ain't that easy

when i look at my life i feel like bursting into tears marriage and mental illness vintage washed michael jackson graphic spiritual disco grieving ritual sell your body to your horse-eyed past little fictions somebody got to sing and somebody got to play the squaw last time i saw him last time i saw my honey buried your dead lack of afro exit wounds cut off whole limbs of generational desire the death of cleopatra hell or high water get some fucking love in your life girl ghost chant you’ve got to die if you want to live amidst and against the things we are
 rubbed into the cloth wrapped around their faces now white men are black men too the ways we can’t say no i call you queen not as a term of endearment but as a reminder our histories meet on the inside we all be black moses slave for the river same river twice sometimes have to emphasize the brown part hey there beautiful brown girl we don't usually change until things are so painful that we must