Splintered Thoughts
by Robalu Gibsun

The stars are tangled
in the nappiness of night.
My alarm clock combs
my mind out of its nap.

The earth gives birth to the sun
and still I can’t unmask my dark
or smash that stereotypical skeleton.

Ribs, be a fence
of uncaged seduction.
Lips, speak against
my enraged induction
into the Hall of severed balls
and voices as silent as starlight:

The humble hue man
was labeled black and wild
demasculinized
before his woman’s eyes
to teach her and the child
to never trust or confide
in a man who resides
in a vulnerable state
of mind. Now my love
is internally out-lawed and out-lined
by gunpowder and noose ties.

Now I wander barefoot
in rooms of yesterday
pestering its wooden planks
dragging my fettered feet
Hoping my flesh will snag up
a splinter from a lynching tree
Hoping the pain will convince
my ancestral memories
to open the lost books of history.

In this masquerade
of blackface and white sheets,
we hate who we are
and unthread who we see.

Camouflaged in deceit,
we fight in fabricated identities;
and no one can tell the Enemy
from their inner-me.