Alabaster Rimmed Rainbow

Nakia:Another day in this white room
With the beeping of heart beats that
Eventually come to an end
A new patient comes rolling in my room
With veins on the outside clear with
The sustenance to keep her alive
Pulse beating and I wish I could die

Ny:Vomit crust on my collar and thick rings around my eyes
Emphasizing what the ambulance workers harassed me about
Those bastards laughed at my bad trip
My bad luck
The poison that the
D-Boys mixed in
To make one more quick buck
And now I’m here

Nakia:I see her crusted lips and I know
It’s another one of those crack fiends
The heroin addicts
Another one of those poppy smokers
Heavy eye lids that are purple, green,
Blue, red, and just damn,
The rainbow
Only it’s not something that little girls or
Boys dream about with sun-shined clouds

Ny:My baby beat me down
Made a rainbow out of my face in front of a crowd
Had me feenin
Shootin in front of my childrenI thought it was one thing
But it turned out to be heroin and rat poison
I cry out my regret and shame
Here in this all white stretcher
With its all white strapsIn this all white hospital
With its all white staff
But I still want that all white

Nakia:My patient with her clear veins on the
Outside is silently weeping, but not
For her children
Only for her current love that
She’s been yearning for and feenin’
I pick up the clipboard and diagnose
Her for the addict she is

Ny:The mother I was
And the woman I’ll never be
You scribble down on your notes to be filled under “crack fiends”
Lost in miscellaneous files
In the BLACK ONLY section of the cabinet
All the way in the back

Nakia:I ask her her name, she replies“Nig-ah” I mark her response on the clipboard of
Never ending notes
I ask again and she replies again“Nig-ah”
I reply “Ma’am your name is not that word
You’re making this difficult for me and you
Just answer the question
For I know you know your name
Ma’am, what’s your name?”

Ny:I should tell this college grad my name is “The River”
Named after the water pouring out my eyes
Run for cover
With salt kissed ripples on the cheeks of my two baby boys
Twins- born to live out the tsunami of me
Such a statistic- but who are you to judge me?
You ask me my name…
Well, I forgot it after the government made me a number
A percentage in the system
No, noI am not the river
I am…

Nakia:“Nig-ah!” she screams “I am only classified by these statistics and
Racial background
By black, with nonHispanic ethnicity!
I am the Nig-ah that
You see when your car gets broken into!
I am
The Nig-ah you know is looking at your
Wife- only we’re not, we’re just checking
Out her purse
I am the Nig-ah you want to see levitating
Off the ground with the assistance of the rope that’s tied around the
Tree. I am Nig-ah!”

Ny:The one God seems to have forgot
The one who was passed around to every cot
In that cursed orphanage where my mom left me to rot
I am the one you walk past in the street
Telling me you have no spare change in that huge purse of yours
Too stuck up to help me buy something for my babies to eat
I am the one you’re motioning for security to help leave
I am Nig-ah!

Nakia:I jump back to masque the emotions.
How does she know?!
I scream inside my head
Has she been following me?
I look at my clipboard, take my pen,
And write down “Needs psychiatric help,
Is delusional, and needs to be watched
Carefully”At the end I write
“P.S. (she knows)…”
I put the clip board back down and
Let the man with the white coat,
Alabaster skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair
Come in.
I whisper on my way out to him,
“She sees.”
“She knows….”
“It’s time to take her in…”

-Nydjah and Nakia