UKATA EDWARDSON
The gods have settled for me and this does not mean I need worship.
However, if you must worship me then do it with every water you dare
To contain. To contain my spirit, I have had to make my body into a
Garden of violent bushes. I pushed all the flowers the men plucked out
Of me into a corner and built a fence with the salt current in my tears.
It is black to make angst resourceful, reason why the acrimony known
As water can be turned into wine. It is un-black to make angst a resource,
Reason why my rage tastes incredible on my tongue with no direction
To fall. But I rage because my father was beautiful, and he took his
Beauty and beat me with it. In the beginning of my eloquence, I was
A language, made responsible for fighting. I packed my feet into a soft
Solitude like a vowel would ease a word of its consonants, and it became
A diphthong whenever I breathed. In my garden, the violence remained
An expression of charisma; I ran out to the dark wilds after the elections
And just screamed until waves made it the echo of a distant song. And
So maybe my rage wasn’t powerful enough to give me resolution, but
It gave me recognition, and now, the gods have violently settled for me.
Ukata, Edwardson is a black queer nonbinary writer of color from Nigeria, with works in Poetry, Folio, Channel, Vastarien, Consequence, Afritondo, Aster Lit, and elsewhere. They tweet @eddiwatson31.