Mindtrip

Sitting…
Reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember
how to forget.
Running fingers through my hair,
trying to retrace my roots as if I could find my ancestors ashes in my dandruff…
I never did like washing my hair.
I always thought that each strand that fell
was just another unused opportunity to find where I come from,
so I forgot my name.
Took to trying on the glass slippers of others,
but I found out all too soon that fairytales…
weren’t meant for little girls like me.
Split between 2 families,
2 wars,
and I guess 4 inch glass stilettos would make it a little hard for G.I. Joe to stand his ground in,
so I was given my father’s combat boots.
I was taught how to march in them,
but one day I couldn’t remember how to lace them up.
Barefoot and broken I ran back into who I forgot I was.
Have you ever witnessed a butterfly
fling it’s self into a bolt of lightning like a Buddhist monk self immolating?
I was always something like a pyro.
Amazed by the flame,
and obsessed with the burn.
I torched my memories and set fire to my veins.
Black is suppose to be beautiful,
but I wonder if my ancestors could see beauty in their hung loved ones with scorched skin.
swinging from the necks of trees,
old school Jesus pieces.
I wonder if they could remember the smell.
Sitting,
barricaded by broken I remembered…
went back to the day I saw life in brown skin.
The day the beat was given back to the music box hidden under my left breast
I tripped into love with ice.
Fell,
and couldn’t remember what standing felt like,
so I forgot my affair with the flame.
Damn if the cold didn’t feel good sometimes….
and sometimes,
I would stay low and pray for the rain
just so I could run against the clouds and maybe mistake my tears for raindrops…
Numb myself enough so that I could break this bloodline between us without hemorrhaging.
Till I saw the sunrise in your smile
and felt the blaze in your touch.
I.
Forgot.
My name.
My ideological foundation cracked beneath me.
I found myself free-falling through galaxies,
so I renamed myself Halley,
Comet,
‘cause just like he,
she,
it,
I challenged the Sun’s beauty.
but only in the darkness…
In the daylight,
I would lose luminosity and just blend in.
Maybe that’s why I would always cry come morning,
afraid that my son wouldn’t rise right.
So while reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember how beautiful forgetting felt,
I forgot.
Got lost inside my hair
with my roots wrapped ‘round my throat
like my ancestors’ way of screaming remember me.
I choked on their ashes and I remembered the dirt and bone I came from.
Remembered the war,
the fight.
Remembered the first night I forgot.
Remembered the flame
the smell,
I finally remembered-
my name.