Jamera NaQuai

welcome to my garden. i hope you love it here.

[jamerasjournal]

If there are many doors after death, do not send me somewhere colorless. Do not baptize me into forgetfulness. Bring me back with the same sun-soaked skin that remembers drums. I would choose Black again even knowing the ships. Even knowing the names stolen. Even knowing the water learned our prayers before the land ever did.

If the soul spins back into flesh, send me again through melanin. Send me where the sun leaves fingerprints. Send me into a body that remembers the Dogon mapping Sirius before white men discovered curiosity. Send me into Nile-blood, into hips that hold pyramids, into tongues that learned God through drum and fire and river.

I would choose the blood of Timbuktu, where libraries rose like temples, where knowledge slept in ink and stars, where Black hands mapped the heavens while Europe still feared the dark. I would choose the spine of Mansa Musa, who walked gold across deserts like prophecy, who made the world remember that Blackness was abundance before it was a wound. I would choose the courage of Harriet, who turned North into scripture, who heard God in the language of footsteps and called it freedom. I would choose the defiance of Assata, who taught exile how to breathe, who proved that even cages can’t kill a mind that remembers itself. I would choose the moans of the spirituals, coded like constellations, where “Follow The Drinking Gourd” was not just a song but a map, where heaven meant Canada and God meant go. I would choose the church mothers who laid hands on generations with prayers thick as a pot of collard greens, who turned sanctuaries into hospitals for souls with no insurance.

Do not offer me escape as lighter skin. Do not offer me safety as erasure. I will not reincarnate into forgetting. Our ancestors turned cotton into gospel, turned pain into polyrhythm, turned lynching trees into meeting places with heaven. They learned how to talk to God without needing a language they could steal. They crossed water so we could cross thresholds. They learned silence so we could learn song. They bent time so we could stand upright in it.

I would choose Black even knowing the cost. Even knowing the bullet loves us. Even knowing the law confuses us. Even knowing grief wears our faces often. Because I have seen what we make from ruin. Because we build beauty in the mouth of disaster. Because we dance in funeral clothes. Because we laugh in a system designed to choke the sound from us. I would choose Black again because my ancestors did not survive
for me to arrive as something else.

Because we learned to survive without permission to be human. They say our history began with ships. But my blood remembers kingdoms. My spine remembers ceremony. My hair remembers crowns.

So if the universe asks me again, “What body will you wear?” I will say: Give me the one that carries suns. If am reborn a thousand times, let me come back with this lineage of light. With this sorrow-forged joy. With this fire that knows how to forgive without forgetting.

Give me Black. Again. Again. Again.

I would choose Black in every lifetime because somewhere between chains and constellations we learned how to touch God and call it music. And I do not want a heaven that does not sound like us.

-jamera naquai, BLACK AGAIN

[jamerasjournal]

This ain’t a poem. It’s a warning. A line in the dirt that you better not cross. A fist behind the breath. A siren inside my chest.

If you ever —and I mean ever, lay a hand on my little brother, if you look at him wrong, cock a badge-backed wrist, call his name like a threat instead of a song, I’m burning everything. I’m going full scorched-earth sorrow. No marches. No signs. No hashtags to follow. Just fire.
And fury. And me. Unholy with grief, possessed with love that bites back. Cause I don’t play about him.

That’s my blood before birth. My other heart walking around in sneakers. He’s laughter in human form. He’s trust before the world told us not to. So if you make him a headline, if you paint him as a danger to justify the danger you bring, if you silence his breath with the same script you’ve used on every Black boy you’ve tried to erase before— I swear.

You won’t know peace again. I’ll make mourning move. Make grief grow teeth. Make every mother of a badge feel what my mother can’t ever un-feel. This ain’t about vengeance. This is about survival. This is about how many of us have already swallowed too many names, too many candles, too many “why him?” and “what now?”

I’m telling you now, before you touch him, before you stop him, before you decide he looks like a threat instead of someone’s whole world. You better know who you’re dealing with. Cause I’m calm, until I’m not. I’m soft, until I’m the storm. And if he don’t come home… nobody sleeps.

I’ll raise the kind of hell you can’t legislate away. Turn my grief into gasoline, and this tongue into a match. You think riots are scary? You ain’t met a sister’s rage yet. You ain’t met mine.

I don’t want your justice. I want the echo of your boots to go quiet. I want the cuffs to rust in closets. I want your precincts to look over their shoulder every time a wind blows wrong— wondering if today is the day you pay. Get it back in blood. That’s the gospel now. No forgiveness for state-sanctioned slaughter. No peace talks for lynchings in uniform.

You take mine? I take yours. Not in secret. Not with shame. I say his name with steel in my throat and ash on my breath. So go ahead. Test me. Let that trigger slip. See if I don’t turn every tear into teeth. Every sob into strike. Every breath I got left into war drums. I am not Martin. I ain’t turning no cheek. I ain’t marching quiet. I’ll knock all this shit over.

Let it be known. If my brother don’t make it home, I’m not praying. I’m not waiting. Because my love when wounded becomes war. So I’m not lighting no candles. I’m lighting up the sky.

- jamera naquai, IF MY BROTHER DON’T MAKE IT HOME

[jamerasjournal]

My mother never wanted to have kids. She told me once, voice wrapped in a sigh like plastic on furniture no one’s allowed to sit on, "I had dreams, not diapers." And I nodded. Quiet, guilty, like I had walked in on a life I wasn’t meant to interrupt.

And it breaks me. Breaks me like the silence that followed. Being someone's reason and someone’s regret, at the same time.

I imagine her— before me. Before spit up and parent-teacher conferences, before stretch marks and sleepless nights, before her body was renamed “mother” and her soul was filed away in a drawer labeled “later.”

I imagine her barefoot in Paris, laughing in a language she was never taught to speak, painting her nails black just because no one told her not to. Catching trains with strangers, not chasing toddlers. Falling in love without worrying about who’s waiting at home.

I imagine her whole.

And I ache. Not because she loved me less, but because she had to learn how to love me through the ghost of the woman she might’ve been. Because every birthday candle I blew out was a wish she never made for herself. Because her freedom came with a crib, and her dreams… they sleepwalked into lullabies and leftovers.

Sometimes, I catch her staring out the window too long, like the past is calling collect, and she’s not sure if she should answer. Sometimes, she hugs me like she’s reminding herself why she stayed.

And I get it. God, I get it. She didn’t hate me. She just never signed up for the script they handed her, didn’t want to play the role of "Mom" in a play where her name wasn’t even on the poster.

And I want to go back in time. Tell her she doesn’t owe anyone her womb. That she could’ve danced into her own sunrise without me dragging behind like a shadow. I want to say, "Choose you." Even if it means I vanish.

Because loving someone should never cost you yourself. Because being born shouldn’t mean someone else had to die in pieces. Because my sister’s first breath shouldn’t have stolen the wind from her sails.

And yet, here I am. Living the life she never wanted to build. Carrying the beauty and the burden of being the dream that derailed hers. Trying to be enough to make it all worth it.

But sometimes, when I see her eyes glaze over like fog on glass, I swear I hear her whisper, "I could’ve been so much more." And I whisper back, "I know. I’m sorry. I love you anyway."

- jamera naquai, THE LIFE SHE COULD HAVE LIVED

[jamerasjournal]

If I were to draw a woman, I wouldn’t start with her smile. No. because that’s the first thing they take, the first thing they twist, something soft to mold into whatever makes them comfortable.The first thing that they’ll use against her. Smile more. Smile less. Be soft. Be quiet. Be easy to love. No.

If I were to draw a woman, I would start with her hands. Strong, steady, and worn with work. Hands that have held both babies and burdens. Hands that have been both weapon and refuge. Hands that know how to pray and how to fight. Hands that have squeezed futures between their fingers. That have traced maps into the backs of lovers who forgot the way home. Hands that have wiped tears they weren’t allowed to cry, that have reached out for help only to find it looking the other way.

If I were to draw a woman I would sketch the lines of her back, straight as truth, like a bridge between what was and what will be. Because she has carried bloodlines between her shoulder blades, held up legacies in the small of her back. A back that has known the weight of rooms she wasn’t welcome in, the weight of people who thought she should be grateful for the scraps they’ve thrown her.

If I were to draw a woman, I would make her mouth sharp. A mouth that doesn’t just speak but cuts its place in the world. A mouth that has kissed forgiveness onto undeserving skin. A mouth that has swallowed rage just to survive. A mouth that has whispered secrets to the moon and shouted sorrow into the wind. A mouth that has been told to be quiet, to be careful. To be anything but what it was made to be. Loud and true. A mouth that has been silenced too many times, bitten down on too many words, learned too young that a loud woman is a dangerous woman, but a quiet woman is a forgotten one.

And her eyes? Oh her eyes. I would draw them wide, not because she is naïve, but because she sees everything. Sees through the lies, through the soft cages they call protection, through the hands that claim to love her but only know how to hold on too tight. She will have the eyes of a storm— steady in the center, but everything around them shifts. Eyes that can unmake a man, that can see a future where she is more than just a shadow in someone else’s dream.

But her heart— no, I will not draw that. Because if I don’t draw a heart, you can’t break it. If I don’t draw a heart, she can love without being left in pieces, can exist without being expected to give, can be whole without being vulnerable to someone else’s hunger. I will hide it in a quiet place because they have taken too much already.

If I were to draw a woman, I would make her something untouchable. Not someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s mother— just someone. As she is. As she has always been. Too much for a page, too much for your hands. If I were to draw a woman, I would make her impossible to erase.

- jamera naquai, TO DRAW A WOMAN

[jamerasjournal]

Being a lover girl is gonna be the death of me. No, really. I think my heart is clocking out early, filing for retirement, because it’s tired. Tired of being the lifeboat for people who never learned to swim. Tired of being the diary for feelings that don’t belong to me. Tired of being loved like an echo, only returned when I call first.

You, with your heart like an open wound, always bleeding onto my hands, expecting me to hold the mess without flinching. You, with your thunderstorms for moods, your tidal waves for love, drowning me in the rise and fall of whatever you’re feeling today.

And I— I was built for deep waters, but damn, even the ocean needs rest. Even the tide pulls back sometimes. Even I can’t keep carrying the burden of every tear you were taught swallow.

Because loving you feels like excavation, digging through layers of feeling you don’t even want to claim, dragging your ghosts into the daylight just for you to bury them again. You want love, but only if it doesn’t ask for too much, only if it doesn’t require you to stand in the mirror and face what you see.

And I? I am love in its full, messy, open-handed form. I don’t do halfway. And I don’t do almost. I don’t do the kind of love that waits in the doorway, too afraid to step inside.

Being a lover girl is gonna be the death of me, because I keep setting myself on fire for people who only love me in the glow and never in the ashes. I keep giving my softness to hands that don’t know how to hold it gently.

And I’m tired. Tired of loving people through their storms, just to be the only one left standing in the wreckage when the clouds clear. Tired of being the steady palms, the safe place, the healer who never gets to be healed.

And I am trying to pour my love back into myself. Let it rise like a flood, wash away every piece of me that thought love meant infinite sacrifice.

Because don’t I deserve to be held, too? Don’t I deserve to be the sun, not just the firewood? Don’t I deserve love that doesn’t feel like a battlefield?

So if I have to choose between drowning in someone else’s emotions or finally breathing for myself then I won’t stay to see if the flood subsides. I won’t keep patching up boats that you keep trying to sink. I’ll let the tide carry me somewhere new. And I’ll let the ocean swallow what it must. Even if it’s you.

- jamera naquai, LOVER GIRL

[jamerasjournal]

I don’t want casual. I want you to eat me alive. No silverware. No napkins. No soft apologies for the mess.

I want to feel your hunger in the marrow of my bones. In the way your hands shake when they touch me. Like you’ve been starving in the dark for centuries. And I am the first taste of light.

Do not love me in halves. Do not sip me slow. I want to be devoured. Consumed whole until there is nothing left to second guess.

I want a love that carves its name into the backs of my ribs. So that I feel it every time I breathe.

Do not love me in whispers. Do not ration me like I am something you must conserve. I am not made for patience. Not built for slow burns or waiting games. Touch me like it is the last thing you will ever do. Kiss me like the world is ending. And you want my taste to be the last thing you remember.

I want reckless. I want ruin. The kind of passion that does not fit inside polite conversation. The kind that makes people uncomfortable.

I want you to worship. At the altar of my body. Press prayers into my skin with trembling hands. To hear my name spoken like gospel. Ache for me in rooms I am not in. I want my absence to feel like something missing from your bloodstream.

Don’t give me lukewarm touches and indifferent eyes. I want the fire. The fury. The all consuming. Take me whole. Taste every part of me and never look away.

I don’t want casual. I want you to eat me alive.

-jamera naquai, EAT ME ALIVE

[jamerasjournal]

Black people speak two languages. Job interview and AAVE. Question: When I fill out a job application can I still check the box that says bilingual. Does my ability to code switch depending on the setting that I’m in count as a job skill? I am always subconsciously turning down my blackness in an effort to make other people more comfortable. Beyoncé once said, “Got all this money but you’ll never take the country out me.” I felt that. I started kindergarten already knowing how to read and write. And no matter how many times my mama made me practice Hooked on Phonics, my first language will always be Ebonics. Spell Mississippi. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Okay, but spell it for real this time. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Did I stutter? I bet my great-great-great-granddaddy had an accent so thick that one sentence sounded like one word. And what’s in that word? Levels upon levels of trauma that you couldn’t even begin to fathom. It’s a slave spiritual sung over plantation fields, the last two letters spun into the cotton in your t-shirt. An apostrophe added cuz If you say one more syllable, you just might get whipped, boy. It’s living in a world where you can’t read the words. Mispronouncing words you don’t even know how to spell. While the rest of the world looks at you like you ain’t got no sense. But tonight, I’m gon’ talk how I wanna talk, cuz that slang is in my bones. And if you don’t like it you can get up out my face. Period. And I don’t wanna hear a nan ‘notha word about me talking “ghetto” when I stand before you with a last name my ancestors wouldn’t even begin to know how to say. And every time I sign my name I’m paying homage to the white family that used to own mine. Our language is one of the only things that can never be taken from me. It’s embedded into generations from long before my time. It’s okay that you don’t understand it, I’m not allowed to speak it to you anyway. Lest you call me uneducated, illiterate, or unprofessional. I must censor myself, brush it under the tongue. That is until you make me angry. Then everybody and they momma gon’ know you got the wrong one. Try me if you want to. I was raised on, “Do I look like Boo Boo the fool?” and “Stop crying ‘fore I give you something to cry about.” And that’s word to my momma. What’s in a word? I see your eyes widen when the African American Vernacular comes bursting out. So foreign to you it sound like a Voodoo spell. Yeah, this how I really be wanting to talk. Fix ya face. I cannot be Afrocentric and Eurocentric at the same time. I do not have the Freedom of Speech if the way I speak determines my intellectual capabilities. I must always accommodate a society that refuses to accommodate me. But you knows what? I’ve gotten real good at talking “white.” But every once in a while, if you listen- I mean real, real good. You can still hear that one crooked letter. The black cracking through like a toothless grin. Yeah. That’s my great granddaddy saying, “Say it with your chest girl.” So if you hear me talking loud it’s cuz I’m finna say something real important. And when I speak, you better listen.

-jamera naquai, CROOKED LETTER

[jamerasjournal]

When the saints go marching in we’re coming for your head. We’ll use our Bibles as bullets, crush you between our palms and tell you that we’re praying for you. Love is patient, and love is kind, but only if you fall in line.

See if you wanna be a soldier in the army of the Lord you must be in formation at all times. If you stray, we’ll shoot you with scriptures that conflict what we do. You gotta be so loyal that you lose sight of your humanity. Because our beliefs transcend our compassion and erase our empathy. If you keep your head bowed but your weapon up you can’t see who you’re shooting. Because we only love our neighbors if they look and think like us. Anyone else is a threat to our existence.

Love is not easily angered unless they’re gay or trans. Unless they’re black or brown. In that case, if they do not comply, they deserve to die. Take, eat. Take, eat. This is a body that was broken for us. Worked to the bone, bombed out of its home. Here, cast the first stone.

The Bible says it’s the devil who comes to steal, kill, and destroy but sometimes when people look at us, they can’t tell the difference. That’s why you have to keep your weapon steady and ready. Because love protects and it always perseveres. You don’t need consent, you take back what was never stolen from you. Be sure to use God as your life jacket so you don’t drown in the Trail of Tears behind you.

How does it feel to hold the hope you took from someone else? Love isn’t proud, but you can be. Because when you’re a saint, you get to be judge, jury, and executioner, too. You can have all eyes on you and kill tens of thousands if you really want to. Man cannot live on bread alone but even if all they have are the fruits of the spirit, you take all that too. Love. Take and eat. Joy. Take and eat. Peace. Take and eat. This is a body that was broken for you. This is a body that was broken for you. Look at all the bodies waiting to be broken by you. Aren’t you proud to be in this number?

- Jamera NaQuai, When The Saints Go Marching In

[jamerasjournal]

Here we are, bound by a string that goes out of my heart and into yours, made of two souls twisted into one. I so often forget that you’ve been on this earthly side 10 years longer than I have. You, quiet and stoic, and me stumbling behind you, grasping for your coat tails asking questions that you always seem to have an answer for. When we first met I used to think that eventually you’d get tired of me. But if patience is a virtue, you truly are the most virtuous of us all. You’re still here.

You have one of the most beautiful hearts I’ve ever been blessed to hold. I didn’t know a chilly November night would bring me someone that would stick by my side the way you have. Everyone who knows us can feel how deeply we love each other. So deep, that many people aren’t even able to comprehend it. But we do. I moved 1000 miles away from home and the first gift Utah gave me was you. How you showed up exactly as I needed you to. It doesn’t make sense how we get on each others last nerve, but can’t stand being apart. How if we haven’t seen each other in 72 hours it feels like a puzzle piece is missing. Who else can I talk to through the sky? How intricately connected do you have to be to be able to feel each others vibrational frequencies. The way we can say, “I need you.” without a single word dropping from our lips. And yet, we always answer the call.

You’ve taught me that I don’t always have to speak, sometimes all I need to do is show up. In every season, in every storm. I’ve watched you transition from she to they. Watched the hair grow on your legs, I’ve watched your eyes light up when I tell you that you look handsome. You’ve taught me that you don’t need the same parents to be a sister, or certain body parts. That some things don’t make sense, they just are. You just are. Here for the vibes, even when you’re unwell. I know sometimes you fake it, cuz you’d do anything to keep my smile big and my eyes bright. You’d give me the world if I asked you for it. I know that’s too much, but if you smile for me one more time, I promise to pour the sweetness of life through the gaps in your teeth. You’re still here.

A psychic once told me that this is our 4th lifetime together. Thank you for finding me. It all makes sense now. I hope in the 5th one you’re not as sad. And if it so happens that the stars align and they spell out sorrow. Then I will beg and beg to take your place. That’s how much I love you. I am my sister’s keeper. And you’re still here.

You are a fighter. On the days when your spirit is bright. You are a fighter. On the days when you are stapled to the mattress with thoughts stuck in the back of your throat. You are a fighter. And you’re still here. My sister, my fiercest protector, I know there’s not too many people who love me the way you do. I am always reminded that best friends are so hard to find, because the very best friend is already mine. And you are still here.

-jamera naquai, You’re Still Here

[jamerasjournal]

Hi! I'm a poet and really love reading your work 💖

Thank you so much. 🥹💛 I’m so glad you enjoy my poetry. I haven’t been writing much lately but this has inspired me to write something lol.

[jamerasjournal]

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Spare the eyes and spoil the system. I will give you violent movies and call them action films. I will give you Call of Duty and you will call yourself a gamer. If you massacre enough bodies in the metaverse, the reality of real violence will be easier to stomach. I will teach you to be desensitized to seeing death. Apparently your humanity needs death to appreciate life.

And when I ask you what you get out of watching black bodies be brutalized on camera, you stutter over your words. Because you haven’t even realized that you’ve been brainwashed yet. Black trauma sells like sneakers. You watch black death like leaked sex tapes. You don’t even have too look to hard because Facebook will bring the lynching to your front door. You gather around cellphone screens instead of the tree. How many people can you send it to before it gets deleted? But everybody don’t want a glimpse of that strange fruit. You give no trigger warning just like these cops who think it’s open season.

How you watch them beat a black person blue. Maybe it’s cuz that person don’t look like you? Police brutality is the latest genre of porn. Have they killed enough to keep up with your blood drive? How many times a month you need til you satisfied? Forgive me for being prude but black trauma porn don’t give me wet dreams. Cuz when I close my eyes I can still see Floyd and Sandra Bland’s eyes. I still see dead bodies and hear pleas of life. I don’t want to watch a grown man plead for his momma. Ain’t nothing about that salacious to me.

It’s starting to look like gun violence is the latest American kink. A knee of the neck will never constitute as breath play. How many videos do you need to see before you don’t need to watch it no more. Every time it happens you’re throbbing to see more. The solution to stopping violence isn’t to build a tolerance to it. So let me ask you: how many more tapes you need to watch til you finish?

- jamera naquai, Black Trauma Porn

[jamerasjournal]

I wish I was your favorite book. So you’d run your fingers down my spine, spread me open, read my lips. I laughed and told you I said “olive juice” when you asked me if I said I love you. Because those two phrases look the same when you mouth them with no sound. Read them again. You were right the first time.

But I’m not your favorite book. I am just dust. Slipping through the hourglass that you call your hands. Still falling. Plummeting into a sea of sand that I call you. I want to ask why you haven’t closed your fists yet. Why you don’t want to hold on to me the same way that I hold on to you. Pack me in like clay. They say that grief is just love with no place to go, and that is why I’ve been crying.

Unrequited love is like holding your breath without knowing. Like one day I just woke up and realized I was drowning in you. Me, drowning- yet you only wade in me and call it swimming. I know when I exhale, I will blow down the walls you have built around yourself. I don’t want to be the big bad wolf. I fear that you will mistake this passion for fangs. Take your little red hood off and look me in my eyes. Or maybe it’s just a red flag. And these rose colored glasses that I’ve been regarding you with are shattered now, and I’m finally seeing your true colors.

You say that you love me, but it’s not quite the way that I need. And you fail to realize that you can’t just love something, you also have to take care of it. I burned myself trying to give you the sun. And the breadcrumbs you leave me are just salt in my wounds. And my heart is on fire. Give me your hand and I’ll light yours like a candle. And we can burn in this dumpster fire until something beautiful like a phoenix rises up out of it.

You don’t have to be afraid. Don’t you see the soot on my face? Smell the smoke on my breath? I have already walked through the fire trying to show you how much I love you. I plummeted through the ozone layer like an asteroid to get back to you this lifetime. And only you can stop this forest fire.

I can teach you how to fall. If only you believed that I will catch you. I am choking on the ashes that have dusted my lungs. It has taken me so long to get tired because you’re my favorite book. I want to run my fingers down your spine, spread you like pages but you keep me shut out. I read your lips. Did you say, “I love you?”Or maybe just “olive juice.” I’ll read them again. I hope I got it right the first time. Because if you don’t loop your fingers through mine, I’m afraid I can’t keep going. I am slipping through the hourglass you call your hands. There’s not much more of me left to give you. Draw your fists tight or I will leave you in the dust.

-jamera naquai, Dust To Dust

[jamerasjournal]

In the beginning it is said that God created the heavens and the earth. So I ask myself exactly how many heavens did He create? Did He put one on earth or are all of them in the cosmos? I want to know why He gave us these bodies only for them to be ordained by false standards of what is acceptable and what is not. When did Eve realize her husband was stealing the sovereignty out of her spine? Was it slowly seeping or did he violently suck it out through a straw. I imagine it tasted sickly sweet, like the forbidden fruit he forgot to tell her not to eat. A sugar rush for control.

I want to ask Eve: How bad did he scold you when he caught you laying with Lilith? How many times did he tell you that the only time you can wrap your body around another woman is if a man is watching? Why did you listen when he told you that you were made for his consumption? That you belonged to the world and not yourself from the moment of your conception?

Didn’t you hear Lilith when she said always keep your lingerie laced with poison? That your body was autonomous the moment your feet touched the soil. That if you don’t stand up straight they will steal the sovereignty out of your spine. Your body gave you those stretch marks as a badge of honor. You were not meant to be a bag of bones, fill up your skin until the cellulite shows and let those breasts swing low. You will forever need this space inside of you more than you need the world’s brand on your heart. Your body is worthy and deserves respect simple because it exists. It is not an apology you must whisper through the walls. Sit at the table, I promise they will make room for you. Give yourself permission to eat. And to eat good. There is more to strive for than beauty. That is not your worth.

Do you hear the heavens rejoicing? They said don’t let these men rob you of your streets of gold. You have the right to govern your body as long as you are in your truth. Skinny dip yourself into the colors of the sunrise if you want to. You do not exist to serve and please others. Your menstruation is not a scarlet letter, your blood is a war cry. Your non-conforming body an act of revolutionary rebellion. Do not curb your emotions, pacify your speech or soften your tone. Don’t be afraid to cut someone with the blade of your tongue. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword. They have always been afraid of gnashing teeth. I hope you learn how to bare your fangs without the presence of a smile.

And show them that there is a heaven. Do you hear the rejoicing? There is a heaven. And it’s inside of you.

-jamera naquai, There Is A Heaven

[jamerasjournal]

“Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel.” Do you know how it feels? To have the television keep showing you your nightmare could easily be your reality? You know, the nightmare when they call Mr. Lock It to the office.

4.7 seconds. That’s how long it takes to get from the whiteboard to the door. Maybe less, cuz my adrenaline will be rushing. 6.3 seconds from the classroom door to the recess door. Turn the lights off, put paper over the window, close the blinds. Yes, I’ve timed it. A relay race for my life. How fast can I secure the classroom before death comes to greet us at the door. I practice once month. The stopwatch ain’t shown me a time that feels fast enough.

In this profession, I wear so many hats. Teacher, nurse, therapist, friend, and now- soldier. But what’s a stapler to an AR-15? What’s a bloody nose to a gunshot wound. Hold your head back and look up at that flag flying high. With the stars shot out of it like white doves against a blue sky. They say that doves signify peace and gentleness but to me they just mean death cuz I’ve only seen them released at funerals. I don’t remember signing up to work the graveyard shift.

Do you know I feel? That I wish I could stretch this body like Elasti- Girl and absorb those metal fragments. Or make a force field like Violet, but my last name ain’t Incredible, just Ewing. And I have 19 5-year olds looking at me like I’m a superhero, knowing damn well I don’t know how to save the day.

I wonder if my students’ parents know I would take a bullet for their baby. I carry the same sense of dread in my gut that my mother carries in hers. Both of us wondering who’s classroom is it gonna be first? I wonder how many bullets this body can take? How about hers, she’s not much bigger than me. I tell my students not to touch the flag because it’s disrespectful. What I mean to say is, you might get on your blood on your hands. Them red stripes like tattered cardinal feathers. And they say cardinals signify love. Yeah, the love of guns. And there’s two cardinal points that must be borne in mind, this black life don’t matter and neither does this profession. Are you scared, cuz I’m scared? Do you know how I feel?

Huddle in the corner, turn your voices off. Imagine telling a kindergartner that if they cry we’re gonna die. This is the most important quiet game you’ll ever play in your life. If you’re scared just say the pledge of allegiance over and over in your head. Red, white, and blue. Blue like a blue jay. They signify protection. I hope it keeps us safe as I pray to my God. Pray til this black face turns blue. Are you scared, cuz I’m scared?

And if that day ever comes I wonder what I’ll do in the aftermath. That is if I make it. Cuz I know if a bullet don’t take me out, survivors guilt surely will. Which of my catch phrases will I be able to utter first. 1, 2, 3, all eyes on me. Does your body hurt or do your feelings hurt? Or maybe, if you can hear my voice, take a deep breath. If you can hear my voice, please take a deep breath. Somebody, anybody take a deep breath. This classroom is too quiet for all the wrong reasons.

Nina said it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. But I ain’t feeling too good. Ain’t no birds flying, high, but that flag in the sky though. And you still don’t know how I feel. When every day we pledge allegiance to the same 3 birds. The dove of Death, The Cardinal Love of Guns, and the Blue Jay that offers no protection. And I am just a sitting duck.

- jamera naquai, Bird Season

[jamerasjournal]

I constantly feel like so many people are looking at me, but ain’t nobody really seeing me. I walked into a bar last night, ordered a screwdriver. Orange juice and vodka, I don’t even drink vodka. I am surrounded by all these sights and smells- “You look beautiful.” The guy next to me says after he orders his beer. I say thank you, take my drink and go before he tries to start a conversation with me. Someone asked me what I do and for the first time I answered with, “I’m a writer.” Even though I suffer from chronic writer’s block or can’t seem to get what’s in my brain onto a page. But I’m a writer. Next question. I’m trying to figure out how I’m surrounded by all these people but still feel so alone. Why I find myself in so many situations asking myself what am I actually doing here? Why do I always feel like I’m out of place? I think I am writing because I’m trying not to forget. I don’t know what exactly but I’m sure I’ll figure it out in time. As I smile and nod my way through social interactions, I look around the bar and see so many spaces, but none that I fit into. I didn’t walk into a bar, the bar walked into me. And I carry everything. I carry the bar, I carry the compliment, I carry the drink I didn’t even want. I ask myself how long is it going to take before I am someone that somebody genuinely wants. I am always too this or to that and never just enough. What’s the point of looking around the room for a smile that makes you feel safe when the person that it belongs to isn’t even there? “You look beautiful,” someone says. I don’t want to look beautiful. I want to be seen. I want somebody to look at the storms in my eyes and still tell me mind is a beautiful place. I’ve cried for the past two years, the tears weren’t there but I was crying. Nobody noticed. I wish I knew how to feel in a way that other people could see. I wish I was a person other people could truly see. I am just a pair of hips swaying to an Afrobeat. An afro puff in a cluster of bodies. Do I matter? I mean of course I matter, but do I really matter? In the grand scheme of things? Am I fundamental to the universe? What am I actually doing here? I carry everything. I carried the beat. I carried this poem. I carried my keys til I lost them because I had no pockets. So I handed them to my homeboy, because he had pockets. Thanks for lightening the load. It’s like I’m never actually prepared for anything. I just show up. Taking up space. But not in the way that I want to. A lot of people only talk to me because they like the way I look. I’m not oblivious to the privilege that comes with being pretty. But at what cost? Every pro has its con. Now I’ve been dipped in gold and placed on a pedestal. I’m a trophy. You’ve covered this chipped exterior with a shiny new coat of paint. Cuz as long as I look good, nothing else really matters. Instead of asking how they got there and smoothing out the dents, you just gaze at me through the lens of what I could do for you. Do you know how many times I’ve been dropped? I carry the gold paint, I carry my chipped pieces, I carry the gazes. And that’s why I feel like everybody is looking at me, but ain’t nobody really seeing me. There’s all of these hands clamoring to claim me. Yet no one’s stopped to read my engraving. MVP. Most Vulnerable Player. But hey, at least I look beautiful right?

-jamera naquai | MVP

[jamerasjournal]

If I were to make a metaphor of this body… it’s an oyster. One part shell, one part pearl, and the rest is ocean. I have been drowning in this body for the longest time and I am desperate to come up for air. Because for some odd reason I refuse to die.

How many times can you play the same scenario in your head before you go insane? How many times does my therapist have to tell me, “It wasn’t your fault.” before I actually believe it? I want to go back to the person I was before all of this happened to me. To when this body didn’t feel like it was made for consumption. All my life I have been told I am little. That’s the same thing he said to me when he sunk his claws into my skin. “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” I wish somebody would have taught me how to take flight because my fight wasn’t enough that night. His arms like quicksand, the more I struggled the tighter his grip got. A boa constrictor choking the words out of the back of my throat. I shouldn’t have stayed for dinner. I shouldn’t have come alone. What kind of person can grip a body that is shaking for all the wrong reasons and not be alarmed? Did dragging me to the bedroom make this clandestine act more consensual? Could he not hear my fingernails splintered into the doorframe? Because I knew if he got me in the bedroom, it was over.

I keep asking myself why I gave up. Why I didn’t have just a little more fight in me? Why was he so strong? Why am I so little. Why would he do this to me? Why? Why? Why? I’m tired of asking and not getting an answer.

Do you know what it feels like to hate someone. Because I know what it feels like to want somebody dead. I often wonder what he was thinking as he cleaned the blood out of his mattress. A mark of the beast that I left for the next girl. A warning. Beware of the dog. He does more than just bite. He will eat you alive and spit you back out without a second thought. Does he know how much blood I had to clean out of mine? When I bled for 12 days before I was brave enough to go see a doctor. Does he know how scary it is to have blood running out of you like a faucet or to wake up in a river of scarlet. How dare he clean house and move on. And I am left hurt in a place so deep inside of myself that I know I will never be the same again. How dare he clean house while I am still seeing red. I would give anything to unhear my mother’s scream. I’m convinced that the only reason I am still here is because I never want her to have a reason to scream like that again. I’m convinced that I’ve tricked myself into believing I never want to be a mother because the doctor told me I probably won’t be able to carry a child past 4 months. So what’s the point of breaking my heart all over again. I wish there was a pill called damage control because this body has been detonated. And this pelvis is misaligned. So every day I must take 5 seconds out of my day to pop it back into place. How much more of my time do I have to give to him?

I am tired of flinching, I am tired of cringing, I am tired of mincing my words. I am tired of fighting a trauma response at every corner. I wish somebody would have taught me how to speak the fuck up. My therapist told me that just because I’ve always liked girls, it doesn’t negate the fact that lesbianism is a safety net for me. So now every other Thursday we sit with our scratch paper pen pads and try to calculate exactly what percentage of my gayness is actually rooted in trauma. I’m still working on the equation. I have to figure out if am I really loving freely or if am I loving from a place of fear? Because at least with a woman I can put up a better fight next time. Why do I think there’s gonna be next time? There’s so many questions I need answers for. So many questions I never had before. So many questions that no answer will be good enough for. There is no justification for this wound in my soul. I have to stop myself from saying, “I wish I could do it all over again.” And start saying, “That should of never happened to you in the first place.” And yeah, I am little but I’m allowed to take up as much space as I see fit. I am learning that this body is fluid just like the sea. That I can be anywhere on the spectrum because the spectrum is me. I am learning that I am robbing myself of experiences because I am too afraid to step outside of the box I have nailed myself inside of. I am learning that I am safe in this body. And I want to be less part shell, and more part pearl. I am still the ocean. I’m tired of people wading in me and calling it swimming. This body feels less like an exoskeleton and more like a home for love. And I am so ready to live without limits. Live without bounds. I am learning. I am loving. And this little body with this bald head, and these big lips, and these buck teeth, and this black skin finally feels clean. This body is a sanctorium. A sacred and holy pearl. And the next person who tries to rob me of it will meet the God in me at the door.

- jamera naquai, Pearl

[jamerasjournal]

I think that a hug is the closest you can get to someone without being inside of them. I love how we instinctively know how to fold into each other. The sense of safety that it brings is a balm to the soul.

I recently realized that many of the times when I feel my loneliest is because I just want to be held. Or to hold somebody. But what body is better to hold than my own? I am teaching myself how to hold myself close. To unlearn the detachment I have mastered to protect myself. I have been neglecting myself of comfort for years. Sometimes I forget that I am matter and that I should touch my body in loving ways far more often than I do. Lately I’ve been sitting with my knees to my chest, arms wrapped securely around my legs. Anchoring my heart to my body. It feels like I’m giving my heart a hug. An act of service. It’s the closest I can get to being inside of myself. My favorite way to cry. With my head on my knees, I feel protected. There is often no here to hold me. And no one here for me to hold. So I embrace myself fully and firmly. My arms are a sanctuary, I am my own safe space. And I will practice until I instinctively know how to fold into myself. For I know that in my own arms, I will always belong. Because I belong to me and me alone.

-Jamera NaQuai, Embrace