Cannibal (A Poem to White Supremacy)


by Alyesha Wise


You’ve been borrowing me for so long

That I forgot to demand myself back

I found me

Sinking in a university lecture hall

Feeling all momma I made it

All hands raised

Eagerly submissive

Begging for a seat at a table I set

Who lent me to you anyway?

Was it my mother?

Naw

Was it the back door?

Did you arrive on a night when we were flying with each other in our sleep?

Did you pretend you were the wind?

How many scriptures did it take to bewitch us

To smother under your wing?

Where is your home?

Can you point to it on a map with a bloodless finger?

Say, This is where we the shot the Healer

The Umi and child

The Descendants of the gold complected with Sun for feet!

Oh, the pain of being a surrogate to some trifling dog

Giving birth on a laboratory table

Presenting It to your parents

Watch It chase its own tail

Sniff and hunt

Blame the hunted for the reason we feel like prey

After the capture

How long did you think it would be before we would collapse

After the bleeding

How long did you think it would be before we would attack

We are not a burning people

Must you set flame to another black body to overstand

We are a root kicking its way through tainted soil

We are the soil

Kicking its way to become its Self

Certainly,

If we left this place

Do not be mistaken It would be the sirens that sent for us

To leave you here.

Starving

With nearly no one left to eat


But each other.



Alyesha Wise is a published Poet, Teaching Artist and TEDx Speaker currently residing in LA. A 2014 Hollywood Grand Slam Champion and a member of the 2014 and 2015 Hollywood Slam Teams, she is a 2-time Women of the World Poetry Slam finalist, a 2-time Philadelphia Grand Slam Champion and Assistant-coach of the Get Lit Youth Slam Team. Some of her additional highlights include, but aren't limited to, a 2012 interview with Film Director, Ron Howard, an artist feature in the Google Interstellar Project and being told by co-founder of Essence Magazine, Russell Goings, "In All, You Are Awesome."