configuration
perspective as reality
chronically aware
consistent contradiction
you shape the world around you.
you are the world around you.
in everything,
i choose what i see
who i am,
where i go
i know you, i’ve been here before.
—
we are an orchestra
battling, colliding
we are harmonious,
a symphony
overlapping,
dancing as waves carry light
swaying as branches of the same tree.
– rawest forms
i find your theories misaligned
with what you practice and what you preach
like predatory men who write good poetry,
and student activists with telfars
and no smiles for their communities,
and those kids back at school
who would snicker at the sight of me.
although we could have never
been cut from the same cloth,
even if they tried to understand me
(and they didn’t).
you see, the illusions in which you have
chosen to reside and manifest your lies
are killing us slowly.
and the cognitive dissonance
that you work to maintain is proof of
where your priorities have always been:
in self interest, far from the unity our ancestors need.
their recollection failed to sense
my father’s rage and my mother’s contempt
grounding myself as i visit my favourite
tree to make sure she hasn’t changed,
they found me ten toes down
in the soils that made me.
this was the day that i realized
i was named for the victory of my community
and so to think that no justice and your peace
could coexist in front of a revolutionary
tells me all i need to know
about you and your beliefs
so i stand firmly on what i said
i find your theories misaligned with
what you practice and what you preach
like predatory men
who write good poetry
– rawest forms
the remnants of martins peace died twice in our hands
on pages left unturned
as love was indeed greater than hate
but truth was often ignored
and we marched blindly like prey
speaking of dreams we had never seen
letting them fool us into believing
we had a right to white man’s peace.
asking how high when they told us to jump
thinking the league was gonna save us
some leftovers of this make-believe
we were three times left behind
in chains no one could see.
encapsulated by shame
and these burdens of knowing
he led us astray
guilt hardened martin’s heart
long before the bullets took its beat
he built us burning houses using massa’s tools
left in calloused hands, then given to you
lesson one
we must never mistake our oppressors for anything less than our enemies.
lesson two
fires must be tended to destroy lives
and your hands are coated in ashes and distant memories.
i see black zombies pouring gasoline
on untamed flames asking why it had to be us again
screaming through deafening blazes
that their compassion for our excellence
could save us this time if not the next
while they treat us like dogs and we still asking for polite freedoms
with kind smiles filled with cavities
and evidence that we still can’t afford nonviolent dreams
see i tell you those last pages are necessary reads.
lesson three
Martin Luther King said,
“I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house”
which is why i tell u these truths
lighten burdens of betrayal
as love is made in the rawness of silence and our desperation to be free
free from contradiction and grounded in reality
so please remember
martin weeps in his grave when we speak
of nonviolent dreams turned to nightmares
with which he has yet to make peace
seventeen is smashed glass
almost but not quite
mistakes
chasing demons accidentally
crying without sound
a head swirling with shapes and works
no clarity
music inside out
needs ,,, so many needs
it’s wanting to be close
disappearing .. distance .. insignificance
it’s falling from silver linings
floating through the abyss
losing the ability to force smiles
fading
overwhelmed
silent.
seventeen is not knowing and never finding out
glass ceilings
death and numbness all the same
laughter is painful
unachievable
deep breathing
is suffocating
seventeen is an enigma
escaping
hidden in the depths of most unwanted desires
being unwanted
sometimes unspoken.
but seventeen is not final
it is not the end
it is not even the beginning
a mandatory stepping stone
a fall into grace
favor ,, love
it is fear of the unknown
comfort, belonging
finding you in me
me in you
completion
almost but not quite
the light but not the end of the tunnel
a saving grace
it is you, me
redefining peace
everything, nothing
finite familiarity
it is the first breath
maybe the last
it is always and forever
it is promises broken
and everything it needs to be, for you, me
abundance
change
clarity
the ebbs and flows of shallow ocean waters
serenity
this is, was, and always will be
seventeen
-rawest forms
When asked who we are, as writers, creators, photographers, organizers, lovers, and members of this community, we turn back to you and say, “We are but your mere reflections”.
This is a love letter to the pan-Afrikan Diasporic community that we serve.
Thank you, for believing in us, for reading our work, for critiquing and building and grieving with us. Our writing is nothing without you and your perspectives. We have released our first physical magazine of the school year, the Fall ’23 print of NOMMO, the 55th Anniversary Edition of the legacies we humbly attempt to carry, but one thing has become overwhelmingly clear in this process, without your perspectives, without the diverse presence of the Afrikan mind within our pages, our magazine will cease to hold its meaning. So, we thank you for trusting us to share your perspectives, to honor you, to challenge you, to reflect you on our pages. We hope to be given the opportunity to share more of your stories in our magazine in the nearest of futures.
Until then, know that you are so deeply loved and appreciated by us all. Keep shining, keep expanding, keep growing, and building the world in which our future generations will live. We love you all dearly.
All Power to the People,
NOMMO Newsmagazine Team
we who cannot see the beauty
that resides in our collective struggle
for liberation..
will soon be devoured
by our own insatiable thirst
for validation and survival
and the beast that haunts us all
cannot survive in the light,
he may only take hold of us
when our fear of the shadows
becomes so consuming
that we can see no way
out of the darkness
our people got misplaced anger, i know it’s righteous even if misguided
because even if you don’t have the words, you know better than to break bread with sellouts who disregard our hearts while talkin’ bout pan-Afrikan unity
all for the next white man’s opportunity…
how insecure do you have to be to study the struggle and still behave like a tyrant?
in the same breath speakin’ of liberation, you have single-handedly prevented us from achieving
so i ask, who are you, black zombie?
stuck in a loop of validation and black excellence as if your ancestors didn’t already know of their greatness
who are you, black zombie?
moved so easily by cameras and flashy things, thinkin’ designer gon save you from this treachery…
who are you, black zombie?
sayin’ “she too radical” like i haven’t seen the love of Afrikan babies knowing who they are, strong faith in who they meant to be, a truth you still chasin‘ and you almost twenty-three
who are you, black zombie?
i urge you to listen closely while the elders speak of this legacy
and when the dust settles i’ll ask again, who are you, black zombie?
you see i speak in frustration but never without love for my community because i don’t want to see you in a mansion or with them new cars without your mind free…
trynna reveal to you the cost of your dignity, pleading for you to understand that your purity cannot be commodified
and that slowing down to hear me clearly will not prevent your success but enable your autonomy….
need you to understand me because they still killin’ us and feeding you “higher” education upping the doses of fallacy and white supremacy
and we all addicted
to know your way out is the true prize and i would rather stand alone than dance with the devils who taught us to hate ourselves
but the choice is yours, so i ask again, who are you, black zombie?
and even if you have no answer, i hope the next time we speak you’ll be wide awake
as we cannot afford to sleep while the police and fascist empires erode our. minds and haunt us in our dreams
so i ask one more time, who are you, black zombie?
you struggle to meet the eyes of the houseless within your community because you too cannot afford groceries or your lifestyle or rent, but you would rather turn your nose up to your reflections in hopes that if you ignore the mirrors around you for long enough they will disappear
but they won’t, they never do
whether you see monsters or martyrs within your reflections you must understand that these are remnants of you too
what was lost and what is found within these moments of pause are the truth of this existence, the beginning of an internal dialogue that pushes us into action if we are able to hear the sounds of our own voices in the midst of the chaos
the voices that tell us that as we run from who we are we become all that we fear and not because this life is some game of luck and misfortune but because we live within a world that chooses to let us “survive”, not as whole beings, but as false prophets
and so as long as we deny our ancestral truths, the truths that show us that apathy only creates further division but neglects to feed starving children, we are “safe”
but I ask you, what is safety without freedom?
safety here is to be fully conformed in the eyes of the oppressor and no longer a threat to the empire that gives us false names and applauds our confusion so much so that we struggle to mutter oshun, shango, ogun or yemaya in our native tongues because we have forgotten who to call or because we fear that it is too late to reclaim what they have stolen
know that to survive this hell is to first see yourself in your entirety, to know who you are and where you have come from, to know that this is not home and cannot be made into one, and that the mirrors around you reflect truth, not pity
we cannot afford to be blind to the reality of our sisters and brothers and the distant relatives who we may not have known in this life but surely will in the next
as long as there are mouths to feed and bodies to clothe we have more work to do here
and as I believe that we are all that we have left, we cannot afford to live and love as false prophets, we cannot afford to see anything less than the truth of this reality
we need one another to survive, but to see ourselves as one, to truly be whole, means to look one another in the eyes