NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire Vol 17.2: Fall 2017 | Page 20

Trauma 
My Smile
Love was always
Thick, iron,
Seeking my rolling veins
To cut me and protect.
I stare at the young couple,
The young man with the happy smile
“He will leave you” I say quietly,
Like the words never left my mouth
They do not hear, they walk past me
Swinging their hands.
I turning to see an old couple on the other bench
Looking strangely at me
It is the way I had to learn
What my black skin in a white world meant.
A smile forms on their lips when our eyes meet.
I refuse to give them a smile back
I am selfish about my smile
I do not throw it away,
Give it away or wrap it like a fruitcake on Christmas day.
I walk away with my smile.
The women opened her legs
and pushed out a sin, a girl
she laid, exhausted as grief overcame her
she carried her sin into her home
and her husband watched as she avoided her sin
she refused to name her,
agreeing to any name he called out loud
sighing loudly as the priest dipped the child
inside a basin of water
‘does she want this child dead?’
she looked disappointed when the child coughed
now, sinless and pure
all praises/all praises
the daughter with a flat nose like a period in a body
her body made entirely of poems
of tragic love poems
she wore black for two months
walking out of bed to breastfeed her
dragging her feet, her tired was tired
her exhaustion was exhausted
on the second month, he walked in on her
body spread on the hardwood floor
she was sobbing
he walked away quietly
riding his bicycle to the nearest bar
to come home half drunk, half ashamed
she was gone, but left their child for him.
‘i cannot raise a daughter in this world,
she is a sin. i birthed my trauma
and i cannot heal myself by staring at my sin’
she wrote.