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The ME in Media

Re-imagining, re-imaging image in media

Quenna Barrett, Author

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Long Lost

I
wish I could translate

tell

you the story

but I

 don’t know it

My body does.
When I hear drums
it moves
sways. jerks. jumps.
My hair knows it
entangled tendrils
curls and naps.


It’s
no stranger to the french braids

So tight you can see my thoughts

move through my scalp

It’s no stranger either to the pressing comb

The flat iron.

my hair holds the a-historicization of a people.


wish I could tell you their story.

translate it.

But I don’t know it.

Was never told it.

am an orphan of africa

    step child of america

        long lost great granddaughter of the indigenous

We are
                                orphans
long lost

                                                step
                                children
step child
step chile!
keep movin’
you aint got no bizness heah
don’t make me haveta learn you somethin’
please, papa.

please do.
i dream of your untold stories
see them in the veins of your eyes
hear them in the cadence of grammy’s curses
her bitter-ness
your pat-ience
pat-ernal pat-riarchal
is wearing thin
not unlike your bones
learn me somethin’
please,     papa
please       do.
‘fore you are
long                                                                                                       lost
                               


                                                                                                                                                we are

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