Poem: Clai(m)e
Photography: Kayla Mendez, @kaylammendez
i learned to negotiate my tiny flesh off the black
market before getting sold over and over again.
When injustice meets us early, it does so ravenously, without stopping for air or to do the things that are natural to us all. But when injustice meets us early, we become Audre Lorde; we forgo silence.
i am mine to be!
i will be me,
even if i have to pull myself
from society’s sturdy claws
and walk my way to god
barefoot in sinking chaos.
and i won’t do so quietly!
i have come here,
to this day with myself in heart
and courage strapped to my womanly hips
i will unroot every bit of broken
from the matted dirt in my brain
and i will send the thorns squeezing my heart
until there’s nothing left of me but pieces of past
into explosion!
step aside, watch --
i am a loudmouth, a shero
with words wielding power.
i am here to take back my name,
my body
my worth
my energy
my ancestry
my experience
my universal rights!
i am here to grow -- so strong --
until society is no longer my
trigger!
About Flose:
Flose Boursiquot is a Haitian-born writer, spoken word artist, and an academic coach. Her first poetry collection, Close Your Eyes, Now Breathe, published in January 2017 to enthusiastic response. Flose released her second collection, loudmouth, February of 2018. She has been recognized as one of BET’s feminist millennial poets to watch, and her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, on Blavity, in the Delray Newspaper, and in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. Flose works at Space of Mind, an alternative schoolhouse, where she teaches humanities with a keen focus on government and literature.
Flose lives in Lantana, Florida, and she spends her free time writing, working local political campaigns, performing, and engaging in volunteer work centred around expression. She also enjoys blogging, travel, and thinking of ways to make the people in her life feel loved.
@letitflose
This piece was originally published in print in issue 004: Reclaim
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