Survival

My family taught me everything

I know about survival

What they didn’t tell me they showed me

The rest was passed down in the blood

And I’m a good student

I learned all the rules

All the cues all the strategies

Became expert at overcoming obstacles

jumping hurdles large and small

My father broke the national record

For jumping hurdles at 18

Walked through countless doors

Slammed in his face disrespected

Rules of place and race

I broke the record

For suicide runs @ ten

Maybe it was those

Gangs of ousting kids

Every day after school

Nigger pocahontas mutt

I learned early how to run

Not stop to ask, “what?”

And

I learned early that sometimes

You have to walk the long way home

The wrong way home

To avoid the wrong people

Sometimes you have to walk alone

Trudge on train tracks

Mud-filled dirt paths

Sometimes you have to push

Through a crowd

Whisper when all around you are loud

Shout when they tell you

You should be praying

All my life I’ve been

Name-called, chased, and attacked

For being red, for being mixed, for being black

And I’ve had men misname me

Put their hands on me/try to unravel me

Because the combination of

My vagina my daring and my brains

Pissed off and threatened them

And I’ve had homophobes

Turn their backs on me

Although we shared the same skin

And I’ve had people of lighter

Hues resent my gains

Stick out their foot to trip me

So I wouldn’t win

I’ve been found wanting in so many ways

I have had heart attacks and strokes

Been paralyzed and broke

After doctors denied me medicine

Telling me ‘Don’t worry

About your test results, HON”

Young women don’t get heart disease

It was a joke to them

And when I almost died

It was my fault they said

I must have had a toke, snuffed some coke

You know cause that’s what we do

And I’ve been stopped

By the police again and again and again

So they could show off

Their powerful nexus of

Guns and badges and white skin

Just to terrify me

Lucky for me

My ancestors taught me

Everything I needed to know

About persistence resistance

Getting ovah and carrying on

So don’t tell me I’m strong

Don’t call my life has been a tragedy

Don’t say you are

Impressed with me

For surviving

My ancestors were slaves

My ancestors were kept in chains

My ancestors survived the theft of their land

The theft even of bones, of graves

My ancestors watched their babes

Thrown overboard/sold away

Survived generations of torture

Back-breaking labor and rape

My ancestors were kidnapped

Removed, detribalized, brutalized

Relocated, terminated and renamed

And they are the only reason I am alive

They taught me

Everything I know

About how to survive

So don’t congratulate me

For surviving racism sexism

Homophobia heart disease

And police brutality

I owe my tenacity to my ancestor’s legacies

I would dishonor them

Their struggles their triumphs

Their travails

If I let anyone change me break me

Just because they hate me

Kill me

Because of what I am

Who and where I come from

I come from a long line

Of people

Who knew how to survive

And I’m a good student

I learned to recognize all

The warning signs

I learned when to whisper

And when to shout

And I’m not going to let them down

I am the child that peopled

Their dreams

When they looked into

Their mind’s eye and tried to

Imagine a better time

So no my life is not a tragedy

And it doesn’t matter

What anyone does to me

Because I was brought forth

With blood and tears and sweat

And an insane belief in possibilities

My life is a victory

How could it not be

When my ancestors lived so

That I could be