Black Bird (Black Swan)

Why you wanna fly black bird? You ain’t ever gonna fly.

They say black girls aren’t meant to fly.

Angel wings wasted on dead carcasses.

But low and behold this rare thing,

The black swan who dared to sing,

This magical,

Mystical being,

Whose existence we deemed insignificant

Insubordinate

Incomplete

Only 2/5 shy of acceptable

But, as we know,

Negroes are more digestible when perceived as fantastical,

So this “black swan”

Gifted with flight

Couldn’t even flap her wings together to get a little height,

Set her sights

On song.

Was it the melody-less-ness of her dance?

Hobbling around on the webbing of past dreams

Where she soared free.

Gloriously uninhibited by the chains of humanity,

But then someone looked up.
Clouded and shrouded by insecurity

Inferiority

They eyed her with a vengeance.

That was mistaken by a stupid cupid

Meddling with shit he had nothing to do with.

Supplying the arrows

Mr. Eros

Blew the whistle

That sent her

Falling, Falling, Falling,

From the sky.

Cause your momma’s name was lonely, and your daddy’s name was pain.

Pain encompassed the little black swan.

Isolated and banished

To a cage

Made tame

Dormant

To be used as a doormat

By those who couldn’t comprehend

That her only sin

Was that she was magnificent

And they were the opposite.

But the funny thing,

What happens to caged things.

Their walk becomes a stalk,

Their brains scream with rage.

An unenvied frenzy

Of the decaying psyche

Of a once proud
Renowned creature

Reduced to a shallow shell

Of who they once were.

And they call you little sorrow, cause you’ll never love again.

Bathing in a hateful stew of the self,

Mixing in a cup of everyone else,

Love seemed impossible.

A philosophical marvel

That could never be tangible

For the likes of a little black swan.

Darkness welcomed her in,

And there, she stayed.

For a century or two,

Or three,

I forget,

But the point is,

That she was on a downward spiral

To nowhere good.

But once you hit rock bottom,

All you can do is go up.

Supposedly.

But of course we hoped for the best.

And she had an epiphany.

A resounding symphony of a deeply rooted understanding

Of the cage,

Her cagers,

And her place inside it.

You see the cage said everything about her cagers

And absolutely nothing about her.

An unfortunate ingredient

In another’s brewing stew of inadequacies,

That they forced upon her

Like armor

That she’s finally shaking off.

But her wings are weak.

She hasn’t stood on her own two feet

In what felt like forever.

So this new endeavor was trying,

To say the least.

And she was trying,

To break out of that leash.

This choking collar of subordinance

Attempting to orient herself out of the cage,

But she couldn’t fly.

Because her wings were too weak

And she hadn’t stood on her own two feet

In what felt like forever.

So why you wanna fly black bird? You ain’t ever gonna fly.

Flying wasn’t an option.

She’d never be able to get enough traction,

In the small cage that housed her.

But she finally found something that

Flew as high as she did.

Her voice,

Her first solo choice.

And her song reverberated off the cage,

In a blaze,

Into the sky,

Enchanting all who heard her.

And they gathered around

Confused, how this caged thing

Could have a song to sing.

Hadn’t we broken her down to nothing?
But they failed,

Because they had no idea

How well resilience ran inside her.

She’d build up her strength

Break out that cage,

Because little black girls aren’t meant to be tamed.

But, of course, as we know,

Negroes are more digestible when perceived as fantastical,

But we aren’t to be consumed,

So FUCK YOU!

Little black girls aren’t meant to be caged.

They are meant to soar and fly,

Into black women,

Oh how divine!

Our angel wings aren’t wasted.

We are not dead.

We rise and we rise,

And fly again.