind you
Yet somehow you manage to fly
How do you do it?

How
Do
You
Do
It?

Shallow footprints
Pressed into the gold carpet as you two-step

A little wooden table
Sits next to the plastic-covered sofa
A stack of bills
Piled up sky-high

When the weight of the world
Lands squarely on your shoulders,
And the grips of 10,000 arms try to keep you down,
How do you still dance so free?

There is no strength
Like your strength

Paper plates
Lined with grease-stained paper towels and Wonderbread
Lay next to empty soda bottles

Your love
Nourishes
Like honey

My school picture hangs above your head
A cheezy smile planted across your wall
I am humbled by the way you love me
Like I’m your 4th child

There is no love
Like your love

It empowers
The type of love that makes me feel like I can do anything
When I feel scared to walk, you tell me I can fly
Protective
Like you’ll fight anyone who tries to bring me down

Your hug can heal all wounds
I swear, sometimes I think you’re magic

You catch me looking
And say to me,
“There’s a goddess trapped inside of you,
You should let her out to dance”

You laugh —
A thunderous boom that echoes through the chambers of your temple

How do you always know the right thing to say?

I put together your words
Like puzzle pieces of your soul

Your wisdom runs deeper
Than the golden banks of the River Nile
A healing current
Runs through your veins

A fresh coat of cherry red
painted across your jagged fingernails
Your knuckles calloused
By your fight
The overnights
The double-shifts
The swords you must yield
To face the world

Isn’t your soul weary?

Can you see it?
….Your own light?

The one that lights the world
That lights the path that
You have blazed
For all

Warrior
Goddess
Queen
Mother, Mother

How do you stand so strong?
Do you see your own courage?
The fierce sword that you have taught us to yield.

Do you have any idea how you inspire?
Not just with your words, but with your way

I am who I am
Because of the way
You have loved me

I am who I am
Because of everything you are

A rebel
A lover
A Dreamer

And so I dream of a world…
Where the swords we yield
Will break the chains that attempt to bind your wings
So you can fly free

I will keep fighting for you
The way you have for me
Until you can lay down your sword
And the Goddess inside of you
Can dance forever.