Longing (a poem)

I long to invest in more Black versions of myself.

The kinky hair, long dread, big-lipped poet. Chinese food investin’, overcoming, stressing, moving across transgressions, Black versions of myself.

Loving myself and my sister’s sister like an opus for Tamara, not Joshua Bennett’s muse. But something like it.

I long to invest in the building back of Black folks’ pain so long that it becomes more like a reckoning of joy. A heaven on Earth, at least in the sky. Of so many joys that it feels stupid to cry.

I long to invest in Black babies with Black names. Who grow up not reaching for guns, but those who read books and wear hair of ropey veins.

When that Black boy died, I couldn’t sleep for three nights. My heart twisted and churned. I thought that I might’ve died.

“Is that it what you felt when Kenneth got murdered yesterday?”

No, that is the feeling of ten thousand scarlet bricks being shattered for five Saturdays.

I long to invest in more Black versions of myself. The kinky, long dread, big-lipped poetic versions of me.

Loving myself, at the root. And my sister’s sister. Not Professor Bennett’s muse but something like it.