poetry: cannibal (a poem to white supremacy) by alyesha wise

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Cannibal (a Poem to White Supremacy)

You’ve been borrowing me for so long

That I forgot to demand myself back

I found me

Sinking in a university lecture hall

Feeling all momma I made it

All hands raised

Eagerly submissive

Begging for a seat at a table I set

Who lent me to you anyway?

Was it my mother?

Naw

Was it the back door?

Did you arrive on a night when we were flying with each other in our sleep

Did you pretend you were the wind

How many scriptures did it take to bewitch us

To smother under your wing

Where is your home

Can you point to it on a map with a bloodless finger

Say, This is where we the shot the Healer

The Umi and child

The Descendants of the gold complected with Sun for feet!

Oh, the pain of being a surrogate to some trifling dog

Giving birth on a laboratory table

Presenting It to your parents

Watch It chase its own tail

Sniff and hunt

Blame the hunted for the reason we feel like prey

After the capture

How long did you think it would be before we would collapse

After the bleeding

How long did you think it would be before we would attack

We are not a burning people

Must you set flame to another black body to overstand

We are a root kicking its way through tainted soil

We are the soil

Kicking its way to become its Self

Certainly,

If we left this place

Do not be mistaken It would be the sirens that sent for us

To leave you here.

Starving

With nearly no one left to eat

But each other.

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