on faith and contradiction 

In Culture, Poetry by Nicole Crawford

i understood the true meaning of contradiction for the first time in church 

learning of my love for music but never the message that followed, although we stayed anyway, always long past our welcome 

we were walking contraventions like the black boy genius who lived anyway 

despite the horror, unable to do well in school because trauma speaks clearly 

whispers escaping me, down on two knees  

pleading for mercy like the blessings bestowed on those who can afford to eat clean 

we spent our summer nights dancing under the stars because the ancestors taught us how to move when the sun goes down

it was only in the comfort of absolute silence that it was revealed that needles created the wounds we had seen on the souls of those who had been left behind 

and these scars told of the many nightmares that create headless wolves who still manage to howl at the moon

i understood the true meaning of contradiction for the first time in church 

learning of my love for music but never the message that followed, although we stayed anyway, always long past our welcome 

we were walking contraventions like the black boy genius who lived anyway 

despite the horror, unable to do well in school because trauma speaks clearly 

whispers escaping me, down on two knees  

pleading for mercy like the blessings bestowed on those who can afford to eat clean 

we spent our summer nights dancing under the stars because the ancestors taught us how to move when the sun goes down

it was only in the comfort of absolute silence that it was revealed that needles created the wounds we had seen on the souls of those who had been left behind 

and these scars told of the many nightmares that create headless wolves who still manage to howl at the moon