Black Face

I yearn for a father holding his little bae,
smiling and saying everything will be okay.
Without a gun pointed at his back
for being nothing.
For being no one.
For being black.
I yearn for an aunt without a gimp limp.
Distracting in the way her face contorts.
Her quick temper paints red, reflecting the color ripped into our people’s backs.
But that was not the beat of the blues heart.
Pull the trigger.

I yearn for a time where I don’t have to get the speech.
Not the birds and the bees, the—
no matter what I am there is Black in me.
“Don’t expect there to be more they are willing to see.”
I yearn, but what is yearning if no change ignites.
I yearn for my father’s hands to be gentle,
wiping bits of my heart off my soft chubby cheeks.
That very hand,
naivety given a hammer,
whipped to shape a bitter loving man.
I yearn to the moon brightening a stained sky.
Capturing its light to make visible a prayer to:
“All God’s, in which my faith was torn away-”
whoso, I know, may never hear.
But if alive, if risen above my doubts,
I’ll know when I die
my words have found a place to rest.
A curser, a beggar, I desperately cry.
My tears the cost yet—
I yearn.