I have been crowned and kissed

by the touch

of the new blush.

To be young,

Gifted,

And black;

what a weapon of mass destruction.

So be forewarned of the embers beneath my skin.

Within,

I have acquired

a crackling kind of beauty,

too fierce to be quieted.
Too brave to be erased.

enthralled am I

to be a part of beauty once more.

I am a house on a peak

made of glass.

In the midst of gabbro

and debris

I am found.

 

Once I fell backwards into

Self-deprecation.

My own appreciation

for what I was to be

was

choked by assimilation

and the pressure to be a creation

of

nothing but the best.

Nothing but my chest

and my waist

and my race

and my...

my...

my natural response

is to blanket myself in

what I assume to be

Atonement.

A grip on my neck:

Some atonement.

 

A chokehold so vice-like

I could’ve sworn

it was imaginary.

Yet at the strangulation, I shrieked;

squeaked!

Like a pair of Adidas on the glossy gym floor,
I

squeaked.

Squirming at the sonic wound ripped from me;

A squeak buried in a cracked sternum

and an ill-timed rimshot:

ba-dum tss!

When nothing was funny.

 

Somehow, though,

someone

allowed me to breathe;

To know

To leave

To go

to mean

more to myself

than any number of breaths I’ve taken

or steps I’ve taken.

More than a peacock has feathers.

I didn’t even know I had feathers.

 

But now,

Now I have an iron cape

And steel-driven ambition;

I

cannot be yielded.

I will not be disrespected.

And when you come by

bearing the frost on your back

and sleet at your feet,

Stomp your boots

before you enter my home.