Read Online salt. by nayyirah waheed - Free Book Online

warm philadelphia night. blue bruise across the sky. groceries in hand. i dreamt last night of honey. my grandmother called me into a dream like she used to call me into a room. she gave me honey. honey for you. you, who will not talk. who will not swallow the news. who will not let anything near your throat. but, i can find you. i can find you even when you are there, in morocco. even when you have flown through your eyes but not your body. when you are holding me, and i am practicing being limp with restraint, because i am really holding you. when you refuse to change back from water and want to fill our whole house with the sebou. i know, my sweet. we have spoke of her the entire length of our love. she was your eyes the day i met you. remember, you and i. on the floor, you teaching me of how she eats. three fingers on the right hand only. i have worn her clothes. ate her language from your mouth. and i knew, i knew when the phone calls came, and the tv started shrieking, and our house turned into weather, i knew this would break some of our bones. but my love, it is drinking us down to our teeth. i can not see you anymore. your smile. your legs. your heat. is lonely. the honey, grandmother said, is for your blood. it is to bring you back. but, she said, i must first ask, ‘if’ you want to come back. and though, ‘if’ is a razor to my vein, i will ask. so, i am not asking ‘when’ you will come back. because, i can take it, the swimming in your body, the lostness, your growing appetite for doors. i am not asking when. ‘when,’ is not something you ask someone when the bodies of their aunt. uncle. friends. first love. can not be found. i am asking‚ ‘if.’ because i am here. dangling from your left ring finger, wringing oceans out of my skin, and coming home every night. i know your family is tattoo and it is their screaming voices you hear when I say i love you. i know, she is the love you are, the land you are made of, and she is hemorrhaging. war is eating her heart. but, you are losing yours too, my love.
    –– what the war has done to us

white people try to take
    blackness.
    pour it out
    rub it into their skin
    and
    wear us
    like they know what we about.
    but
    honey
    it’s only ever gon’ be a suntan.
    you
    ain’t neva gon’ be black.
    –– tan | stealing from the sun

stop speaking.
    use your eyes, instead.
    –– the eye fire

be insecure
    in peace.
    allow yourself
    lowness.
    know that it is
    only
    a
    country
    on
    the way to who you are.
    –– traveling

if.
    we.
    are
    with child.
    and
    you believe that fatherhood
    begins
    when my body pours a baby into your hands.
    not before.
    you do not deserve this child.
    you are a coward.
    –– you are a father the moment you enter me

do
    not ever
    be
    afraid to tell me
    who you are.
    i am going to find
    out
    eventually.
    –– blunt

you ask
    to touch my hair
    or worse
    touch it without asking.
    this is not innocence.
    this is not ignorance.
    this is not curiosity.
    this is the very racist and subhuman belief
    that
    you have a right to me.
    –– i will break your hand. do not ever touch me | every time you touch my hair my ancestors place a curse on you

your soul stained my shoulders.
    my whole life smells like you.
    this
    will take time.
    undoing you from my blood.
    –– the work

our ache
    for
    africa.
    is
    the heart
    behind
    our heart.
    the pain with no name.
    –– amnesia

i am a woman
    and
    a poem.
    –– visceral

when you allow
    that man.
    to walk through your children.
    plant his feet.
    in
    their veins.
    hold their voices.
    necks.
    bodies.
    inside his violence.
    you are no longer a mother.
    when you give him the key to that door. because you need
    to be loved by someone.
    you have seasoned them for the wolf.
    burned their childhood into a fantasy.
    it’s going to take a third of their lives.
    all the courage.
    from
    their cells to their hair.
    to learn the alchemetic formula
    that
    turns that kind of betrayal.
    a