When this body was first given to Me,
naked and undiscovered, it was all mine.

         I unroll the map of my world. My body
is an expansive country on the scroll. I am colored in
four directions for each place I was colonized.
Each city in each region named
         Violent
in honor of the conquering men. Here,
Violence smells like smoked lavender
& chai. It’s an exotic gift; a language
I am grateful to know.
How else could I communicate
with the rest of God’s world?

         I speak the language so good now
even my laugh has a tax.
Open my mouth and my tongue
is a split fork road. Misogyny.
Misogynoir. Trauma. My accent, gone
like a good, obedient girl.

         I’ll tell you how to decolonize
the body. It starts with a war
of the bones. The marrow armed with
explosive salt. Before this it was Gold
Coast. It was Slave trade. It was
your body got everyone’s name
but your own.

       I’ll tell you, when your blood becomes
a boiling harbor, throw the damned
tea in. Rip all their flags from your melting veins.
When the riots begin, drink petrol. Straight. Smoke,
fresh from the belly is a dialect too.

         When it ends. After you sweep
the luke-warm anti-lovers, the venom’s dust,
the metal glitter of the bombs, the soft and sweet
soot, into the corners of yourself -
in every direction set a mirror. Sit in the center. Drink honey,
straight. And scream I belong to me.
              Oh dear God,             I belong to me