Black woman,
This world will make you circus, freak show, tightrope walker, contort your name from Saartjie to “Sara Bartman,”
Hottentot Venus—stage performer. Look, how they abracadabra the royal exploitation of your form.
Watch them dissect your broad bottom, saw you into science experiment.
Call your mending—magic your root balm and salve a work of the devil-sorcery. Go out the trap door, come back in the body
of Beyoncé—prized possession, they will spit-shine the stage for you again. What a spectacular woman—
two-headed and omnipresent one foot here, one foot in Houdini-state.
Your magic trick is: “Look at all the wonder I can do with two hands and twenty-four hours.” When people say, “That’s Black Girl Magic.” say, “I have no magic. I make meals
from crumbs, cast demons with just my tongue, envision possibility from potential.” That makes me
scientist, inventor, chemist— spiritual being. Tell them this is
not super, this is survival. When they call you hero, when they hand you the cape anyway, ask, “Haven’t I carried enough?”
When they call your strength other- worldly, say, it is the Venus rising in me, nothing more.