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POETRY & POWER

In Loving color By Bryonna Reed

2/18/2016

1 Comment

 
Black girls love like bursting levis, flooding you with shea butter, melanin, afros, and cocoa kisses.
Black boys love like trembling sidewalks-- cracking and shaking under the weight of the world-- managing to stand and rise.
Jamaican boys cherish you like royalty in Port-Au-Prince. Brazilian girls hold you close like you’re sweeter than sugar cane, centuries old and coveted.

In another life this acquired crop held
hierarchy     
over
humanity.


It cleared land.
It started wars.

The torment of a man confined to the fields…

Stalks rose high above his head.
Sweat glistened over his brow.
Tool in hand he struck down row after row in the suffocating Cape Verde heat.

The life of color is valuable.
The love is priceless.

Ebony and golden skin glow under the sun’s rays.
Products of the Nile and children of a beauty unseen until a lighter version is adapted.
Elizabeth Taylor was not our queen. The glory of Cleopatra stolen on the silver screen when royalty in purple turned white.

There is beauty in the color purple.

French,
Arabic,
Spanish,
Patois,
every dialect an ode to kings and queens.

Royal blood coursing through veins like Mediterranean seas.

Your hair coils and twists to protect your thoughts.
Your skin is bronzed.
Your history is a dedication to the power of will.
Your uncle has a name from Islam, Bilal, strength in his resilience.
Family trees bathed in color are shelters to the beauty of our ancestors.

Be blessed in your skin.

1 Comment
Nancy Pong link
6/12/2023 08:10:45 am

Thanks foor the post

Reply



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