When Hurricane Hearts Discuss Retrogrades

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Roguish Mercury went on a wicked mission this round,
squared up with Pluto to shine racism in the limelight—
Black boy shot at for needing school directions;
Black men arrested for waiting in Starbucks—
but a big joke was
sending a Libra to tell stale stories while
the Pisces’s whispers long
to smother her in her drunken sleep.

Show your internalized prejudice
wrapped in cowardice,
never striving to be a true reflection
of perpetually needed Alien love.
Passing as a tan French Canadian
while denying your other color,
you dare to Google how to love Blackness—
bet you didn’t Google how to be with that new blonde.

Think the other Aquarius would stay, Aries, if he knew
how much you actually
miss diving between smooth, svelte legs,
wishing they led to ebony rainbows?
Dream of it more,
Fetishize stereotypes galore—
it’s all you’re trying to know.
Run to the people of power
with your complaints about a power you
can’t possibly comprehend, the experience
that’s yet to slice flesh & mind from being—
don’t worry. Saturn’s coming to show you, too.

That Hazel-eyed red head looked me in the eyes and
with boozy breath whispered
“all lives matter” then proceeded to show
how much one actually didn’t
by ruthlessly laughing at its sadness, gleefully
abandoning it and blatantly ignoring its presence
every chance they got.

Go ahead and declare this the ways of your people,
show yourself a shining example,
because when complacency is Boulder’s
bread & butter, I guess sometimes the civilized
just can’t help themselves.

Claim colorblindness to
excuse your willingness for conditioned separation
in color & class, to not see POCs,
not see Goddess,
but use lyrics of Blackness to hate and discriminate
against other Blackness then call yourself
loving to Blacks, listening to the tracks that
support stereotypes but too afraid to
face Django Jane or actually watch a Black Boy Fly.
Of course you won’t be spared when
the power is finally printed on paper
from blood & tears morphed into ink
for all the world to learn.

Little White lies fill up
a big White bubble as
obsidian Flatirons reflect tears
from the ghosts of true Natives.
Just sip more whiskey, more Chai,
your conscience down the drain,
feel no pain in happily choosing to
say words you know are wrong
out of lack-of-Black privilege.
It’s simply the American Way.

Simone Liggins is currently earning her MFA in Creative Writing and her literary “ancestors” and various influences include but are not limited to: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut, Octavia Butler, Lenore Kandel, Laurell K. Hamilton, The Beatles, Lady Gaga and Jimi Hendrix.