Farah Lawal Harris 5/1/24 Farah Lawal Harris 5/1/24

BACKSLIDER (Poem)

I don’t wanna worship with my oppressors—

prey praying hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder

with one eye open.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/30/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/30/24

WATERMELON SEEDS (Poem)

Have you heard of

the girl who swallowed fifty black watermelon seeds?

In 9 months, she birthed sugar babies.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/29/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/29/24

INTELLIGENT STUPIDITY (Poem)

inside kid, clandestine friendships,

advanced academic attention magnet,

stunning and didn’t know it,

Farah Lawal Harris 4/28/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/28/24

PLANT MOM (Poem)

I know I am depressed when I stop watering my plants.

It’s like I need a visual representation of wilting.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/27/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/27/24

PEDUNCLES (Poem)

Static fills my right hip, crrrrsppppp crrrrsppppp!

Begging for a kiss, a loosening.

Despite her shallow roots, my Hoya Hindu rope

has grown peduncles—

Farah Lawal Harris 4/26/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/26/24

YOU CHOOSE (Poem)

I rudely request, require and desire a refrain from chronic pain

because this belligerent, bony, buss-down bundles to her buttcheeks b*tch

is insane, bringing broken bridges and invisible incisions,

Farah Lawal Harris 4/25/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/25/24

THE HAPPIEST PLACE (Poem)

I stare at the sky

and instead of asking “Why?”

I whisper, “Thanks”

and drop tears as tithes.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/24/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/24/24

GENETIC (Poem)

i know how you work, i know just who you are,

a leech tryna suck the glow up out of me.

don’t you know it’s genetic,

Farah Lawal Harris 4/23/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/23/24

NOTES TO THE SUPER STRONG BLACK WOMAN (Poem)

i know you had to act like a woman

and think like a man when you were still a girl.

i know you had to shrink your bones

and turn curves into lines lest you tempt.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/22/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/22/24

THE PRIZEFIGHT

I balled my fists up and assumed a fighting stance.

i couldn’t see his hands.

i skipped around the ring to look menacing.

He appeared to do nothing.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/21/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/21/24

CHOCOLATE

Oh you, black-black!

They say under full moons,

Black girls shine blue.

Girl, I love the way that skin sparkle on you.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/20/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/20/24

THE SQUATTER

A squatter lives in my shoulders

she tore down the drywall

and built boulders,

armor for words of judgement to pierce less

Farah Lawal Harris 4/19/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/19/24

THE HAUNTING

That feeling of foreigners invading my temple

hunts me.

I am hunted by emptiness behind the detectives’ eyes.

I am hunted by the ugly yellow linoleum floors

Farah Lawal Harris 4/18/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/18/24

PILLOW

I desired to be pillow, soft and unassuming.

Nobody hates pillows.

If I could stuff my tummy with white feathers,

there’d be enough cushion, enough down

Farah Lawal Harris 4/17/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/17/24

DREAMERHEAD

Bald head, chemo girl ain’t had no hair to curl

threw up, grew up, I just bout glew up

Needed to stop the inner control freak

Stopped drumming for a while, let God control the beat.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/16/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/16/24

LAYING ON MY BACK

On my chest sit

bags of sand.

Almost 40-year-old version,

me with artificial titties.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/15/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/15/24

MS. WORLD

I actually thought I had to earn love—

keep my brows arched and teeth white,

suck my lips too thin for fear that they’d be

too big, too Black for you.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/14/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/14/24

FOR THE SURVIVORS

Forget the men who saw buds on your chest and declared them breasts.

Forget the rain showers and the smell of hot guilt rising from pavement.

Forget the new moons in the sky, the clouded nights of hidden stars.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/13/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/13/24

RHYME TIME

Light skin, brown skin, dark skin, caramel—

definitions of skin tone live in a tin of sin

akin to a pin pulled from a hand grenade.

Farah Lawal Harris 4/12/24 Farah Lawal Harris 4/12/24

NO WOMAN

“No Woman, No Cry” personified,

Black woman with the thickest hide,

skin slick to slip off insults and pride.