The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected woman in America is the black woman.

Faye

'Fighting for your rights even when you're wrong

And hope that at least one of you sing about me when I'm gone

Am I worth it?

Did I put enough work in?'

Turn my head to the side put it in reverse, dare I utter what happens on earth stays on earth. You remember that white boy,

The who came into class screaming how he Cripping, ganged up Anthony. Hand moving like tweety bird who did he think he was.

He thought all that was to it was crip and piru.

He never heard sirens blaring, that tacky heaven gates telling them a gated community was unattainable, a utopia that danced on their bones and lack of direction (not able to venture from the plantation 200 years) wielding knowledge of a native tongue yet not native. Son?

He didn't know that what protected him wasn't no nine nor glock, it was something he wore every day. Never took off never ripped from his skull, never gentle yet guilty. He tasted it in the fragility of the Himalayan mountain and the salt in keto, in Tulsa as Rosewood, it laid across crosses from God's "son".

Your figure always differed to some of them. Was it the Zulu in you. The exotic Nubian royalty,

Where the fuck even is Nubia.

Pull back that accent of the motherland you visited once, child, pull back your inhibition, prove them wrong taste that royal blood. The trickles of colonial masters falling victim to your feet, a descendant of the Igbo tribe you bare culture weaved between Egypt and Narnia made beauty between Isis and the Orishas. You needn't taste origin, try trace your root in book or text past 1600's.

Speak English scholarly like scholarships you pray to Nkulunkulu that you will raise. Raise a child with a village pray the offspring is never fruits sour. Fruits strange. Pray to never be painted blue, red and white (patriotic) in barbecue postcards. If You can't see in the dark, (9pm) with lights dimmed. Don't paint yourself unruly in barbecue postcards of strange fruit and hooded men.

I drop a pen between two teeth I couldn't think of anything else to write right. My headphones played Kendrick of course I had a superiority complex, he was a legend. I was "enlightened" smart yet tired. Tired of hunting down gel to slick down my low porosity, type 4 tired of hunting sleep after those protests those bodies I saw slain across the ground for me to walk over, tired of those fakes. Tired of wanting to change shit I knew I could, Tired of changing shit I didn't want to.

Like my attitude.

I walked head held high as that walk I was taught never stumble. That woman like walk with qualities strong, feminine, venom. Call me Black Widow and yet they saw me.

When they see us.

Us being my tethered esteem cut with a drawstring and scissors, the other my body as you saw it. As they saw it, mortal, and close enough to man.

How much did it cost.

A dollar, my pride, XXX videos for the youth to binge on teeth tethered, burnt with acid breath and words. How much did those walls cost, those you built. I built them two.

"Hey Keisha"

"What the fuck do you want," I spit back, black widow

"Damn I was gonna compliment you but sorry." That ugly, son of a-

"You and I both know my name. It's Faye, or Faith, you pick. Don't Call me what I look like to you, call me by MY name. Understand."

He looked down on me, his height meant nothing, being that cross that he slung me on. It was that look of pure lustful greed, it felt like watching him ejaculate to my photos in front of me. Made me feel like I was no more than just another other.

"Okay Faye" he almost sang those words it was degrading like nothing else. Made me into minstrel, name and identity, the one I was barely granted.

"I resent you," Ice spears directed to him, wish they would plunge into his liver.

He smiled

Put my back against the wall, could I resist. Fight wars I could never win.

He turned, way too happy. At least he was by himself this time. Calmed down with no herd.

I saw Malachi at the front door, consuming the offsprings of Earth, green beans and whatever else in a wrap. He was by himself so I walked, walked touching petals. I smelt and touched it the back of my tongue, his mother's cooking turning my heart warm.

"Hey boo" I smiled

"No"

I stared at him blankly.

"You gold digging bitch"

I made a stank face, "what did you say"

"Read my lips, G-O-L-D D-I-G-G-E-R you not slick. You're just trifling for that"

"Damn," I pout "I was gonna ask for one bite"

"And I was gonna say no, who you think this was. This is my breakfast I've not eaten in like an hour so, move."

"Stingy, that's why single bitch, with that big ass forehead," muttered under my breath and partially slick tongue sharpened by hormones and mid adolescence. Lengths of stray stands dangling from my head shadows and sharpened tongue.

"What"

"Nothing"

He scowled at me ducking his face down facing his third breakfast of that day. Looked up at me through thick eyebrows before reaching his hands out. As though a baby he cradled, passed it to another like a guardian their child.

I opened my mouth and hearts ready to be filled in harmonies sent from angels above, why was there an upturn in his lip.

He brought it back and dug in, huge lip smacks. Minstrel in the way he birthed a nation of birds at his feet, remnants of what should have been shoved down his throat by my Achilles.

"Fuck you"

"I would wanna fuck me too, cuz I'm fine as hell"

Eyebrow quirked I taunted, rising dead Vines from a better age, " Bitch where"

"There" he circled his face thrice.

I wrote notes causally drifting to my journal, ripped pages others scribbled on until oblivion.

I looked at the text I'd written.

Don't paint yourself unruly in barbecue postcards of strange fruit and hooded men.

Pen on paper playing tag with my with words, I never caught up. Sitting at the back had perks but you often forget them when you're the only black one in your class.

"Faye"

"Hm"

"What caused gangrene during the Second World War," he looked to me, foot deformed beyond repair (black and white) on the board.

"The trench conditions"

His eyes and facial movement asked for me to elaborate, my tongue said no.

I clicked my tongue, took a small breath,

"By that I mean the farmland in which they battled on, it was filled with manure from animals and it was too moist an area. So that plus bad hygiene led to trench foot then gangrene."

He smiled and turned to the board once more.

"As we've almost finished this topic I'm going to give a brief overview of what we're doing next," a slide came on depicted more men in army attire though this seemed more recent, one man black with an Afro " the Vietnam War"

I rolled my eyes.

I couldn't mentally capacitate more patriotism, taste a land that's bodies lay in the closet they forced the marginalised in, red lining.

Bare crooked neck with lint at their shoulders and a chip on they back, fucked from birth, tell them they can reach a dream that isn't painted red like them. It's painted pretty and pink, blood red palms on their faces or blood seeping from their skin yet yellow.

"That's cap fuck you mean Armin is the soft white boy who didn't know shit, he's a manipulative cunt. Still a pussy," he rolled his eyes crumbs at his lips.

"You just hate white men, stupid," Niccoya glared at him, you would think she had hedgehog spikes longed between her cornea and temple.

"That's why you a stupid bitch, bitch"

"You guys crying like AoT that good, jujutsu kaisen better," Ary rolled her eyes.

Arguments ensued, I tasted blasphemy and profanity at my septum. I remained quiet not quite calm however, that morning bugged me.

They never knew when to stop what had I done to deserve that, those taunts those knocks at my humanity personhood never reaching the green on my flag colonies sailing to my earlobes, cartilage to test my patience.

Test their experiment on me, tell me I'm less than. Or rather just enough to satisfy their endless hunger with hips wide enough to sink my captors ship, and fill him in ways under the deck. Behind the concealment of the moonlight.

Had I ever been more than enough.

In neither grade nor standing, in personhood I lacked in intersections dotting me more marginalised yet not enough to taste humanity.

Human, I lacked in eugenics.

Those days went like a blur.

To be honest I hardly remember high school

I hardly remember what I did yesterday.

I smoked a blunt probably, or some fucking lavender. Mullein and blue lotus even.

I remember those nights, that night in particular I was told I didn't taste very purple, very woman like in womanhood. I tasted like ashtray and Babylon, I turned and saw a burning city now I'm salt. In the way I'm pored atop or after something to taste better, to taste sour to your sweet. To be Nubia to your Neanderthal.

"You're so fucking good, God"

I need a fucking Gin and Coke. Anything but that.

It's bugging me.

Wait I'm losing the plot, that Aretha Franklin is messing with me.

"Well no wonder she's an amazing artist," Matthew, door Matt I wonder how he saw me some days. I know I shouldn't care, hell I should've known if nothing else.

"I know but I can't vocalise what I'm trying to say with Aretha Franklin playing in the background."

He turned it off.

"Thank you, so as I was saying, are you going to the barbecue."

He nodded.

"How are you and him, I never see you without him. You also don't sit with us as much."

Head to the floor I saw his roots and curls flop, what did he see at his feet. Where they more interesting than the friendship I reassure myself was still there. He wouldn't leave me, I needed him to not.

I needed him to care for himself, to smile real. So that when I didn't he could only hear the gleaming of his pearly whites.

"How are you"

I looked to him.

"What do you mean"

"How are you"

"Well" exhale and breath in serpent between tied tongues post mortem " I'm doing okay, why wouldn't I"

He looked again to the ground bit his lips between teeth and tongue.

"You didn't seem good this morning, where they bothering you again"

I shook my head.

"You can't talk to me," he smiled sadly.

"And you can two"

I let my head fall to his shoulders.

He smiled a bit more, I felt it in his exhale. He then let his body fall into the grass, mine coming after, we smiled at the evening. I saw haven in birds flocking.

He put a hand at my ear and pushed back falling cashmere.

"You smell like coconut"

"When don't I smell like coconut"

He snickered.

"You can play Aretha Franklin again"

"Sure"

"Love you door Matt"