when i ask for Reparations. For the small stuff. I mean: for the moments I’ve been made erroneously small.
when, on my first trip to the river with the crew — -you, white femme, watched me come up from the water, looked me in the eye and loudly proclaimed, ARE YOU KIDDING? Like you had never seen with your eyes, a creature such as me…half-naked, now disclosed, wondering what is so
u n b e l i e v a b l e. Your hollering: My queer exposé.
when, in the back of The Quarters — -you, white queer, on a hot middle-of-August day on the bike path, asked to hold my hand and looked through me to the otherside. Later admitting,sweating into my old beat up sheets, your one wish: to be topped by me. You. All greedy-mouth-n-eyes-hopeful. And again: the Undertow comes. Stomach capsized. Again, without knowing; I am Employed. Utilized. Even before the chemistry. Then, choosing to rest my head between the pillows. Alone with you beside me. And in the early morning, we chase the chickens back into the coop. I fry you an egg.
and at the bar in The Dirty Truth — — You tell me you wanna get your ass slapped. Get your ass-handed-to-you. Wanna get told you’re bad like really really bad. Wanna tell your friends about it in the morning at the kitchen table. Wanna soothe that little tickclock rock-a-knocking; your racial anxiety. Wanna feel a little confirmation of the resentment you have for your own whiteness and the things it do. But, through my hands. You ask for: one or two on my chest. a little pressure please. And I let you have it. Knowingly afraid of what hands can do.
“of the secrets you have safeguarded against you”, it is that I am owed. For being written about. Authored into such a tale. That — — Once upon a time, in all my collaterality, I somehow too, contain the biggest monument. Bite-sized and Goddess. Teardrop and Tsunami.
Black femmes are not here to stroke your ego. We are not your portal to repent. We are not all your hard-to-get dommes. All the while eager to serve. We are not all-yours. We are not worthy of love because of our desirability. Nor should we have to perform this Part to receive it. I am not powerful because you chose me. That was your lie. I believed it. That I am one sexual thing. And not the softest and most precious and prayerful. In our small town.
So take your farmer or your barista or your instagram check & pay us. In these rural dirt road ass streets.
- For all the labor the sex took — — To access relational pleasure
- For the gas money — — To spend our time worth spending
- For all the Lyfts — — When you, post-coital tired n self-pleased, didn’t walk us home.
- For the clout — — Nuff said
- For the therapy — — To relearn the truth
- For the position you put us in, when you pitted us against one another (and therefore more alone)— —The truest cost.
Pay us for upholding the lie. For watching the tale get told. For listening at the kitchen table.
Venmo: Noa-Coffey
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This is an excerpt. My completed works live on Patreon ❤
