la familia III- tim okamura
(related to the play, not the film- i haven't seen it yet)
She tends to forget her heritage
Doesn’t know exactly where she came from
So she uses her skin color like a road map
And unbraids Africa from her veins
She was tired yesterday
Tired today and will be exhausted tomorrow
Her drum beat footsteps
Trailing listlessly across the soils of the Earth
Collecting the objects of affection she finds
She fills a room of her own
To ward off the evil possessing her walls
She only wishes she could
Stare face first into the lit eyes of confrontation and say
Your apologies are so hollow I could scream a cry for help into them and get nothing back but my own echo
But she doesn’t
So she folds another neatly atop the pile weighing down her already beaten heart
And rubs their heads
And feeds them milk
And mothers another excuse to suck the tears from her eyes
Late at night
You can find her shaking
Incense, crystals, and a vile of holy water
Scattered in necessary arrangement
Like roses on a coffin
There is something decomposing in this girl everyday that cannot be described
Because she is half alive
She tells me:
Sometimes I hear the word bitch in my sleep
Like a night terror coming back to haunt me
Sometimes I stuff myself away into the seams of my clothing
And walk through the day like I don’t even exist
Sometimes I feel my amputated roots aching
And squirming helpless as my future fetus
Sometimes I let myself become the exotic
Only to feel some admiration on the wings of my hips
Sometimes I just want to be alone
But the bars are too tight
And my will is not strong
And there is always a man thinking he is the key
The temporary numbness she needs
To keep wading through the pain
A man melting into another story passed down
Another cautionary tale spoon fed with the medicine
Because there is always going to be someone she knows
Someone dying from the outside in
Another colored girl
She knows with AIDS
With depression
With body issues
With a broken family
With no money
With a red violent sex history
With constant yearning
With struggles handcuffed to the iron rods of her spine
There is always gonna be someone else
A couple blocks down
That tastes more like your blood than you can imagine
That has a mind like a bird’s nest
And tries to keep everything inside
Wishing the world could accept us for what it is to be part of this tribe
There is always going to be someone to stare back from the mirror
With tributaries for eyes
And as I unravel this story of her
I know she is somewhere dry eyed
Laughing
Dancing like autumn leaves
Lifting her fears like blooming petals
Washing her shackle blisters clean
Rubbing sacred oils on her well worn feet
She is somewhere
Evading the blows of this swinging pendulum
Spirit open
Feeling beautiful
Even if she cries tonight
Even if she cries tonight
She radiates love in the core of her soul
She is my mother
She is my sister
She is my friend
Even if she hasn’t heard my song yet
She understands this language
Because she is me
