For the Kueens Who Catch Me

 For the Kueens Who Catch Me

They call me wild

offbeat, maybe a little too loud,

thinking too much,

feeling too deep,

and loving like storms that don’t ask permission.

But you

you never flinch when my thunder rolls.

You,

older Black women,

my walking, breathing, royalty

you been through fires I ain't even imagined,

and still,

you show up for me

with a love that don’t crack

and a patience that humbles my chaos.

You hold me

in the curves of your arms like gospel,

speaking healing into my tired soul

with that tone

that only women who been through the wilderness can carry

rough and sweet like blues,

soft like cornbread,

strong like oak trees growing in concrete.

You see me

not for who the world says I should be

but who I am

in all my sacred, struggling, stuttering becoming.

And you still choose to stay.

Aunties, Mamas, Godmothers, Elders

Queens in headwraps and halos,

with hands that healed generations

and eyes that can cut through my mask

with one knowing glance.

You don’t need to understand all of my kind of crazy

you just sit next to it,

rock with it,

pray over it,

laugh with it like

“baby, you gon’ be alright.”

You are the reason I keep showing up.

You are the mirror I hold when I forget who I am.

You taught me that love ain’t just soft

sometimes it’s stern,

sometimes it’s silence,

sometimes it’s “eat, baby”

when I forgot to feed myself joy.

You are the wisdom in my wild,

the balm in my breakdown,

the holy in my hustle.

So this is for you

black women seasoned like sermons,

graceful like grandmothers’ gardens,

holding me down without tying me up,

lifting me up without ever asking for a crown.

You are the crown.

And I wear you proudly

every time I rise.

Thank you

for loving me

through my kind of crazy

like it was never crazy at all.

Only divine.

Only growing.

Only mine.

And forever

held in your royal hands. 👑

A spoken word poem by N'game'🦋