Took my weave down
to really let the snakes show
Every coil a hiss & if you graze fingers
through I can’t be responsible for your loss
To say I’m a god would be insulting
This universe is the equivalent of my galaxy’s Pluto
So how dare any two-eyed bitch stare at me crooked
None of you can even make it to my stars let alone my moon
Humans romanticize the smog of each day
the way earth loves no one and they call it depression
Yet every time I touch down
earthlings want to act up & I’m ready
to pop off or shapeshift back into orange skin
that burns through flesh just by looking
I only know violence here because it lives
in the air so my fists stay balled cautious
& honestly I just visit for the chicken
(fried hard lemon pepper mild sauce) & the brown creatures
whose form I mimic while there for recipes & laughter
that remains even while sharing earth with the people of no sun
The black people are reminders not to turn myself blue
pick up all earth’s water and drown this planet dead
//
DeShara Suggs-Joe is a Co-Founder of Daughter’s Tongue and a former member of the Youth Speaks Collective. She received her MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. She is a 2016 Callaloo Fellow, and has been published in The Texas Review, The Oakland Review, and Art Cult Zine. She has also been featured on Button Poetry’s YouTube platform. She has performed at the likes of Spotify, Yahoo, and Pinterest but considers home inside a classroom teaching creative writing to youth or listening to her “Feels” playlist on repeat. You can find more of her work on her website.