Story

My love!

A poem by Sabrina Sojourner

My love!

My darling! My love! My friend!

I see you!!

I see you standing

bereft and feeling confused.

I see you pained and

know your anger

as one more person expects more of you

than they do of themselves.

The world is not upside down.

There’s just more of us

owning a reality

openly denied:

a litany of survival

Audre Lorde warrior woman poet wrote

we were never meant to survive.

As she lay her words upon the page

did she struggle like we?

Of course she did!

She too was mortal.

Remember Audre warrior woman poet

who spoke our longings

textualized our scars

languaged wounds we

did not know we had until

Nurse D’vorah licked the wounds

clean of pus

and

Judge D’vorah applied medicine songs

and

Kohenet Mir’yam sutured them with loving laughter.

Our Mothers returned us to the world with

we are expected to love ourselves

tattooed backwards on our foreheads

so that whenever we catch sight of

ourselves

in a mirror we would quickly

lean in and kindly touch our reflection.

Owning our worthiness

We shout:

Thank you!

Great Love!

For loving me!

Thank you!

Great Love!

For loving me!

Thank you!

Great Love!

For loving me!

© Copyright Sabrina Sojourner 2022

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