Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff
After For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide
/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Thick lip baddie, flexing princess pink gums, broad
teeth, slick tongue, churning an elixir of sap. And
look at all the girls feening to drink from my mouth;
both my thick lip princess pink gums mouth and my
HER mouth too—where all my supple sweetness
collides. All the girls fast flying to my HER mouth,
they want my sticky siren nectar to make honey of
them. My HER mouth say no. my HER mouth say
look watch as I eat me up, scrum-dilly-scrum. My
HER mouth say this sweetness belong to HER and
she ain’t in the business of selling, sharing or giving
HER away. See me—nectar—bee, making honey of
myself, for myself, with myself, to myself—my gawd
my gawd, this mouth, this mouth.
Maurisa Li-A-Ping is a Black Queer Writer. Her work can be found in Puerto del Sol, Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Offing, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, and elsewhere. Maurisa is a Pushcart Prize-nominee, Watering Hole Fellow, Furious Flower Poetry Prize finalist, Nancy Craig Blackburn Fellow, Blood Orange Review Contest Winner, along with many other accolades. She has earned a M.S.Ed. in Higher Education Student Affairs from Indiana University and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Randolph College. Learn more at MaurisaLiAPing.com.