Say Sis-

Did they pick you yet?

Have you now found the courage

To keep trying to out do

Me with whose pussy is better contest?

Have they picked you yet?

You’ve dyed your hair

Gotten the contacts

Gave up contracts

Time

Body and

The most excellent delicate

Whimsical kiss

That Ntozake Shange

Spoke about.

Have they picked you yet?

From all the fighting

On the Internet

From placing your heart

As a useless bet

On countless crap tables

From a man who

Said he would love you forever?

Sis, did he pick you yet?

Did he pick you yet

After all the money you put on his books —

After all the dirty looks —

And from all the right hooks—

Did he pick you yet?

Will your suffering

Finally be enough

To make him come home

Or perhaps—

Raise him from the dead?

Have your eyes

Become so affixed

To the front that

You can’t see what’s

In the back of your head?

Have they picked you yet?

Have they picked you yet

Internet forum

From boardroom

To classroom

Most intimate bedroom talk

To playground,

Have they picked you yet?

The oracle

Nikki Giovanni said

If you find a woman not

full of herself, she’ll be starving,

And clearly you have

Lost both sight and appetite

Feeding on whatever

Is in reach.

Have they picked you yet?

Are your breasts not big enough

The BBL unpaid

Not light enough

Not sweet enough

Did you not make

Him Cum when he

Called enough?

Have they picked you yet?

Us on this side of freedom

Crossing the portion

Of Jordan cannot be affording

The laziness of stopping

Due to your insistence

That you are right

When rail to make

Sure all is not lost.

We will no longer pay this cost!

We are tired of

Having to fight the

World and you too

When you look like me

And I look like me

And I am you.

You see me as problem

To solve,

As the one to save

When truth is

When you try

To bind me to you —

All I have is rage!

All I’m trying to do is live my own life.

It sent to my own self.

With all of myself.

Bringing all of

my selves with me!

The healed versions carrying the wounded versions because my own self is such a treasure.

Did he pick you yet?

Otherwise we will be

In this contest

You blocking the door

Never wanting more

And I refuse to

Stay here with

You forever and a day!

Queens don’t cast

Their crowns to

Neither fools

Nor swine…

So I’ll ask again

Before you run

Out of time —

Have they picked you yet?

-JBHarris, 4.22.2024