“My pen is a machete” -Terisa Siagatonu

My pen is a machete
I wield when the world puts its hand on my
Mouth  

And says silence, swallow the blockage
of mourning in your throat 

This rage 
no one wants to experience from a BLACK woman  

Hands around my throat for me to “hush”
What they don’t know is 
I swallow these knives 
Take them out and cut 
Until there is only limb 
And no apologies 
No code switch 
No screams for the babies I revive 
from early graves  

In this throat I 
duel with spells and katanas  

Until there is no paid leave for killers
Until there is no simple apology from intentional racists 
Until history is a grave of the guiltys’ tongue 
With all of the “I feared for my life’s”
As if they knew what it really is to fear for their life  

The air gets wrenched out of my 
voice box 
Still - 
I amplify it, sharpen each blade
I wield every unfinished scream like 
throwing stars  
until it severs the trauma 
In all of our black and brown epitigenics

I pour blood and smear it 
Like bwa kayman and use it to purify 
all of the new ancestors 
made ahead of their time 
Until it is 1804 and slavery is a forgotten whisper 

My eyes are the way I practice fencing in my silence - “fix that face” as it haunts you to see every century resounding through me
The weakness is showing 
Your weak points 
Revealed 

When you tell me to 
gulp down the trauma in silence
Know that I tend to a garden
of machetes 

Lysz Flo is a, trilingual spoken word artist, author of fiction and poetry, member of The Estuary Collective, and podcast host of Creatively Exposed who released her poetry novel Soliloquy of an Ice Queen.