Joyce Lee noticed that I hide my face when people talk about sex so she gave me Vulgar as a prompt.

TW: It is fucking vulgar.
Seriously if you’re related to me here is your invitation to not continue
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Vulgar

I cringe to admit it but

I think my Ancestors got off on this white boy having his tongue so far up my ass he knew what I had for dinner

I know they screamed with delight when one of his testicles bruised and blue popped out the small circle of my closed fist

They danced when I made him choke all over a big beautiful realistically veined cock

They released through streams of urine poured over his face

Similarly they sigh
When I wrap my fingers around their throat and suck the air from their lungs into my own
Hold their body down under the weight of mine so they could know what it is like to be powerless

fucked up without being fucked over

My Ancestors love drinking ecstasy directly from their wet and squirting, plumped up flesh

My Ancestors feel it when they come as I make them come
soaking through towels and topsheets
dripping
we swim oceans on that mattress
Eyes rolled back
Teeth clentched
Nipples hard

My hands full of their hair as my ears fill with their screams and my low laughter

I leave bite marks on their flesh that leaves scars for a week

They are so proud of them

Proof of their ability to surrender despite living in a world that marks any softness with a death threat

Proof of their ability to surrender to pleasure in states of chosen pain

Proof that they can surrender in ways only Black people can surrender to each other

We feed our Ancestors off the plate of our own bodies and They eat well

These thighs serve up a feast of thick yams,
open mouths drip wine,
tongues lick full lips and bring out deep songs to counter and disrupt a groove of fuckery on repeat

We beat newness into our own Black flesh

Virtuous through these vulgarities

We reclaim the soil of ourselves
Water it with squirt and sweat and swears
We pray and pay homage to a round goddex
Sweet fleshed, sex flushed, sorid and fecund within ourselves

I am a phoenix in their fire wet and griping flesh
Fingerwriting scriptures and sonnets inside of them

Come again
Come again
Ahhhhhhhhh
Come
again

#Writingfromprompts
#QueerBlackPoets

I don’t know who needs to hear this but…

I’ve had #excellence shoved down my throat so deep it owes ME money.

#BlackExcellence was beaten into me in an attempt to protect me from white supremacy and fuckshit. The messed up thing about this is that this kind of excellence is often informed by the anti-Blackness it was meant to keep me safe from.

Assimilation was a big part of that
-You’re not like other (fill in the blank)
-You’re so articulate
-I’m surprised you like (fill in the blank)

My people were so busy keeping me alive that I didn’t get to live until I almost died.

I love how our bodies move, how we suck our teeth, how sometimes our laughter is terrifying
I love the shape of our hips and the gap between our front teeth
I love the deep wisdom of my “under-educated” elders who mix three sixes and are okay with biting the shells of crabs right off

I am not royal
I am not gold
I am not a pearl

I am mixture Mississippi Delta and raised grave dirt
I am pink lotion, shea butter and biscuits
I am fried okra, marijuana and molasses
I am a few well placed prayers mixed with curses

I am common and that commonality is excellent because it makes me accessible, human, messy and wonderful

In this time of liberation I liberate myself from the notion that my life is merely what I can do with it

The bar that has been set before me is at least twice as high as my white counterparts and I have hung myself repeatedly trying to reach it

I matter
My Black Kindred and Fam,
You matter
We don’t have to be Black Excellence to matter
And if you choose to be it then make sure it is for you, defined and informed by YOU

Now go smoke a joint
Fuck someone worthy of you
And take a nap🖤

I’m consciously letting this storm catch me.

Everything is gravity mocking blur and I can barely see or breathe or think as things are ripped and washed away.

Sometimes when I stand in the eye of this, I come face-to-face with a younger version of me.

She is devastated.

Joyce Lee’s prompt was forgiveness. I ask it of myself

***********

My Child,

Forgive Me
For even though I was you I do not know you
Instead of being you I was obsessed with getting as far away from you as possible

I abandoned you and now I don’t know how to approach you

How do I convince someone I hated and tried to kill to trust me

I wasn’t educated on tenderness, love was a conditional commodity constantly withheld so I was never held long enough
I thought it was my fault
Your fault

I’m so sorry
I took care of everybody else
Anybody else
But you

I treated you like you were wrong because others were wrong to you but I should have been on your side
Instead of making you the issue I should have protected you

I don’t know how you survived it all
I don’t know how you got us here
It’s okay to be tired, frustrated, confused angry and symptomatic
You crossed the finish line barely and bleeding

And even though you drug me over with you I treated you like you were the burden
the chains around my wrist and the shackles at my ankles
I believed I was hobbled by you
And now I am humbled by you

Forgive me
Forgive me for forgetting the feeling of you in my own body

I want to remember

I want to remember the taste of your laugh in my mouth and if that means recalling the terror in your tears I’ll do that

I’ll go back with you for you, for us
I’ll hold your hand
I’ll stand besides you
I’ll whisper in your ear how beautiful you are, how worthy you are, how ineffable you are

When she closes her fingers around your throat I’ll be the steadying hand on your shoulder
I’ll be what you see when you look past the right side of his red and heaving face

My Child,
I’m that thing you felt sitting on the edge of your bed after midnight
That thing that wrapped its arms around you and held you as you cried yourself to sleep

My Child,
I’m the voice you were heading towards
I’ll be here to meet you
I am here to meet you
To catch you and protect you

And I’ll spend the rest of my life in the love of a lifetime with you

Photo credit: 401 Years by Christina Tatkoff

I believe You love me

I have educated myself on the subject of you since this body has been made for you and I sincerely believe that You love me

one day
one day I’m gonna rise up singing
I’ll fly away, in the morning
to lay my burden down by Your river
I’ll be washed clean was the promise
so I know You love me

You’ve loved me since the day I was born
followed me closely through a reckless childhood just a hair away from my skin but You never touched me
instead You painted green leaves with fire for me every year
showed me the beauty of stillness in the snow
took people and places from me in teaching me to better hold the smallest moments in the mindful memory of my heart
not just my head

You are not landlord of a fleshed house that isn’t mine
You are instructor, healer, comforter, reminder, protector…you love me
You are not a faceless scythe or knife to sever threads woven on the loom
You are twisted in this thread
Ribbon and the Maypole
and as each circle of this dance bringing us closer together I find myself wondering

What will I taste like to You when you finally catch me in your arms?

when my eyes are so full of the sight of You that I’ll see nothing else
when Your lips press a seal to mine and take my breath away
when Your touch bestills my beating heart

I know we’ve flirted before but when it’s real I hope
that maybe
can it be
how I wanted my first time to be

on the perfect evening with white curtains of gossamer waltzing on honeysuckle breezes
a sunset You orchestrated giving way to the first stars
lay besides me in a big beautiful bed, touch me with a gentleness informed by an exquisite expertise
if You would only wait-
wait until I’m ready for You and I promise my smile will be a heaven full of stars for You to fall into
my lips, sweet with this life I’ve lived well in wait of You
If You would only wait-
I’ll open my arms to embrace You
surrender with sighed breath and love You
as You came
as You come

for me.

o·pin·ion

/əˈpinyən/
noun

a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

✨✨

Dearly Beloved,

You aren’t beyond reason when fire rising in your chest burns up your throat
You aren’t out of your sanity if you bite the inside of your mouth to keep from speaking, shake your fingers to keep from typing

You also aren’t wrong if you do

If you do decide to speak your mind
Allow lava to pass your lips
When someone says it is just “a difference of opinion”

You are enraged because you know Opinions Kill

You know
only the privileged
have the privilege
to agree to disagree on the “difference of an opinion”

You know that opinions brushed like dust off of white, cis, het shoulders are
The bullets in an officers gun
The ink on a rejected application
The delay in medical care
The vote for relief funds
The stories that get remembered
The 0s on a paycheck
The years of a sentence
The justice of a system

Opinions:
a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge are being weighed against your truth

And the rules of their math always adds up in their favor

I’m so sorry Love,

I’m sorry you were treated like you were  out of your mind, sanity and reason for ending relationships with them
over the difference
of an opinion

Hey, My name changed. It’s not a sudden thing. This is years in coming and there are so many #reasonswhy I held on to that name this long.

One of them was that I was afraid to lose the contacts and connections I had formed with it. But with all this shit going on I don’t want to wait, second guess myself or hold on to anything that isn’t mine.This name is meThis is mineIf you slip and call me Irene I won’t be mad but I will gently correct you unless you are using that name on purpose to be a cunt. In which case I will call you such and keep it moving.

Hello,

My name is Rawiyah Tariq (RAH-we-ya TAH-reek)

My pronouns are They/ Them.

It’s very nice to meet you.

As I feed my Ancestors
With bourbon, with food, with dance, with burnt herbs, with blood, with songs, with promises.

I ask
I pray
I plead

That they hold those that are kinfolk close
Protect their lungs from gas
Protect their bodies from bullets
Protect their faces from recognition
Protect their wrists from shackles

May their eyes be sharp enough to see the embedded
May their phones work, their videos load and their signal never jammed
May they have access to all they need
May they be supported by their communities

O Mighty Dead
Move with them as they move forward
O Mighty Dead
Move with us as we move forward
O Mighty Dead
Move with me as I move forward

As we uprise, rise up with us!

Dearly Beloved,

Before you close your eyes tonight remember that you are magnificence whether you are in motion or not

you are not outside of your sanity

you are most definitely under attack from within and without and while there is medicine in this shadow there is also horror in knowing which way the wind blows

I am so sorry

I am sorry for those of us who must continue to do the work in these exhausted states

I am sorry for those of us who can not continue to do the work and are drowning in the guilt or shame of the relief of being sidelined

I am sorry it is so hard to practice what we often preach
to bring water to the parched lips of others that is so hard to swallow for ourselves

I wish us
to give us
the grace we so freely give to others

you are not a phony or a fake or less than if you are depressed, stressed and assaulted by anxiety

you are not a hypocrite for crawling into, caving into coping methods that are giving you the comfort you so desperately deserve and crave

you are not a hypocrite for attempting to create space or a buffer to buffer your shocked system
we are constantly grieving and we need space for that

space to not take in everything that is around us
space so we can get footing
and lets be real
Dearly Beloved,
we are trying to get footing on quickly moving and sinking sand

we are trying to do something that seems like the impossible

but remember,

we are waking miracles descended from the first peoples, the magical peoples, those that survived genocides, middle passages and trails of tears

depression and anxiety has us out here still doing great feats by simply living while simultaneously having us lose sight of who we are

it will make you forget that you are magnificence whether you are in motion or not

it will make you forget that you are GODDEXX moving across this earth

You literally are god and oh so beautifully human

contrary to the first story I was handed like so many Black & Brown AFAB’s were handed

You are not to die on the cross

You are not to sacrifice Your sacred Self like a lamb for others

Here is my prayer, my dream, my demand for Us

We’re going to take rest
We’re going to allow ourselves to be totally bent
to be messy
to cry
to be fucked up
to be imperfect

We’re going to fully mourn Our dead
We’re going to remember Their names and keep places for Them at our tables

And we’re going to keep going

We’re going to keep being molded in this fire We are moving though because there will come a break

there will come break or We will fucking make one

We’re going to live

We will survive this with Our souls intact because once this is over We are still going to be on the front lines

whatever thing(s) invested in seeing this world double dicked into darkness
whatever thing(s) increasing it’s efforts to destroy You is officially put on fucking notice

instead of catching Us, it’s gonna catch these hands

but for now rest
rest as much as and when You can
give Your Self as much space and comfort as You can

for when We wake Heaven & Hell is coming with Us and through Us

Dearly Beloved

Sacred Sol

You are magnificence even when you are not in motion
Thou art the Sun the Next World will rotate around

I miss you
I love you
I love us

PERIODT

Empaths | Caretakes | Therapists | Social Workers,

You are a lighthouse in a storm
people are being drawn to you.

It is so important that you take care of yourself right now.
It is so important that you meditate, scream, cry, shake as much as possible.

Take baths
Punch pillows
Dance into a frenzy
Sleep
Hydrate
Eat

Be consciously aware that you are holding not just your own feelings but the ambient dross of all around you.

Paranoia of the selfish entitled horders
The real fears of people who can not financially support themselves through these shutdowns
The panic of misrepresented numbers
The dread of those in isolation

You are being expected to function and provide support to people while you yourself maybe dealing with your own crisis.

While you your self may be triggered by all these other people being triggered.

I am so sorry
To every store clerks, government worker, teacher, mental health care worker, sex worker, nurse, doctor

I am so sorry that you are expected to keep so calm, so level headed, so “professional” while this spins around you.

I see you
I see your humanity

This is my prayer for you✨

May you be so fucking blessed
So tightly held
So deeply loved and supported

May some deep magic move around you to shield you mentally and physically from the onslaught

May you be seen and treasured by all who come into contact with you

When you lay down may you sleep peacefully

When you walk this world may it be with ease

May your showers and baths cleanse more than your body

May your spirit be fed and nourished

You are a lighthouse in the storm
You are a candle in the dark
May you find moments of hope and joy
May you have peace
May you not burn out

#healingincrisis
#empaths
#prayerforthecaretakers

My sexual preference used to be anyone who would fuck me.

This is all hindsight btw. Like 2020 is definitely turning into the year of hindsight and clarity around patterns that were/are wrecking me. But yeah, my sexual preference used to be anyone who would fuck me until that one time in that one place where three queer, fat, Black, kinksters fisted the white jesus out of me.

I was in the San Jose Double Tree lobby at a yearly kink event with one of my closets friends. We were so excited. It was a kinky “Disneyland” there were classes, events, parties, dungeon space and a contest we were not even going to pretend to sit through. We came to play.

At least I said I came to play.

In all honesty I was too anxious to put myself out there. I was stripping on stages across the country but I didn’t believe that I was actually attractive so while I told everyone else I came to play I really came to watch, get high and cry myself to sleep at night listening to Toni Braxton on my headphones while my roomie fucks who ever they picked up from the crowd.

So while pretending that I came to play I mentioned to her that I had never been fisted.

The look of abject horror and “Da Fuck You Mean?!?!” that crossed this woman’s face when I said that had me choking on my own spit.

“You’ve never been fisted!” She asked so loudly that her voice skipped across the marble floors of the double tree like a stone across water. It was a siren song and drew in two other Black Queers who magically appeared from fucking no where.

Queer #1 : Who has never been fisted?
BFF: This bitch (points at me)
Queer #2: Like how tho? How is that possible?
Me: (sinks into seat)
BFF: Right!
Queer #1: Nah this has to be fixed.
Queer #2: Yeah. Let’s help you out! Let’s take care of you!

I’m pretty sure that I sort of passed out due to mortification at that point.

I’m not easily embarrassed.

I’ve purposely done foolish shit just to see what it felt like but this was different. This wasn’t standing in front of a crowd doing a line of powdered sugar off of my left tit to Micheal Bubble’s cover of “Let It Snow” level shenanigans. This was deeper. This made my heart race. The rest of the day is fuzzy in my memory. I mean I know things happened but I could not focus on any of it. I know they gave me a time, a place and instructions.

Later that night go to the dungeon, find a sling near an electrical socket, wait.

So I did.

I waited. On my knees I waited and watched as that time passed and continue to pass. All of a sudden I was 17 and stood up for a dance, I was waiting against the wall for her to notice me, I was 11 and nobody wanted me for their volleyball team, I was eight and these fuckers never called “red rover, red rover, send Irene over”.

I could feel the tears coming behind my eyes a fist squeezing my heart and lungs closed and just when I was about to go fuck it they appeared.

Fat black bodies, big gorgeous smiles, their hair coiled like mine, lips just as full and soft and inviting, they moved like joy, looked like heaven and for a moment I froze before the absolute glory of them.

They pulled me up
Stripped me of my clothing with an easy casualness while somehow still treating me as if I was some sort of gift they were receiving. Something precious and worthy. Like I was precious and worthy and this was everyday common ass knowledge.

They rubbed me down with coconut oil
Touching each part of me, their warm hands making me glow and shine which was a blessing because I was ashy as fuck. Like my level of ash was an embarrassment unto my entire lineage. I was a fire hazard and not nar one of them mentioned it as they tended me.

They beat my chest with their fists
They beat my back with their palms, a knocking, a welcoming home and every time their hands landed I was called back into my own flesh. It felt so good to be there that I didn’t believe it to be true. In the spaces between impact I flew from my body always being summoned back over and over again until my soul surrendered to my flesh.

They laid me back into the sling
They slipped my feet into the holsters
They started.

I’m spread wide
Suspended
Surrounded
Safe

Actually safe and I was about to be fed

This. Was. Terrifying.

As a fat, black, queer, afab human being the mainstream had me believing that my options were severely limited.
Scarcity had me out here fucking trash and being grateful.
Fear had me out here engaging in mediocre mostly hetero sex because I didn’t consider my own desires
Disbelief in my basic humanity had me giving Faberge eggs (what I call my absolute beast of a head game) to assholes.

I didn’t even know I had a problem until I was educated otherwise.
I was about to be educated otherwise

While they are working me over and working into me I am, internally, an absolute mess.

What if?

What if I am broken? What if all the sex has been bad because I am broken? What if I feel something? What if it feels good and I won’t ever be able to feel that again? Am I supposed to squirt? Can I even squirt? I think I have to pee. Wait isn’t that what squirting is supposed to feel like? What if it is just pee? I have to squirt or else they wont know they are doing well. OMFG what a hetero-normative thought! Ew Ew EW EW. I rebuke theeeeeeee!

I’m clenching and gasping and squirming away and one of them braces me. Places themself between the wall and the sling so I can’t strain away.

“Don’t you back up off this fist! Don’t you back up off this fist brah!” They say like a team captain or personal trainer or enthusiastic artistic manager. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Nothing made sense. My body was trying so hard to turn itself off, reject this until I heard her voice.

“Shhh,” She said from between my legs “It’s okay” and she began to sing. Her voice rising above the vibrations of the Hitachi humming against my clit.

Let it go
Let it go
Don’t hold it back any more
Let it go
Let it go

I mean?

I could not with this foolishness! I began to laugh. That full body laugh that makes you convulse and clench and open and clench and open and I opened…

like a cathedral singing new and holy songs.

Years later I’m laughing with this gorgeous woman. She is fat like me. She is black like me. I’m laughing because people used to say we were dating and since this was before I knew everyone didn’t feel about girls the way I felt about girls so I denied it.

I denied it
We denied it and yet here we are with my face in her pussy
And me going

It’s okay
You get to have this
Let me drink you in
Let me give you this pleasure
Let me take care of you.

They gave me a knowing that night
They
Black with bodies abundant as all the silken river beds
Smelling of coconut oil and leather
They who beat new rhythms into my heart with four fists
One Hitachi
One wrist
Deep
They who knocked at the tabernacle door until I opened like a cathedral singing new and holy songs
They gave me a knowing

I am so fucking worthy. I am beautiful in all of my humanity. My Queer Fat Black body is precious. I am precious. I get to be touched like I am temple, pages to be turned and read, caressed and memorized like sacred scripture in a holy book. I get to be treated in these same ways outside of sex too. I get to demand for myself what I willing give to so many other people.

This knowing goes beyond the bedroom.

Over the years its dissolved into my flesh and bones it began to change how I interacted with the greater world around me and myself. It made life difficult, it made me uncomfortable it had me eventually unable to sexually/ emotionally engage with fuck shit so I tried desperately to forget this knowing.

I fall asleep
I wake up
I fall asleep
I wake up
I fall asleep

I’ve come to realize over that years that I can never unknow it. I submit to it.

It is as beautifully undeniable as I am.
As beautifully undeniable as you are are too.

You are fucking worthy

You are beautiful in all of your humanity

Your Queer Trans Fat Black Brown body is precious

You are precious

You get to be touched like you are temple, pages to be turned and read, caressed and memorized like sacred scripture in a holy book

You get to be treated in these same ways outside of sex too

You get to demand for yourself what you willing give to so many other people

May it always and forever be so.