INNOCENT—the girl, not the cyclone—I was eight when Katrina displaced us; my mother, her mother, her mother, her children—seizing the beauty of the day/fantasizing the possibilities of tomorrow. Transcending borders, emerging from the South, the girl grew up with dreams (word to SOLANGE KNOWLES); Plagued with feeling the sensations of this world—I demand explanation. A visual understanding. A verbal cue. A name. An objective. Not qualms on the matter than I am...I am a woman…I am a black woman who has lived, loved and known the other fully and wholly in this vessel. A sacred vessel, of which anyone with a sliver of curiosity is invited to peer or witness—on the days I remember to honor my home or focus on the matter at hand /We have been witnessed and made witness/We have been subjugated and made subject/We have been observed and made—albeit my sister’s testimony might be my own, THIS is not an attempt to narrate the other black—or white/colored—woman/body—I believe if you, like me, have met the terms associated with being human—you have encountered the sensations of the unanimous being that bleeds and cries and dies; or the messiah’s return after three days of not doing that—presumably, what might one expect of the journey to exodus to genesis and back—I must make this music; let me dance this body of art; let us honor the survivors, these bodies that  carry

create  inflict consume maintain regenerate reorder
mourn  refigure heal
release cleanse disappear immunize
unearth

trauma of all sorts

this is a message to the survivor

s. I am you / we are them. —home