30 Days Of Jaye – Day 24: The Cry of The Free Woman

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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

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 23: Suvivorship

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Fun fact: the name Zachary is from Zachariah which means the Lord remembers.

Note: This is my first husband’s real first name and I never took his. He is remarried to another woman, has children with her, and makes no attempt to have a relationship with his children. As you read this work, with this backstory, it will make more sense.

He left us on

Constructed wings

Of wax to wain

Leaving us to watch

To see

the sea

Welcome him.

There is no love lost

When the man you loved

No longer exists—

If he ever had.

The name

The Lord remembers

Corresponds to

The same Icarus

Who left me with

The daughters

Held in body

And heart.

The same one

Who now has

Made his tribe

Complete with the

Sons be craved

So that his line

And its curses

Might not die

With him.

Tied to you by time

As my ancestors were

The language and land

Foreign because I

Never was supposed

To be here alone.

To rage, rage against the

Dying of the light!

I swallowed the salt water

For my children to breathe.

Pressing –

Swimming –

Towards the Son

With the

These two

Cleaving to me

To make their

Mother a mermaid

to bring them to

Dry land

To make the milk and honey.

My fins are feet

and feet are fins

The traversing between

The world given

And the world that is.

And taught my daughters to swim.

Their father is Icarus.

Their mother is Yemoja.

The death he wanted

Was his own —

And he can watch

from the bottom of the sea.

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 22: Before The Storm Rolls In

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I don’t know how 42 happened.

That is to say I didn’t think aging

Was what I would do alone.

That is to say the happily ever after

wasn’t meant for me, not like I wanted it to be.

That is to say I am the one who got away, and time marched on anyway,

That is to say the girl I was is the woman I am who takes the little girl who was old when she was young with me —

That is to say the dreaming only got bigger when time became quicker —

That is to say the girl who loved the boy, still waits for him to come back to her…where he belongs.

-JBHarris, 4.14.24

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 21: When The Revolutionary Is Bored In History Class

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Note: Real history teaches…even when you don’t want to listen.

When the revolutionaries

Are bored in history class

They will say they

Your mind is wandering:

you are not paying

attention to the lesson

They is being taught

To the that you are being

Inattentive and dismissive

of what is being presented to you.

The information in

front of you

Is for your benefit

They tell you to study

To speak back

to remember and remember

and repeat and remember

and to internalize

for the exam

in front of you.

but when the revolutionary

looks at the information

in front of them,

knowing what they have

been given,

and what is on

the inside of them

remembering that

History is in the other room?

How can anything be saved if all be lost?

When the revolutionary is born

History books self-emulate!

Truth is on the inside of them

It will come from them,

And they will throw their hands

Up in the air —

The same fashion that

we did in Ferguson

When we said,

“Hands up don’t shoot?”

because I do have a question.

I have a question

because what you are

Presenting to me

Is so alien

It might as well

have come from

Jupiter —

Saturn—

Or a bar on Mars.

I do not understand

why all things dictated

in this realm of reality

focused on this narrative

have only been done

by anyone that is White,

And on money!

I do not understand

why my place in this

only is defined by

What my foremothers,

and my ancestors,

and those who suffered

from DRAPETOMANIA

were able to give to you—

that you stole from us—

and that you look at me and

say that I am lazy!

When the revolutionary

Is bored in history class

They will tell your parents

You are inattentive and disrespectful!

They will tell your family

That all is lost with you

because all they you need

To do is pay attention in their class!

Forgetting history is not static —

but is always dynamic,

and we are the result

of such history being erased

and mocked

and—

forgotten.

When the revolution

is born bored

in history class —

when those two meetings

of future and time

converge in

elementary school

middle school

or high school

You just understand

That when truth comes

As James Baldwin says

It must be spoken.

That oracle Baldwin

told us the world is

Held together

Really it is

By the love and passions

Of a few people

And what greater

passion is there

Than truth?

When the revolutionary

Is born in history class:

They will to change it.

-JBHarris, 4.21.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 20: Water Freezes – II

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I’ve noticed two crucial things

between these birthdays

And this education:

DEGREES.

my eighth grade science teacher

told me that water freezes at 32°

so as one who has had 42 birthdays

TWO DEGREES

and is a water sign

It is easy for this heart of mine

to become icy.

to push you away

when you do things

that I know will

ruin my day.

when I see that

you have nothing

on your mind

but time

And choose to

waste mine?

There’s no reason for us to converse.

There’s no reason

for you to be in my universe.

I have almost 50 rotations

around God’s sun

and I have no reason

to waste another one

on someone else’s son

who does not know

what he wants —

or believes that he can keep me

in a frozen position

while he figures out.

Where is hot and heat

and where he can go

Gather more sympathy from.

I refuse to be chilled.

Water freezes

when you neglect it.

when you don’t feed it.

when there is no water

and no oxygen to

keep pace with it.

It will go back to its original state.

Unfazed.

and yet—

What can the poet do

When her heart is frozen

except fight for it to be

Flesh again,

To be won again,

To remember that love

Still is—

And may always be.

Even if not with me.

-JBHarris, 4.19.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 19: The Mammy Of A Burning House

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America is a plantation:

It just depends on where you sit.

And from where you sit,

It is the speed at which

they will give you bullshit.

The fact there are

Skinwalkers among

the safe places and

Spaces of Black people

should be a not shock to you.

Because —

You know —

They lied and betrayed Jesus too.

Understand that

Skinwalkers have always

Been among us!

Ever since Massa

Found one’ah us

Willing to betray

all that he is,

All that she was

in order to get a little bit more

Of where they got theirs from—

understanding all that they have is stolen.

You worship the oppression

and wonder why your life

is in ruin—

at the same time

Want protection from

who rescued from your

Own doin’!

You have to understand

that there is no room

For you at the inn!

That you have found yourself

Among thieves and robbers

and the same time

you wanna clobber us

For all that we have garnered

and say that we are lazy!

Have you been so far

From your mother’s table

From your father’s arms

You no longer recognize

I am you?

because I recognize that you are me.

And in that same breath

In the same life’s brevity,

I understand the same documents

That you worship?

They will hang you with.

They will use your blood

to keep the flag red, white and blue.

Red for the Blood shed

Here, there, and everywhere abroad.

White for ten same

Colored people who

Stole it and erased

All others,

Chaining the remaining as

If we had no mother,

Treaties as broken

As the husks of cicadas.

When you are

Hallowed out

Wiped and rubbed clean

Of blackness and its cause eternal

Blue is what you succumb

And remain

Once they hang you!

It is not my job to make you comfortable—

But to remind you of

All that is within you

That your rescue has

Always been in the room

But you continue

To your doom

but you must understand

because White father has

told you that black is bad .

And yet —

When the house burns down

You realize that we

are all you ever had!

But at the same time,

I had you your broom

Back to you!

there is no one willing

to stay here with you!

The plantations are burning!

Massa is dead!

And we have long time

before we go to bed,

so we have to keep going.

You sweet ‘round this porch

because this is what you wanted!

What you have worked for!

To be the best one

Outta all of us

And I say—

By that game you’ve won.

So, gone head and sit down some.

Rest a spell!

You gon need it for the

War yet to be won.

Because trust and believe

They’ll put your

Black ass at the end

Of a gun!

understand that you

Cannon fodder for

The cause of whiteness

because you have decided

To sacrifice all of yourself—

For all that they are!

And when the house burns down

Stay in there!

Because there is no more room

and we can’t share the air.

You have to understand

that you did this to you,

So sweep around that

front door like Massa

Told you to!

I will not be a mammy of a burning house.

-JBHarris, 4.17.24

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 17: I Have A Brother In Heaven

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This will be included in the work DADDY, I’M OKAY.

My boy name was going to be Phillip,

The name given to the father

Of Alexander the Great —

Fitting for destiny

Lineage of a father

Who is also synonymous

With Kings.

And for humor

—perhaps for hope—

Divine prestidigitation

The brother I was supposed

To be,

And the sister I am,

Morphed into one.

The brother going

Before me

Me possibly a rainbow

What Daddy was supposed

To give him,

Big enough to

Share with both is us

I hold.

For the both is us.

Maybe this is why

In my second

Chief tongue

This name is

Given by my mother

Means—

Queen.

-JBHarris, 4.9.2024