let us vanish men, the ones who wrap their hair in dollar-store durags or not at all. let us vanish those broke boys who grow into pigs for a fat paycheck, for a chance to rack up a body count. let us vanish the dudes who live in squalor and rub me the wrong way with filthy fingers. let us vanish the Black man’s vitriol for all the women who resemble his mother let us eviscerate the arrogance of white men who took my grandmother’s body and whipped it into a shape he liked let us dismember the cisheteropatriarchy that empowers his progeny to do the same. (after he had me against my will, i ran away, thought i’d never return, blood trailing at my feet. water cooled the flaming fire swelling in my belly a doula’s soft caress molded me whole again and though i declared “let me vanish myself,” life was still worthy) let us birth dawns, let us feed our ears with funky basslines let us revel in the bridge and the breakdown of our freedom songs let us revive the lilt in our hips let us birth fearless daughters and attentive sons and safety for those between. and let us be light, the kind of light that come from pound cake and pumpkin bread and bright ideas and sunlit afros and jojoba oil and the color purple, the kind of light that catches on Lake Michigan on the brightest day in May. let us birth forgiveness let our wombs settle deep in the nest of our bones. let the light come. let the water come. let the love come. and when the dawn breaks our hearts in two, let us birth the God in us who soothes our scars with shea butter.
Inspired by Sasha Banks’s “uhmareka, post post collapse: four,” from america, MINE
Please print this in a golden frame so I can buy it and put it in my meditation room! 💛
“let us birth
fearless daughters
and attentive sons
and safety for those between.
and let us be
light”
Your words are so beautiful, Mila. Thank you for sharing with us. ❤️