Tag: Black women

Mothers On Mothers Day

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MAMA. The maker and destroyers of destinies and worlds. -JBHarris

Mothers On Mother’s Day

If I tell you happy Mother’s Day,

it means I see you sis.

It means I see you

doing is best you can

as long as you can,

and sometimes you do the can

even when you don’t know

where the rest will come from.

When I tell you

Happy Mother’s Day,

that means I believe in you,

that I want the best for you,

know that there is no one quite like you.

If I tell you Happy Mother’s Day,

that means I see all

you will become,

all that you’ve had to overcome,

even when no one

would come to you

when you needed them.

Even in those darkest times,

when you wish

the love of a mother was yours —

you can share mine.

When you didn’t see

your way clear,

when the world gave you

dark when all you needed

was light —

and you persisted.

Through rain and sleet and snow, thunderbolts

lightning crashes,

and its flashes,

taking everything from you.

And you persisted.

As godmother,

as foster mother,

Adopted mother

Bonus moms

as a sister from another mister—

You are the being essential as

part of a village.

Seeing the children in your world

as those who could never leave it,

leaving your love in their bones.

You see, no mother works alone.

You are needed and necessary,

And necessary to be needed.

And in the need,

in the try,

you still manage

to wipe tears from your own eyes, to

plant trees that you may never feel the shade from.

But all eat the fruit thereof.

Fighting wars that were yours never to be won.

Through stress,

Strife, causalities,

The skies burning—

Or falling!—

And the 10,000 falling

By your right side

And stride forward.

Through grief and loss, you still are called mother.

The repairing,

Generational curse breaking

through the apprehension,

even through sometimes

active addiction,

someone called you: MAMA.

Through trauma, you showed up…

And even through that

As the children who survived

and remain forgive you

when you couldn’t do anything…but give up.

Happy Mother’s Day

is complicated

because that’s the title

even if you die—

no one will ever take away.

Or replace.

-JBHarris, Mother’s Day 2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 30: Love Letter To Lost Work

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The old texts say

It is appointed unto man

Once l to die

and then the judgment.

what happens to writers

who leave the world

And in the contents therein

with their mouth full.

Their desks full of papers

And pens

And post-its….

Of jump drives, and

Missing chairs,and

Desks never cleaned out.

What happens to the work when the worker is gone?

When that writer

finally drifts away,

and moved to

Avalon or Valhalla

or Nirvana

or wherever it is

writers get to rest.

Our only regret

is that we had

Only one life to write

all the lives in us down.

In the quiet mind

Of the poet,

there is a graveyard

they forgot to write down.

Novels unfinished.

Thoughts and essays

That they never managed

To submit…

calls, answered from editors or fans.

Scripts that never materialized.

Yet it we could leave

One word for those

who endured our lives

as both person

and immortal vessels

filled with language

it would be this:

Remember.

Remember

how we tried to put

everything

into everything

Ran and out of time.

Remember that we loved

As this truly as we could

and our heart was broken

1000 times…

Remember we tried

to put fire into paper

and try not to burn ourselves.

Remember sometimes tears

Became the water you pull from,

In many a well.

We wrote to live.

We wrote to stay.

And for this great cause

Did we not throw

it all away!

if we could leave

But one love letter

What to you will

find in our wake,

Is tried to correct

every mistake.

to bring back those

who were lost

at the cause of war

Or famine

or evil…

to make the good

Loud and present, and

the fear understood.

We tried to put everything right

to organize

so you can fight!

we did our work

so you could do yours too:

because now our time is come

And this is all we have

to give back to you.

Our only regret

Is we had one life

to write everyone else’s

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 28: Daddy, I’m Okay

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This will be in the upcoming work dedicated to my father, DADDY, I’M OKAY.

When I’m tired,

my mother tells

me to stop wiping

and holding my face

like my daddy did

when he was tired.

I think that,

even in those

neurons and synapses

That is my father,

reaching from the beyond

into me to let me know

that he still wants

to take care of me.

I want him so bad,

“Daddy, I’m okay.”

I know with you

being so far away,and

you being into the mystery, and

me eight years from

the point from

where your heart beat

For the last time,

I still want to say:

“Daddy, I’m okay.”

I won’t lie and say

There aren’t days

Where I ache for

your voice and

Rely on your grit—

It is impossible not to miss you.

There are days

I struggle to remember

all you were,

all that you are,

and what you meant to me.

In this world of grief and strife

it sometimes makes memory

so hazy,

that I have to struggle

to remember your voice.

I have now crossed

a threshold in this life,

I have been without you

more than I had you.

I understand if God be for me,

I will have more years

in front of me,

and that holds

the unique paradox

that I might forget you.

And yet Daddy, I’m okay.

I’m okay because

for whatever reason

you fit to give me

rock —and to speak to it,

to demand

I’m not let go of it!

That you endowed

this pretty Black girl

who is now

a strong Black woman

with enough in her

in 17 summers

to summon

when the storms of life rage!

Daddy, I’m okay.

I’m gonna be okay

until it’s okay

speak okay

Until a way is made!

And Daddy, I’m okay…

You can rest now.

I am reminded

there is no time limit

on how long

A father will

love his daughter—

even from million miles away.

I take solace that even on my dying day,

I’ll still be your babygirl.

Daddy… Immabe OK.

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 26: How You Fireproof A Black Girl

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How to fireproof a Black girl in 10 easy steps:

1.) Believe in yourself when even it seems all is lost. You have more within you than they can ever be a cost. Do not abandon you because you is what you have and you is what you will leave with.

2.) Remember all the mammies are dead. You were never supposed to be one, and everything in you has come from victory.

3.) Peace is where you are, peace is what you deserve, and peace is what you fight for: peace of mind, peace of heart, and never a piece of a man.

4.) You have the right to love, and be loved and be loved who you want. You have the determination in your own self to arrest those who bring you no rest! You have to understand love is what brought you into this world, and it is LOVE that holds this place together, as we float through this universe of countless fascinations!

5.) You have the right to flip all this shit over!

6.) You have the right to feel, to be treasured, to be adored, and never fucked. Unless, that’s what you like.

7.) You have the right to cut your hair. Grow your hair! Dye it! Roll it! Frame it!

Slap it, flip it, and reverse it just like Missy Elliott told us to! You have the right to be and change just when and where you want to! You have the right to wear red nail polish now Black girl! With stiletto tip nails and shoes if you see fit!

8.) You have the right to your story—even to rewrite!—and always give the edits to He has sent you to do a great work.

9.) You belong to you. Your life is a gift, and you are needed here. Don’t die with any dream in you.

10.) You have the right to live your life as big as you want as you want as free as you want and who can stop you but you?

If you get confused, sometimes the matches get too close to go back to step one.

-JBHarris, 4.26.2024

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 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 14: Bitches’ Brew

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Note: this piece is inspired by the album of the same name by legendary musician, Miles Davis.

You ain’t got tell me

God is Black

Because Miles’ and

Gabriel’s horn

Got to sound

The same!

That horn

With the fire

On the inside

To the outside

That announce

The arrival of

Heroes into the Earth.

The poet prophets

The prophet poets

Responding to the

Echo of the 3 strand

Divinity inside them to

Tell you want is wrong —

And how to right it.

When she is woman

— and not man

She is bossy

She is agitation

She is loud

She is rude

And to push

The hush into her?

You call HER a BITCH.

(Beat)

I’ll be the bitch

Stay that bitch

The chick

Which notices

Every ounce of

This bullshit!

Who’s business

Sits on her chest!

And adjusts in

A good Fenty DOUBLE D bralet!

Because:

who The fuck is youPlaying wit’?!

The brew be that

Fire that bring

Light, heat and smoke

To step on ashes

And in my ether

The unworthy choke!

The world needed

Saving,

And by one man

It was done

And this time

At this reclamation

The truth still

Gon come

From a Black woman!

(Beat)

So…

I’ll be villain in ya story.

I’ll be the lie you repeat.

Because I didn’t

Break in half

Die,

Or gravel at your feet!

That truth be

Fire all up in

The EYE

that make sure

The greens taste

Just right!

Pulling in all the scraps

The world gave

Believing my Black

And woman

Would give

Me no haven.

Time and fire

Made the brew

So when I show up

All big in room,

Yall don’t know

What to do!

But know this,

I know what I

See,

And see what

I say,

And asking me

To shut up?

(Beat)

Bruh, aint no way.

-JBHarris, 4.2.2024