a martyr's call from liberation's dreadnought

A poem I screamed into the void.

I don’t need you
to tell me that I am “a fighter”.
To convince me that I don’t need to be coddled;
to tell me that I am not just “a bird with clipped wings”,
but rather one that has learned to soar with its broken limbs
and a mighty trill.

I am not a strong-independent-young-black-woman.
I am a young girl,
continuously stepped on,
with dreams and desires impeded;
I am a young girl,
branded with the mark of your boot
on my back.

I am just a wounded bird.
Not with cracked limbs, but 
with bullet wounds—
when you pushed me to the front, 
I begged for your mercy.

Maybe I am tired of fighting.
In reality, I had never wanted to put up a fight at all.

And I wonder, 
what does resistance look like to you?
Slick curves,
nappy hair?
I wonder if its color is chocolate
or toffee?
Or does it turn caramel if you’re scared?
I wonder, 
has my color
you
impressed?

Well, to me, resistance looks like an imposition
wearing a choice’s cloak–

you passed me a megaphone, 
but forgot to let me have a say in my place here.
To you, I am ready for battle.
For you, I fight the 
overwhelming currents;
beating me down,
pushing me behind. 
And then you drag me to the front again
before you run for cover. 

The behind is where my mother belonged.
And her mother before that,
and her mother too.
It has been passed onto me
not as an heirloom,
but a hex
casted onto each individual generation;
the trigger of a cycle
ending with me at the head
of no-man’s-sea;
ending with me
returning to the many thousands
whose corpses sunk to the bottom;
whose corpses
the sea 
swallowed whole,
assimilated into the blackness
of its depths.

I wish I was more to you.
You segment me,
nominalize my existence.
“Survivor,” you say—
or whatever other dumb fucking words you conjure 
in a feeble attempt to empower me.
	
Well, what if I told you
that I no longer seek (and had never sought)
to intentionally go against the momentum,
but to let the power of the tides
finally wash my broken, wounded, black body
ashore?