Noura Jaber

 

The White Girl Decided I’m Scary When I’m Angry.

 

ok bitch.

i came into this world/fists first. this body made itself up

when no one else would/like no one else could. scraped

itself from the grime under its own claws

& here you come, wanting to paint these nails pretty.

call my anger savagery. call it inhuman.

swear you didn’t do anything to warrant this rage

flying at you all black and woman. like you didn’t know

these hands/built from brick and mortar. dusty walls. ashy

knuckles. crunch themselves open on the right jaw/splinter

with the pressure of the punch. these hands bruised

battered bleeding. these hands tattered skin

but these hands got joy. praise

their applause. clap together like a lion’s roar. clap back

like God/these hands/straight outta patience. no dialogue

with your earless mouth; these hands smack the spit off lips –

 

i am molded/from gravesoil. that makes these hands

dirt/these hands not to be trampled on/where i hit

it burn – this backhand/hurl acid/these nails never split.

scratch the slime right off

your gawking iris. these palms too much

colonial aftermath/got the war

paint to prove it. missionary never taught these palms

to press together. piety never been an act of war/and these hands

know war. these hands/all war. these hands all

war/these hands all/war/allwar/all war, bitch/catch these.

 

 

 

Black Unicorn

 

the world couldn’t ignore the creature/playing elephant in the room any longer. so it told itself the tale of the Black/Unicorn. myth of the beast strong enough to hold two revolutions/on her back. they say/the Black Panther bowed to her/once. say she transcended Womanhood. suffragettes forgot/to build her temple tho. they say/holla at a Black Unicorn/she curve you like a riptide/got these niggas salty/like the ocean. don’t let it be the wrong man tho/most of them would force their way/into her. or kill her trying/we Black/Unicorns got bodies worth more than we are. they say the pelt/could survive hellfire. white feminists stay tryna rip/the skin off me/they say the flesh can cure/a man’s fragility. that explains these Hoteps/thinking they could ever own all this/& they retell the fable/with every Chi-Raq & The Help. pale women whiting out/the parts that are too dark. dark men/blacking out/every womanly strength – but they forgot/that blackness built us into women/& gender colors our skin/they forgot: we constructed both their empires. from our own/spines. & we could tear them/back down just as easily/they forgot this body/so mighty/because it pulls its power from the moon. no hunter could slay the Black Unicorn/so they wrote us/into fantasy. tried to call this/amnesia/our extinction/but they will remember/today: the apocalypse/will be a storm/of us. hooves/shaking the earth/like thunder. when we arrive/something will shatter. it won’t be us

 

 


Noura is a Black- and Arab- American queer woman. She is a poet who writes to survive.

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