how to speak when your tongue is broken.

You have to yell it out.
Claw it from the back
of your throat.

Taste the sounds
of water leaking healing
all over your air.

Open your mouth.
Claim that you
are not broken.

Who told you you were broken?

That noise walking out from you
is a life reworked in
blood and breath.

I, too, didn’t know that noise
could sound so
Elegant,

So poised and blossomed,
So red and wild
On the water.

---

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!””

— Romans 8:14-15

Alexa Mazzarello

how to heal when your heart is tired.

one.

rejoice over every part of you that makes them cringe:
your skin, your eyes, your hair, your language.
make your silence a love song this morning.

sing your heart out. LOUD.
don't worry about them.
what are they doing?
waving tiki torches in Charlottesville? 

no.

you don't have time to be worryin'
'bout little white boys waving
tiki torches in Charlottesville.

two.

feel every inch of your blackness.
own it like the sun-child you are,
like there's a midnight on the inside
and praying oil on your palms.

culture says you're supposed to be angry,
but Heart says you're supposed to be healthy. 

so, it's okay if Heart hurts today.
it's okay if Heart hurts tomorrow,
but don't you

                ever let them steal Your joy.

three.

live .

open your window. do you see that sky?
see how it feels watching the earth with its eyes?
oh, how it cries when it needs to.
oh, how it smiles 'cause it wants to.

black joy - vol. i

my job as an artist is making miracles
to show you how to struggle poetic
and make it lyrical.

- Anderson.Paak -

go get your confidence.

It is still hanging up in the place you last left it, listless and un-homed from you. Go get it.

Your confidence was the clothing you used to put on when you wanted people to see the best of you, but now you need to make it your skin. Make it the only thing you see when you look in the mirror, after you shower, and when you are walking out of the door.

Make it your child; your well-groomed garden. Feed it your heart. Water it.

How many times will you shrink? How many times will you tell your soul to be quiet? How many times will you unhinge yourself from eyes that just want to see you? You mass of red clay, curls, and quiet, how long will you stumble over your words though you know exactly what you mean to say and why?

Go get your confidence.

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing,
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise
and not be silent.

O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

— Psalm 30:11-12