for Renisha McBride

For Renisha McBride..

I hope your name makes noise

Speaks loud and bold

Brave and clear

For every name like yours

Your name the one

That they make fun of

Call ghetto

And say will never allow you to

Get a job

We want you to be the lip popping

Gum smacking

Goddess you are

Or the only one we will allow you to be

In our memory

The one that we suit wearing

Professional house ladies

Detest because you remind us

That even we are disposable in all our upward mobility glory

We want to remember your name

Make it mean more

Than bullets to the brain

And front porches

We want every black girl body

To carry weight

Speak volumes

Make noise

Be loud

We want it to be more than just a whisper

For once in history

We want to tell the story on

Our own terms

Share our pain

Our grief

Be more than footnotes in black male profiles

And end notes in white women sympathy

We want every syllable to

Choke the speaker’s throat

Take up more space than commonly

Allowed

Celebrate

Cry

Laugh

Be fully human

For once can we shame

Big Mama’s steady strength with

A moment of weakness?

Can we love ourselves?

Can we stop pretending?

Can we love each other

Enough to say enough?

Can we have a collective moment in space?

A time for us

A time for you

We are because you are..

Re-Nis-sha

Re- Nisha

ReNisha

r-ne-sh-a

I want to say your name so

I don’t forget my own

I want to say your name

So I can love my own

Not just another name

Not just another black girl body

Not just another girl child

Whose life isn’t worth anything?

To not only white men

But black men

And other black woman bodies

We have been taught our lives

Are disposable

So we don’t value each other

Let us call you name

Like children of the dusk

Calling for the sun

Let us call your name like

Stars calling for the moon

Like trying be whole

When you’re told your half

And I can’t seem to shake the feeling

That you need your name

Known for more

Than wide lips

And car accidents

For more than being on the wrong porch

For more than Detroit

You

Along with the others

Like

Sarah Bartman

Let us call your name

With those women

Who have been strange fruit

Jeenie Steers

Laura Nelson

Bertha Lowman

Mary Conley

Or ones who have died

Slow deaths on other trees

Like

Shirley Sherrod

Anita Hill

Rachel jeantel

Like

Mamie

Like

Welfare Queen

Like Baby Mama

Let us call your name

Renisha McBride

So we don’t forget our own

So we don’t choke

On our own voices

And think that

We are not already

Whole