Painted nails stare back at me. Candy apple red tells the story of my life. I am my nails, flashy and bold, fire burning on sand. I am remembering late nights in dark spaces under disco lights. I was a dancer then, moving supple flesh inside flames. We gyrated, flowed like water, rarely any slack…
Author: zaji
Black Women in Tech
An article I wrote, published in the Amsterdam News. http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2020/nov/05/charlene-brown-promoting-black-women-tech
the deaths
Death has taken more than the bodies of those we knew and loved, it has also taken away our living. Its scythe has cut away at our order, stability, security and routine, each one left bleeding on the empty streets of what was once our life. The sun has dried their blood, leaving vestiges of…
the wait
it has always been about the wait. we stumble toward the grave in a blinding fog pretending we can see. we wait for the end, living in the footnotes of our lives, the summary we try to pass off as story. but we are the story, unabridged and waiting to be read, waiting for someone…
black history month melancholy
Black (Brown) History Month is a sad time for me. I watch as people post a mere inch of who we are as brown people on Earth, leaving out the many miles of our existence. I read endlessly on my feed about our colonized moments in time, the sad and annoying inch, interrupting our ability…
when i expire
When I expire, lungs emptied of air, heart still and unmoved, do not say I died or transitioned or passed away. Tell them that I left. I walked away from here. I packed light and went a travelin’, tiny knapsack stuffed round and ready for a one-way journey into the tamed uncharted wilderness. Tell them…
spinning
She spin dark brown clay, forming body and mind into soul She spin her child into bird and lion and dolphin and mermaid She then place clay inside her womb and fire it into human, mixed with everything Earth and sky, gift wrapped in gold and silver glittered orange box and purple satin ribbons She…
joining the flock
In the summer of 1986 I joined the United States Army Reserve. I was 19 years old and had no inkling of the nature of my upcoming journey. I was young and naive with high expectations and childlike dreams. I required money for college; that was my primary reason for joining. I wanted to become…
in the small places
I’ve always felt that I, human, am frighteningly small and whatever this is that we exist within is big, bigger than anything I could describe with human words. Not even numbers, math, arithmetic can illustrate what this is in ways we can fathom. Or even believe. Yet, we are in it. We are swallowed up…
recycled soul
Come, let me recycle your soul. I will rinse it clean, sanitize it, then send it back to Earth. The sanitization process often erases all traces of memories. For some, however, a few latent memories of time spent here are retained, fully realized through spirit-work The un-sanitized memories are like leftover germs, each one carrying…
memories in a can
she was dying not from disease it was much more invasive than that there is no vaccine for pain no vaccine for the insecurity he bred inside her turning her into a genetic modification of her former self her soul is now broken ribs from steel-toe boots no vaccine for immortal memories she wished would…
under the baobab tree
she waited for herself at twilight under the baobab tree black skirt raised above knees red and gold painted bare feet on haunted ground spirit rising through ancient soil seeking lost self and awaiting life the agape dance gyrating for the coming moon gyrating for her lost self smelling sea water on moonbeams night skirt…
yesterday’s words
there is a forgotten life inside this aging skin fragmented memories of an ancient epoch ancestral reinventions laced in lost stories our flesh matters less than the words we leave behind the lyrics endure; a griot’s invocation the deluge of stories return to our waiting tongue words become anthropomorphic things with breath and soul; with…
unrehearsed
i will write for you i will live and die for you i will tell our story through song and verse through poetry that is unrehearsed
my snow covered soul
The snow covered my soul just as much as it covered the porch. They both were cold, one to the touch, the other to the heart. I shoveled until my shoulders ached. But what could shovel my soul of the heavy cold weight that fell upon it in endless tufts.
the unseen spectrum
i am more than the words i speak or write. more than what you see. i am the unseen and unheard ends of the spectrum. i am the invisible that exists, not needing eyes or ears to simply be. i too require instruments to detect my presence in this space. i too can only be…
the witch of the aegean sea
I want to tell you a story about a short stout woman who lived on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. She fished barefoot next to her shadow just before the sun found her copper face and presented her to the world. By the culture’s warped standards, she was not pretty. But she…
chrysalis
Chrysalis i wrap myself inside myself i grow i changei emergei fly