by Liza Ellen
Where I'm from
we weave existence into formation
with words
We widdle words into life
We call it Nommo
Creating worlds, ways, eras,
with words
chants, songs, reprimands
even so
that word,
stuck to me and encased me
it became a web that tightens the more I struggle.
I tried to take it from you
"Black and proud"
but there again is that black
rooting my pride in a need to defend
I tried black and beautiful
but beautiful made the black pretty
but did not illustrate my glow
Now black and sexy
brings a darkness to my divine sensuality
and dilutes the power of my love making
yet and still
the intentional obstructive
Black remains
Black is defined by struggle
slavery, injustice, isms, oppression
black is defenseless, disenfranchised
dis-empowered
Chaotic
lawless
Prey for the Predators fancy
it thwarts the truth
400 years ago
someone gave me that word
Black
I'd never heard of the term
Never married the glowing mahogany in my hue to black
or black to me
but someone told me
that I was Black
and that meant
I was second
slave
prey
oppressed, a good dancer
less intelligent, communal, late to everything
and most importantly
less than
Less than yellow, brown, white, red..
see black the color
is at the bottom
of the spectrum
it conspires with lowly entities
entities beneath black
demons,
heinous concepts
evil and violent
Its power is immeasurable but
it's innately
inherently malign.
I am not that
No visual attribute
created by juxtaposition
can hold my vastness
I am a creator
spinning worlds in my mouth.
I am mother of all
Dictating branches and survival as poems and psalms
I am Earth's
mother tongue
Her consciousness whispered from her womb
I speak her secrets of antiquity
wrote the original word
created
word
So that word
THAT word: Black
was a word
undue
created to be
gooey, thick,
cloaking
strapped to me
by an insane frame of thought
to cut off the root
That word is a new creation
with no past, no legacy, no roots.
It is only 400 years old.
But I am time
I spoke the word time
am genesis
am consciousness of the passing of life
first to perceive the day and night cycle
the traveling of the earth around the sun
cycle of human life's fertility
I am the original I
the first to know the separation of light and dark
cold and hot
silence and sound
I am the original perceiver
free and open
to become and create
what I am, what I will be
I am the ability to define
creator of definition
So forgive me my lapse of memory
Accepting the wrongful definition
Although silence and endurance
kept me
brought me
through the
lie that you created with your word power
Though today I live amidst the lie
yet still I know and remember
I am not Black
When you gave me the term
My shock and fear of your tyranny
left me dumbfounded and faithless
In an effort to live and not die at the hand of liars
wanting not to leave this earth as a character in a fictional tale
of how the earth was lost
I was afraid to utter my name
and although my fear
paired with
the assault made me want to forget
I still remember
What I am,
What I am called
So allow me to reintroduce myself,
I am
I AM
