"My Project 2025" A New Poem By Me

"I am god talking to herself."

My Project 2025

after Maggie Smith

I am having more sex. 

I am louder when I have sex.

I am asking more questions. 

I am asking questions like “why?” 

and “what happened to make you feel

that way?” and “do you feel safe here?”

and “what can I do to help you feel safe

here?” I know I like to talk; I love the sound

of my own voice, but I’m going to shut up

and listen more. Clearly, I haven’t heard

all that’s been said. I am protecting myself.

I am pulling up the drawbridge. I’m asking

Black women to pull up the drawbridge.

I’m Whitney Houston in the last verse

of “It’s Not Right, but It’s Okay.” I’m 

paying my light bill and taking care

of my babies. I’m in the bath tub

covered in bubbles and surrounded

with candles and good wine and I wish

Frank Ocean or Bill Withers or Frank Ocean

and Bill Withers were in the bathtub

with me but their voices will do. I am

pulling the voices of people I desire

and love and trust and worry over

into me. I am inviting them into the bright

dark of my soul. I am gonna live forever

because all the money I touch looks at me

and says e pluribus unum, out of many,

one. I am the water Jesus drank in the desert.

I am god talking to herself. I am evicting

America from my body and making room

in the borders of my black bad bitch body

for everyone I was sent into this life

to love loudly.