the failings of a surgically healed heart | a collection

2 | ode to all the angry in my black woman body

[part i.]

not long enough before i start writing this poem:
the word nigger
spills out the mouth of a white boy
seated next to me,
in my school's library–
does not register the black girl
who occupies the space next to him
until, after the fact,
(must have mistaken me for a shadow, no doubt)
but does not apologise
for the slur hanging in the air
between us
ever
(accidental segregation, i guess)
and i let him.
don't acknowledge the word
the way he did not acknowledge my existence
unless we are to count: when his friend nudged him in my direction
and he looked away,
continue with the work i'm not really doing
for fear of metamorphing into "the angry black woman"
a lose-lose situation in which i am either:
slave or stereotype–
not that there is much difference between the two.

[part ii.]

the rest of the day, i am a sheet of paper;
two dimensional and flat
float into my house
without a single word on my paper thin lips
only frowning eyebrows;
do not notice the angry black woman caricature hidden in my shadow
who followed me all the way home
(i should have locked the door
behind me)
before my father,
the boys and
my sister–
appear in front of me
(the magicians of the hour)
their mouths
mirroring: the frown of my eyebrows,
as each of them say,
all at different points in time:
why, so grumpy?
(the stereotype: rebranded)
it is then i realise, and every moment like it that follows,
it was foolish of me
to believe -
in this house that is not home -
i could escape this branding,
this most sadistic rite of passage into black womanhood
this legacy of slavery,

[conclusion]

when i am in fact that very legacy:

a brown skinned girl
given her name -
whether it be nigger,
or angry black woman,
or grumpy -
but
never given a choice,
never taken seriously,
never seen as anything
other than a girl who refuses to let go
of a phantom pain;
of a ghost noose around my neck

that never quite kills me.

- yet, perhaps the greatest silver lining is i, like the stereotypes i am too often branded with, am not dead yet

---

okay meh doods. it's your g, eve.

so here's something wild. i didn't get the grades i needed for the course i wanted to do at the uni i wanted to go to. and tbh initially i was pretty gutted that is until i called a few folk, emailed a few people and the uni i wanted to go to made me an alternative offer that in all honesty seemed better suited to me and my academic needs. So of course i accepted. So yeah. it's pretty good news for something that didn't seem to be heading in that initial direction.

and it turns out i got an A in (Adv Eng) which i failed in my mock exams and almost ended up dropping.