NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire Vol 17.2: Fall 2017 | Page 18

poetry By Ijeoma Umebinyuo Silence Anguish 1. you have to form it in your mouth you have to push it out to give birth to it outside yourself you have to pull words out of your bones blood, fingers tongue and from between your teeth How can you tell me to go back and touch what hurts me just to write about it. How many ways can one die? Every word, every sentence bleeds, this is the only way to describe the feeling. I call it anguish now. Anguish is such a powerful word, it is full of sorrow, you have to form it in your mouth and push it out. This is how it feels on many days. But I had to write, i needed to write. I was frantically searching for ways to pull words out of my bones, out of my blood, out of my fingers, to write it all out with anger, knowing i had to save myself. no one teaches you how  to pull gold from copper. 2. i watch as the women sat breaking stories to feed themselves one had to be careful or you step on a broken story and bleed. 3. being born this black, this woman with the wages of silence strangling our voices tongues tied, stitched,  sins not washed, no absolution we stare at the repercussions but, nobody warns you that the women whose feet were cut from running would give birth to daughter with wings no one taught us how to pull gold from copper.