*This poem was written by Morgain in July 2016, after the murders of Philado Castile and Alton Sterling. Black Lives Matter. Say Her Name. Resist.

Two more black men

Were executed by police

And I want to call my mother

I want to lean into her voice as she says

“I understand, baby.”

I want to know my mother

Understands

I know she worries

Know she finds ways

To tell herself that I am okay

But sometimes

I need her to be as shook as I am

What does it mean to be thankful

You are your mother’s only black child?

To rejoice in the safety

of your brother’s white skin?

Tonight, I am broken

So I find small spaces in which to laugh

And I read

and I listen

I think of being a child

And looking into my mother's eyes

How her irises

look like sunflowers

And I wonder

If that’s why I love sunflowers

I have my mother’s smile

America

Has never seen our similarities

I wish my mother knew

She needed to call me

Wish she knew

The way I’ve mastered the art

Of sobbing silently in public

With no other black face

To tell me we were going to survive

Another day

Does she know this feeling?

I know she understands oceans

between mother and daughter

I know she has swum as hard as she can

Even if her waves sometimes

Pushed me back

Or made me feel like I’m drowning

How often

Does she set her book on her nightstand

Lean back and ask herself

If she raised me to be strong enough?

Does she know

strength has nothing to do with it?

Does she wish it for me anyway?

I want to cry on the phone with my mother

Want to know she feels this broken world

The same way I do

I do not wish this fear of death upon her

But when she tells me that if I have children

She hopes they’re boys

I wonder if she would understand what I meant

When I say I don’t want a child

I can’t keep safe

That I think of marrying myself white

To make sure my son isn't too dark

maybe even pass

Tell him to not acknowledge me on the street

To not give himself away

like sons after slavery.

I wonder

As the news of more bodies

Rolls across the TV screen

Does she ever wish I were white?

Momma,

I no longer wish I were white

But tonight there is no comfort in this skin

Is a mother’s love enough

To comfort this skin?

When we both know

There is no saving me from it?