When I was 5 years old
My grandfather
Decided it was time to sit
me down
And discuss our heritage
This lesson was a direct
result
Of him discovering my
Obsession with jumping
off the roof of his house
In direct violation of an express order
Not to do so
But danger was a foreign
concept to me
And I was made out of
Teflon
And rubber
Death was about as real as
My grandfather brought me
in
Grateful I had not broken
any bones
and decided it was time
for me
To hear my legacy
I come from the stock of
murders
And thieves
Of bushmen and robbers
I am wiley and resourceful
I laugh hard and play for
keeps
We are a honorable stock
And our morality is that of
superior women
We are Cimarron
We are stolen back slaves
We are freemen with the
conscience
To kill
And our children have wild
hearts
And no sense of shame
My parents called me a
tom-boy and tried to make me sit
My grandfather called me
Nanny’s soldier
And told me to run
everywhere
My grandmother told me
that pants were unlady like
At 7 he told me that
rather than let their slaves go
The masters on Jamaican
plantations burned their slaves
Quarters up in the middle
of the night
Freedom for them
Was for the soul only
The bodies would forever
be there’s
Fairytales and fantasies
give us maps
For the impossible
Dreams are the playbook
for life
If you can’t imagine it
Then you can never reach
for it
We are told and we continue
to tell
Stories that are
impossible and improbable
We need them
To lead our bodies to new
places
And we need them to hold
Our spirits together
My grandfather believe
that the slaves who stole
Themselves back from moral
men
Were honorable thieves
And superior beings
And thus gave us the
bloodline of gods
We swam in the long
forgotten blood of Poseidon
And the smiles of Loki
healed our scars
Odon was in the salt of
our tears and sweat
And Anansi kept our
children clever
I come from an island of
forgotten but not powerless gods
Thieves, murders, and
robbers, all honorable men taking back
Their morality from the
men who tried to steal their best.
