["For All It's Worth" by Miona Short]
- There are a thousand names for the black woman
Daughter of Ra
Daughter of Ankh-clad Sun God,
Africa mother,
fruits of civilization,
sister-womb man,
queen with a 'K',
and a host of other names
that smell like incense,
somebody else's ancestors,
and gas station dashikis.
And then there are names
that taste like the gritty rubber of pavement,
like a knee to the neck,
like somebody's shit that they mistook for a burning bush,
and I choose not to say those names
because I refuse to scrub my tongue of its gold
just to entertain the air with lies.
But if you must say my name though,
hold up every letter, every syllable
like a necklace of diamonds
neither meant for the adoration
nor the adornment of your tongue.
So do not assume that my name
was ever meant to bow down
to the gravity of your English.
Instead, treat my name like birds.
When you hear it in fleeting flight across the soundscape
let it fly there.
Let it be fly there
without entering the lagging bumble of your voice
to detangle everything
that is nappy and free about my name.
And in those moments
when my name perches on the tongue
like a two-ton palace,
resist the urge to get lazy.
Resist the urge
to respect me
with whatever overarching pseudonym
while all the while, refusing to unravel
the very raw pulse of my name.
What I'm really trying to say is
if you're gonna call me "Black Girl Magic,"
I prefer you just call me by my name
I already know my own alchemy.
I don't need no overcooked metaphor
for dark arts and cryptic sorcery
to understand that when my society gives me lemons,
I just use them to keep my edges proper.
So if what you're going after is respect,
just take a trusted mug of Lipton
and the Book of Life and sit down
and pore over every black girl name
like a prayer.
And that inevitable moment,
when your mouth snags the wrong sound
on the entrails of our names
and we are quick to correct you,
it may hurt,
it may seem like we are being mean about it,
but you must understand that our names tag the air
like permanent marker
so when you get it wrong,
you insult its formation
and we must check you.
As black women, we are rekindling the gold standard
and calling it mirror
We are taking every ugly, wrong, wretched moniker
and repurposing it into ash
and that is exactly how we will love ourselves
in a world that has not a throne,
nor a snap of praise,
nor a crown
for any of us.
So if you must say my name,
first drape your words in purple,
then ask how I want my name to be said.
And I'll tell you
to leave me alone to dance by myself
me, my thousand sisters, and our thousand skins.
And that, my loves,
is the proper pronunciation of my name.