Fatima Nasiyr

heavy

with a cement sky weighing down

the judgment of the world

upon my chest.

I was told the god of gods

spoke thunder when upset,

conjuring a warning

to not go any further

unless risk the demise

of our elusive sanctuaries

held within an illusion

of death being the finale.

Black girl goes missing.

Black femme winds up dead.

Black womxn was “tempting it”

tantalizing the violence

with the mystery of her survival

hidden behind melanin portals

into galaxies

where she is protected

where she is love(d)

.

The sky roared

and cast down its judgement

of light upon the eyes

of all those who could ignore

the demeaning screams

of the silence(d)

Blood curdled as milk aqueducts

ran dry underneath uneven terrain

towards the parched lips

of a world that could no longer

profit off of her death.

The sky cried

as it unleashed,

shedding it’s womb

of the life that will remain unknown

and I swallowed the nourishment

until my belly

was full.

The saying goes that in the darkest of times, even your loyal shadow will leave you

My shadow seems to have tampered with Tinkerbell’s fairy dust

to now make it larger than life

Boisterously moving about to make itself known anew

Almost like a permanent child, throwing tantrums whenever overlooked.

You see, I can I go days when my shadow is the last on my mind

I can actually function, interact with people, laugh,

And by no means let a negative situation allow my smile to be took.

In that mind, there always comes a better day.

I never turn around to check if my shadow is behind me standing in rank.

However,

The days come where the curtains stand sewn shut,

tailored perfectly to let the darkness seep through

Where all that is left of me are unidentifiable lumps crumpled under mounds of blankets

Lying bare, empty and numb

Just waiting ….for anything

Those are the days my shadow has come and tucked me into bed.

Whenever love comes in the form of family or a friend

Trying to figure out how I fell into the depths so fast

And wanting to pull me back up

My eyes burn whilst glancing at that light

My pupils and my pride too familiarized with only faint and rationed streams of it

Engulfed because of my shadow’s greed, it plays trickeries

Obscuring me from reality, my doubts and fears get the best of me

It tells me, “You, girl, ugly, lazy, bipolar, stupid, cold, naïve. Nothing better for you is out there”

Through isolation, my shadow morphs into something like a comfort blanket for a baby

Just as in that infantile state, I too seem to only be able to truly express myself in cries

These periods of magician acts create for me such a vivid illusion

Of being chained in fears and drowning in doubts, within a glass case of “never good enough”

I become paranoid of deception all around me

Asking my “friends” their motives, how and why they could care about me.

How could my existence even matter….

  I wear my shadow as a cape, feeling undeserving of any other touch

On the block//

i sleep on a mattress on the floor in the back corner of my grandparent’s home purchased off the block by my great- grandparents to give their family a stable foundation to grow upon.

a block once submerged in a sea of black faces, bandits, the color of cherry snow cones, protectors of the land they were brought to this place seeping out and spilling everywhere reclaiming an understanding of what was meant by home.

My grandfather turns on the tv static fills the air as his eyes turn grey, feasting on the news another brown body wasn’t seen as a home of a soul didn’t quite see the Spirit.

My protectors don’t live here no more what was once a warrior tribe reduced to street turmoil– Languish. What was once a home, cracked at the foundation by the swift abandonment of death.

- Fatima Nasiyr

my love sounds like an acoustic guitar 

you know

one of those with the strings slightly out of tune 

you pull out of your trunk on a love drunk Tuesday evening 

underneath the stars 

each strum 

the strings reverberate sending messages out into the cosmos 

each strum 

in perfect tandem with your heart