I think it is time we trade in our pink pussy hats

for horns—

And replace our forced smiles with gaping maws,

manicures for claws and become the devils they have accused us of being

for hundreds of years.

I think it is time we become the nightmares they claim we are,

after holding us down with the reassuring threat that it could have been worse.

Our knowledge was torched and we stood accused of witchcraft. 

Our relevance was erased, if we chose to evade the route of subservience. 

As they teach their sons to shout, Your Body, My Choice.

To the fathers who condemned your daughters,

because you think a little black bubble will save your soul—

What will you do when she comes to you broken and damned from the dark mark you placed upon her forehead

in place of the Ash you smear across yourself in your stolen pagan temple?

As above, so below.

What will your excuse be, _______, when your daughter looks to the man she was loyal to from birth while you stand before her loyal to your own ignorant loins?  

Will you tell her to keep her thoughts to herself because you prefer the elephant in the room to be your roommate?

Blood of my blood. 

Stir the dust of our lives and help us remember who we are.

I hear my dead mother ringing in my ears—

Do no harm, take no shit.

I hear her anger, gripping the lapel of my adult cousin growling in his face,
Don’t fuck with me.

The first time I witnessed feminine rage, wrapped in a leather trench coat, cigarette dangling from her lips, coated in war paint the color of Revlon Iced Amethyst.

They use feminine as a slur yet they forget the rage of the lioness.

They say minority is a flaw, 

when this country has been carried on the backs of our black sisters who we have failed time and again.

So let our heels become hooves. 

Let our perfume become omens. 

And let them run to the corners where they can no longer hide,

because freedom for one is equality for none,

and like their proclaimed savior, Satan sees all. 

I’d rather live my life perceived as the devil than commit atrocities under the guise of a false prophet. 

Let them witness us as their own creation, spoken into existence with the dark magic of their poisoned narrative.

They forget their christ, too, flipped tables in the face of injustice.