I remember sitting on the back porch watching the breeze run effortlessly through the leaves of my tree.

The fruits growing ripe, juicing at the roots, humbly asking to be plucked out of the sun.

I would watch the leaves fall to the ground and change with the season

to watch raindrops quench its thirst.

The magnolias sweet refreshing smell would linger in the stiff Southern air.

I remember releasing my tight curls at the roots of my tree,

blending with the dirt beneath me only to glance up and bid my tree to grow.

Elementary joy came from these memories:

 frolicking in its summer shade, resting beneath its shelter of leaves, plucking its seemingly timeless  flowers.

I reminisce on the times I only knew love for my tree. I yearn for the simplicity of an unembellished explanation for those soulful bodies swinging in the rhythm of jazz with the wind.

I wish they did not remind me of the fruitful crops of the blooming spring.

No longer do I covet the precious memories of my tree now obstructed by men in crisp angel white robes carrying satan’s pitchfork,

By women who spoke the word of god that would rob my mothers dignity,

By the boys who wore crosses on Sundays and stripped my brothers of their pride the next, by the little girls of my classroom that would spit in my hair and call me nigger,

By the pale boy who by which I was unwilling deflowered beneath flowers blossoming before me.

Those pains everlasting like my trees magnolias, incidents countless like its leaves, the CRACK of the whips on our backs alike to the cracks I would softly trace on its tree trunk.

I remember a time when I would only embrace my tree with solace,

I remember a time of security beneath its sheltering branches, curious of its destiny as I would watch it stretch out to the sun and thicken it’s woody features.

I remember the moments that I danced freely, timingly with its gentle wind.

Now I only remember kold kaotic klans of bleached unpigmented skin intruding my innocent memories.

Uninvited: “dood” shows: collecting my life

I swing in time with my tree forever awaiting freedom, hanging from its branches:

Strange fruit.