Aiyana

 

How did your seven-year-old body
creep its way
into our collective consciousness?

Girls die everyday.

Black girls

But you force us to face
the questions we all fear.

What is the value of a
Black girl body?

Who prizes it? her?

How many Black bodies
will crumble
in front of badges?

How many more blues songs
for our girl-bodies?

Who, will protect us?

 

This begins my suite of poems around Aiyana Jones (I have 5 written with one more hatching in my heart). Ev (who posting a suite or series about her father) and I had a lil discussion about self-sabotage (see previous post), so I will try not to hold out from sharing my poems because they are unedited.  Feel free to workshop this one (and all other poems on the blog) fellow poets.