a BLACK journey...

[my portion of a collaboration poem with Angela Cole regarding black hair! UPDATED 1.26.11]


...new growth...
new...
beginning to overstand that the slave trade traded more than our spirits
spreading lyes
the KY laying hands on rooted epic memories
a cotton pickin' remembrance ironed flat
lining plantation death strokes
combing ancestry between gritted teeth of no return
how quickly we sell out to the dreams of westernized forefathers
wishing our mammies flatbacked closer together
creating a lineage for the greater good...hair
mane hiding the main attributes that make being of color a delicacy
so we settle
settle for the taste of American badlands that highlight streaks of Indian wet nurses
just to say "their in my family"
cover Cecily plats with lace-front lies
because Chi irons were afraid to cross the Mason Dixon
of your natural segregation
bucked wheat never felt more freeing standing beside ebony striations
pretending to hold glory and honor
but since I was never taught that my locs were royal
I jester my soul to the commonplace
salon my heritage in open ended press n curls
looking for change in purse string bottoms
tipping the stylist to uproot my name
ironed
flat
^^^^time^^of^death_______
the moment I believed
straight was pretty