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The B(lack)ody as a Map to Self

                  Something in this place resurrects dead bodies in my mind:

               the prayer of my grandmother’s granny sings in my heart &

            leaves footprints of hope on my skin—

      everyone who knew Grandma tells me tales of

            how her eyes held onto something          too far away from her reach till

                                                      in them, a lone star shone on her deathbed.

                                               Mama says my gait resembles that of a (wo)man

                                                                   : not so much like a woman, less like a man

                                                                               So, she spends so much time on her knees

                                                         & begs her God to fix the broken piece in me // I hold words

                      on my tongue like an egg—Mama has known no other way to live than to breathe.

                  The soil beneath my feet is a white one & it has taught me about my (s)kin. I rescue

                         ghosts & survive on their tears in my thirst for truth. (Desp)air fills my lungs &

                                   leads me to the darkness, where I utter prayers in a language alien

                                        to Mama’s tongue. I hear the fear in her voice when she calls

                                             & hears strange sounds in my throat. We say goodbyes

                                                    as she prays some more for me to find my way—

                                                          a lost sheep into the barn that raised me—

                                                                back to my roots—where I’m unsure

                                                                         to call home—but I do not

                                                                                belong (t)here.

Here, in America

Something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

—Lucille Clifton

    I have gathered pieces   of   me   from   dust,                 like   birds   sifting   through  sand

                                                     for grains.       My friend asks me,

                                “your writing has improved so much, what did you do?”

I don’t tell her how I bond over trauma / —with a stranger &

                              that the words, “I can’t be angry in English” from a coworker

     sings me to sleep & wakes me up before the break of dawn.

                                                               I think of telling her

    how every morning the traffic reminds me                              of an unwritten poem

    & how I still haven’t found words for the memories                 I put in my drawer every time

    I receive a gift.                                              I want to tell her about how in America, there is

                                           no black or white—just shades of grey,

                                                            but I’ve always been accused of being colorblind.

   My friends here ask me how I greet in my mother tongue

                                                    I search and search and search

  Well, I don’t tell her any of these things.

  When I tell her, in this place, a poem comes to me every day,

the words bounce off my tongue like they do not belong there.

                         Here in America, survival screams louder than death.