TT and Oil Sheen
This time Jazmine Sullivan’s hit “Lion, Tigers, and Bears” is on loop.
We sing. Replace the words with: racism hatred despair
We know this shit now. Sing it from the back of our hands.
I’m not scared of: racism, hatred, and despair.
But I’m scared of…
This time we ain’t scared of nothing.
We sit on front porches with a mellifluous melody of
AYEEEEs and FUCK IT UP, SIS! gracing the air.
We not stressing about Lil Mike making curfew.
We know he not gunned down somewhere.
We as in me and my cousins. Me and my people. Me and ghosts.
Teresa is sitting on a golden lawn chair. Demands her thrown.
TT sits in the middle of her legs getting her edges snatched forced into a cornrow.
The porch smells like pink lotion, oil sheen, and TT’s tears.
TT is always crying, but it’s coo now. This time it ain’t about her brothers.
It ain’t about the pressures of racism. She just crying cus she happy and cus
of the pain of Teresa’s heavy hand. We chillin now.
Nobody stopping us from being black and woman at the same time.
Nobody touching our hair but homies.
Nothing dying but daisies in the summer.
Eve in a yellow sundress that’s molded onto her honey brown skin.
She in the lawn, grinding. Her hips singing a song of freedom.
Everyone stares like it’s the only thing we know how to do.
We all dancing as the sunset kisses itself into all the right spots on our skin.
The blue in the sky is replaced with darkness.
The wind begs for an encore. We don’t bow.
Instead we force them to their knees.
Jazmine Sullivan is in the background still…
The moon extinguishes the sun. We all end on the same note…
But I’m scared of.
Uplifting Black stories, perspectives and art from IU and Bloomington. Reach out at blackvoices@idsnews.com.
