Black is the New Black
Black is the New Black
Ain’t nothing new under the Sun!
Everything that will be
is and has always been
the end justifies the beginning,
we are living in the last and first days.
Shadows and Shade.
Eyeshadow and Braids.
Shadowboxing and Fades
can never be too tight,
skin blend.
…wonder where we start and end?
Why we still standing on bended knee?
How we haven’t been crushed by centuries
our enemies don’t want us gone,
they want us controlled,
to know our place,
play our position
but how can you cage something infinite?
How you gon murder a spirit
that’s as ridiculous as thinking people are property,
or treating them like fractions
instead of equations,
half mandatory minimums,
half amazing,
but we’re a whole different problem!
…like Magic or Joy,
Black Girl,
Black Boy,
the innovators of style,
watch us conjure a radiance from the four corners
that know us all too well,
know that it is well…
with our soul.
Black…is the new Black!
always be in fashion!
…because freedom and resilience,
never gets old!
For Haiti…
If your mountains could speak…
If the lips of your borders whispered secrets…what would they tell us?
“Pearl of the Antilles”!
Who could resist the allure of you and your Caribbean sisters?
Curvaceous landscape kissed by the day sphere
soil-sweet and rich like sugar cane
precious like when Taino children chanted your name:
Ayiti!
Ayiti!
You refused to be just another entry in the black books of Spaniards and Frenchmen,
the latest conquest in the Western world
pearls must endure painful processes to exist,
taught children how to resist,
blessed them with the tongue of rejection so that every word dripped with defiance:
Anmwe!
Anmwe!
Batay!
Batay!
Dife!
Dife!
Dife!
You…are mother and mahogany coffin
cradling both indigenous and invaders.
Is that why you still tremble?
Do the skeletons of stillborns shift your fault lines?
Are your seizures meant to remind us that you will never be controlled by men?
When will we realize that you belong to GOD alone,
before we were here,
after we are gone
you will remain.
Protecting your secrets like every good mother.
Ayiti.
