Detroit Red 🌹

Hello, Mr. White Man.

Let me tell you what I like, man.

Don’t you take your white hand

And put it on my mouth.

Let these words escape,

Like when we fled from the south.

Ise born in the suburbs,

Bout 30 miles from the Chi,

But Chicago is my home.

Let me now tell you why.

I hurd Hadiyah die

Just lil

Ole ways from where I stayed -

Bitter old Chicago

Up to her old ways.

We experience the cold days

We thought we left.

In NY, which is Chicago-esque,

Eric Garner took his very last breath.

As they restrained him like he was an animal,

His chest compressed.

Maybe it was cardiac arrest.

They pressed and the 16 cm jest

Burst.

That’s my best guess on how big his heart was - a radius of 16,

Like the shots ringing from that fiend

Who shot Laquan.

Or maybe Eric’s heart was 20 cm. - like the number of times they shot Stephon.

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16.

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20...

plenty of times to kill the target.

(Pause for effect)

2016 was when I seen my interests shift.

Scuse me, Mista Charlie,

Let me lift this veil from my eyes,

So I can break the black and white shades

Shielding my inner sun from being able to rise and shine.

These eyes of mine

Are no longer blind.

Stop singing and start swinging,

Malcolm chimed.

But ima hit you with these songful lines.

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

As we wade in the water,

You can go tell it on the mountain

Baldwin climbed;

Lorde piqued my interest,

But I need to expand my interests from binary tokens

So all of our colorful black voices can be spoken into existence.

Charlie, suh,

Tell me difference tween you and I.

You bleed same as me;

We both gon die

One these days.

Oh, I got it,

It’s the ways you says you better than me because I’m a slave to your bigotry.

I understand the angles in your dog whistle geometry.

I’m not smart as you want me to be;

I’m way beyond.

I’m waving on my Red, Black, and green flag for its array of colors.

A rainbow.

Detroit Red because we all in the same boat, taking the pilgrimage to our soul’s Mecca only to open up our hearts and redefine our cause.

I’m talking like this cause I’m walking like this - skipping to the Lou of my darling truth.

Mister Charlie, you scared me as a youth,

But yeen got no proof of my inferiority

'cept that roof you stole.

You shole is a thief.

I’m one too,

But I ain’t a thief like you.

I steal because I need to feel good...

Hm.

I guess I should take back what I said then.

I called this Detroit Red when I started this stanza because I’m running through a paint bonanza with my hands up; don’t shoot.

I’m just trying to color in these pages because

White Mister Charlie don’t belong on every page.

That just says

We can’t do nothing that the white man ain’t already teach.

We need to learn Sankofa, reach back and get our history.

I ain’t no mystery, nor am I a machine.

I am a woman trying to understand what it means to be a triple minority and possess intersectional oppressions.

86 was Confessions.

This is part two

As I Usher you into the ray of light inside me like some almond milk.

My hair ain’t made from silk,

But my soul is still a quilt - Quilts of the Mississippi River connecting to Chicago and Detroit.

I’m headed Norf, ascending while you exaggerate and exploit my truth to fit your anti agenda.

God gave me this light,

So I won’t return it to senda.