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[jamerasjournal]

Black people speak two languages. Job interview and AAVE. Question: When I fill out a job application can I still check the box that says bilingual. Does my ability to code switch depending on the setting that I’m in count as a job skill? I am always subconsciously turning down my blackness in an effort to make other people more comfortable. Beyoncé once said, “Got all this money but you’ll never take the country out me.” I felt that. I started kindergarten already knowing how to read and write. And no matter how many times my mama made me practice Hooked on Phonics, my first language will always be Ebonics. Spell Mississippi. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Okay, but spell it for real this time. M-I crooked letter, crooked letter- I- crooked letter, crooked letter- I- humpback, humpback- I. Did I stutter? I bet my great-great-great-granddaddy had an accent so thick that one sentence sounded like one word. And what’s in that word? Levels upon levels of trauma that you couldn’t even begin to fathom. It’s a slave spiritual sung over plantation fields, the last two letters spun into the cotton in your t-shirt. An apostrophe added cuz If you say one more syllable, you just might get whipped, boy. It’s living in a world where you can’t read the words. Mispronouncing words you don’t even know how to spell. While the rest of the world looks at you like you ain’t got no sense. But tonight, I’m gon’ talk how I wanna talk, cuz that slang is in my bones. And if you don’t like it you can get up out my face. Period. And I don’t wanna hear a nan ‘notha word about me talking “ghetto” when I stand before you with a last name my ancestors wouldn’t even begin to know how to say. And every time I sign my name I’m paying homage to the white family that used to own mine. Our language is one of the only things that can never be taken from me. It’s embedded into generations from long before my time. It’s okay that you don’t understand it, I’m not allowed to speak it to you anyway. Lest you call me uneducated, illiterate, or unprofessional. I must censor myself, brush it under the tongue. That is until you make me angry. Then everybody and they momma gon’ know you got the wrong one. Try me if you want to. I was raised on, “Do I look like Boo Boo the fool?” and “Stop crying ‘fore I give you something to cry about.” And that’s word to my momma. What’s in a word? I see your eyes widen when the African American Vernacular comes bursting out. So foreign to you it sound like a Voodoo spell. Yeah, this how I really be wanting to talk. Fix ya face. I cannot be Afrocentric and Eurocentric at the same time. I do not have the Freedom of Speech if the way I speak determines my intellectual capabilities. I must always accommodate a society that refuses to accommodate me. But you knows what? I’ve gotten real good at talking “white.” But every once in a while, if you listen- I mean real, real good. You can still hear that one crooked letter. The black cracking through like a toothless grin. Yeah. That’s my great granddaddy saying, “Say it with your chest girl.” So if you hear me talking loud it’s cuz I’m finna say something real important. And when I speak, you better listen.

-jamera naquai, CROOKED LETTER

[jamerasjournal]

When the saints go marching in we’re coming for your head. We’ll use our Bibles as bullets, crush you between our palms and tell you that we’re praying for you. Love is patient, and love is kind, but only if you fall in line. See if you wanna be a soldier in the army of the Lord you must be in formation at all times. If you stray, we’ll shoot you with scriptures that conflict what we do. You gotta be so loyal that you lose sight of your humanity. Because our beliefs transcend our compassion and erase our empathy. If you keep your head bowed but your weapon up you can’t see who you’re shooting. Because we only love our neighbors if they look and think like us. Anyone else is a threat to our existence. Love is not easily angered unless they’re gay or trans. Unless they’re black or brown. In that case, if they do not comply, they deserve to die. Take, eat. Take, eat. This is a body that was broken for us. Worked to the bone, bombed out of its home. Here, cast the first stone. Blood- I mean LOVE is the only thing that knows what the color red really looks like. The Bible says it’s the devil who comes to steal, kill, and destroy but sometimes when people look at us, they can’t tell the difference. That’s why you have to keep your weapon steady and ready. Because love protects and it always perseveres. You don’t need consent, you take back what was never stolen from you. Be sure to use God as life jacket so you don’t drown in the Trail of Tears. How does it feel to hold the hope you stole from someone else? Love isn’t proud, but you can be. Because when you’re a saint, you get to be judge and jury too. You can have all eyes on you and kill thousands if you really want to. Man cannot live on bread alone but even if all they have are the fruits of the spirit, you take all that too. Love. Take and eat. Joy. Take and eat. Peace. Take and eat. This is a body that was broken for you. This is a body that was broken for you. Look at all the bodies waiting to be broken by you. Aren’t you proud to be in this number?

- Jamera NaQuai, When The Saints Go Marching In

[jamerasjournal]

Here we are, bound by a string that goes out of my heart and into yours, made of two souls twisted into one. I so often forget that you’ve been on this earthly side 10 years longer than I have. You, quiet and stoic, and me stumbling behind you, grasping for your coat tails asking questions that you always seem to have an answer for. When we first met I used to think that eventually you’d get tired of me. But if patience is a virtue, you truly are the most virtuous of us all. You’re still here.

You have one of the most beautiful hearts I’ve ever been blessed to hold. I didn’t know a chilly November night would bring me someone that would stick by my side the way you have. Everyone who knows us can feel how deeply we love each other. So deep, that many people aren’t even able to comprehend it. But we do. I moved 1000 miles away from home and the first gift Utah gave me was you. How you showed up exactly as I needed you to. It doesn’t make sense how we get on each others last nerve, but can’t stand being apart. How if we haven’t seen each other in 72 hours it feels like a puzzle piece is missing. Who else can I talk to through the sky? How intricately connected do you have to be to be able to feel each others vibrational frequencies. The way we can say, “I need you.” without a single word dropping from our lips. And yet, we always answer the call.

You’ve taught me that I don’t always have to speak, sometimes all I need to do is show up. In every season, in every storm. I’ve watched you transition from she to they. Watched the hair grow on your legs, I’ve watched your eyes light up when I tell you that you look handsome. You’ve taught me that you don’t need the same parents to be a sister, or certain body parts. That some things don’t make sense, they just are. You just are. Here for the vibes, even when you’re unwell. I know sometimes you fake it, cuz you’d do anything to keep my smile big and my eyes bright. You’d give me the world if I asked you for it. I know that’s too much, but if you smile for me one more time, I promise to pour the sweetness of life through the gaps in your teeth. You’re still here.

A psychic once told me that this is our 4th lifetime together. Thank you for finding me. It all makes sense now. I hope in the 5th one you’re not as sad. And if it so happens that the stars align and they spell out sorrow. Then I will beg and beg to take your place. That’s how much I love you. I am my sister’s keeper. And you’re still here.

You are a fighter. On the days when your spirit is bright. You are a fighter. On the days when you are stapled to the mattress with thoughts stuck in the back of your throat. You are a fighter. And you’re still here. My sister, my fiercest protector, I know there’s not too many people who love me the way you do. I am always reminded that best friends are so hard to find, because the very best friend is already mine. And you are still here.

-jamera naquai, You’re Still Here

[jamerasjournal]

Hi! I'm a poet and really love reading your work 💖

Thank you so much. 🥹💛 I’m so glad you enjoy my poetry. I haven’t been writing much lately but this has inspired me to write something lol.

[jamerasjournal]

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Spare the eyes and spoil the system. I will give you violent movies and call them action films. I will give you Call of Duty and you will call yourself a gamer. If you massacre enough bodies in the metaverse, the reality of real violence will be easier to stomach. I will teach you to be desensitized to seeing death. Apparently your humanity needs death to appreciate life.

And when I ask you what you get out of watching black bodies be brutalized on camera, you stutter over your words. Because you haven’t even realized that you’ve been brainwashed yet. Black trauma sells like sneakers. You watch black death like leaked sex tapes. You don’t even have too look to hard because Facebook will bring the lynching to your front door. You gather around cellphone screens instead of the tree. How many people can you send it to before it gets deleted? But everybody don’t want a glimpse of that strange fruit. You give no trigger warning just like these cops who think it’s open season.

How you watch them beat a black person blue. Maybe it’s cuz that person don’t look like you? Police brutality is the latest genre of porn. Have they killed enough to keep up with your blood drive? How many times a month you need til you satisfied? Forgive me for being prude but black trauma porn don’t give me wet dreams. Cuz when I close my eyes I can still see Floyd and Sandra Bland’s eyes. I still see dead bodies and hear pleas of life. I don’t want to watch a grown man plead for his momma. Ain’t nothing about that salacious to me.

It’s starting to look like gun violence is the latest American kink. A knee of the neck will never constitute as breath play. How many videos do you need to see before you don’t need to watch it no more. Every time it happens you’re throbbing to see more. The solution to stopping violence isn’t to build a tolerance to it. So let me ask you: how many more tapes you need to watch til you finish?

- jamera naquai, Black Trauma Porn

[jamerasjournal]

I wish I was your favorite book. So you’d run your fingers down my spine, spread me open, read my lips. I laughed and told you I said “olive juice” when you asked me if I said I love you. Because those two phrases look the same when you mouth them with no sound. Read them again. You were right the first time. But I’m not your favorite book. I am just dust. Slipping through the hourglass that you call your hands. Still falling. Plummeting into a sea of sand that I call you. I want to ask why you haven’t closed your fists yet. Why you don’t want to hold on to me the same way that I hold on to you. Pack me in like clay. They say that grief is just love with no place to go, and that is why I’ve been crying. Unrequited love is like holding your breath without knowing. Like one day I just woke up and realized I was drowning in you. Me, drowning- yet you only wade in me and call it swimming. I know when I exhale, I will blow down the walls you have built around yourself. I don’t want to be the big bad wolf. I fear that you will mistake this passion for fangs. Take your little red hood off and look me in my eyes. Or maybe it’s just a red flag. And these rose colored glasses that I’ve been regarding you with are shattered now, and I’m finally seeing your true colors. You say that you love me, but it’s not quite the way that I need. And you fail to realize that you can’t just love something, you also have to take care of it. I burned myself trying to give you the sun. And the breadcrumbs you leave me are just salt in my wounds. And my heart is on fire. Give me your hand and I’ll light yours like a candle. And we can burn in this dumpster fire until something beautiful like a phoenix rises up out of it. You don’t have to be afraid. Don’t you see the soot dusted on my face? Smell the smoke on my breath? I have already walked through the fire trying to show you how much I love you. I plummeted through the ozone layer like an asteroid to get back to you this lifetime. And only you can stop this forest fire. I can teach you how to fall. If only you believed that I will catch you. I am choking on the ashes that have dusted my lungs. It has taken me so long to get tired because you’re my favorite book. I want to run my fingers down your spine, spread you like pages but you keep me shut out. I read your lips. Did you say, “I love you?”Or maybe just “olive juice.” I’ll read them again. I hope I got it right the first time. Because if you don’t loop your fingers through mine, I’m afraid I can’t keep going. I am slipping through the hourglass you call your hands. There’s not much more of me left to give you. Draw your fists tight or I will leave you in the dust.

-jamera naquai, Dust To Dust

[jamerasjournal]

In the beginning it is said that God created the heavens and the earth. So I ask myself exactly how many heavens did They create? Did They put one on earth or are all of them in the cosmos? I want to know why They gave us these bodies only for them to be ordained by false standards of what is acceptable and what is not. When did Eve realize her husband was stealing the sovereignty out of her spine? Was it slowly seeping or did he violently suck it out through a straw. I imagine it tasted sickly sweet, like the forbidden fruit he forgot to tell her not to eat. A sugar rush for control.

I want to ask Eve: How bad did he scold you when he caught you laying with Lilith? How many times did he tell you that the only time you can wrap your body around another woman is if a man is watching? Why did you listen when he told you that you were made for his consumption? That you belonged to the world and not yourself from the moment of your conception?

Do you hear the heavens rejoicing? They said don’t let this world rob you of your streets of gold. You have the right to govern your body as long as you are in your truth. Skinny dip yourself into the colors of the sunrise if you want to. You do not exist to serve and please others. Your menstruation is not a scarlet letter, your blood is a war cry. Your non-conforming body an act of revolutionary rebellion. Do not curb your emotions, pacify your speech or soften your tone. Don’t be afraid to cut someone with the blade of your tongue. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword. They have always been afraid of gnashing teeth. I hope you learn how to bare your fangs without the presence of a smile.

And show them that there is a heaven. Do you hear the rejoicing? There is a heaven. And it’s inside of you.

-jamera naquai, There Is A Heaven

[jamerasjournal]

“Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel.” Do you know how it feels? To have the television keep showing you your nightmare could easily be your reality? You know, the nightmare when they call Mr. Lock It to the office. 4.7 seconds. That’s how long it takes to get from the whiteboard to the door. Maybe less, cuz my adrenaline will be rushing. 6.3 seconds from the classroom door to the recess door. Turn the lights off, put paper over the window, close the blinds. Yes, I’ve timed it. A relay race for my life. How fast can I secure the classroom before death comes to greet us at the door. I practice once month. The stopwatch ain’t shown me a time that feels fast enough. In this profession, I wear so many hats. Teacher, nurse, therapist, friend, and now- soldier. But what’s a stapler to an AR-15? What’s a bloody nose to a gunshot wound. Hold your head back and look up at that flag flying high. With the stars shot out of it like white doves against a blue sky. They say that doves signify peace and gentleness but to me they just mean death cuz I’ve only seen them released at funerals. I don’t remember signing up to work the graveyard shift. Do you know I feel? That I wish I could stretch this body like Elasti- Girl and absorb those metal fragments. Or make a force field like Violet, but my last name ain’t Incredible, just Ewing. And I have 20 5-year olds looking at me like I’m a superhero, knowing damn well I don’t know how to save the day. I wonder if my students’ parents know I would take a bullet for their baby. I carry the same sense of dread in my gut that my mother carries in hers. Both of us wondering who’s classroom is it gonna be first? I wonder how many bullets this body can take? How about hers, she’s not much bigger than me. I tell my students not to touch the flag because it’s disrespectful. What I mean to say is, you might get on your blood on your hands. Them red stripes like tattered cardinal feathers. And they say cardinals signify love. Yeah, the love of guns. And there’s two cardinal points that must be borne in mind, this black life don’t matter and neither does this profession. Are you scared, cuz I’m scared? Do you know how I feel? Huddle in the corner, turn your voices off. Imagine telling a kindergartner that if they cry we’re gonna die. This is the most important quiet game you’ll ever play in your life. If you’re scared just say the pledge of allegiance over and over in your head. Red, white, and blue. Blue like a blue jay. They signify protection. I hope it keeps us safe as I pray to my God. Pray til this black face turns blue. Are you scared, cuz I’m scared? And if that day ever comes I wonder what I’ll do in the aftermath. That is if I make it. Cuz I know if a bullet don’t take me out, survivors guilt surely will. Which of my catch phrases will I be able to utter first. 1, 2, 3, all eyes on me. Does your body hurt or do your feelings hurt? Or maybe, if you can hear my voice, take a deep breath. If you can hear my voice, please take a deep breath. Somebody, anybody take a deep breath. This classroom is too quiet for all the wrong reasons. Nina said it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. But I ain’t feeling too good. Ain’t no birds flying, high, but that flag in the sky though. And you still don’t know how I feel. When every day we pledge allegiance to the same 3 birds. The dove of Death, The Cardinal Love of Guns, and the Blue Jay that offers no protection. And I am just a sitting duck.

- jamera naquai, Bird Season

[jamerasjournal]

I constantly feel like so many people are looking at me, but ain’t nobody really seeing me. I walked into a bar last night, ordered a screwdriver. Orange juice and vodka, I don’t even drink vodka. I am surrounded by all these sights and smells- “You look beautiful.” The guy next to me says after he orders his beer. I say thank you, take my drink and go before he tries to start a conversation with me. Someone asked me what I do and for the first time I answered with, “I’m a writer.” Even though I suffer from chronic writer’s block or can’t seem to get what’s in my brain onto a page. But I’m a writer. Next question. I’m trying to figure out how I’m surrounded by all these people but still feel so alone. Why I find myself in so many situations asking myself what am I actually doing here? Why do I always feel like I’m out of place? I think I am writing because I’m trying not to forget. I don’t know what exactly but I’m sure I’ll figure it out in time. As I smile and nod my way through social interactions, I look around the bar and see so many spaces, but none that I fit into. I didn’t walk into a bar, the bar walked into me. And I carry everything. I carry the bar, I carry the compliment, I carry the drink I didn’t even want. I ask myself how long is it going to take before I am someone that somebody genuinely wants. I am always too this or to that and never just enough. What’s the point of looking around the room for a smile that makes you feel safe when the person that it belongs to isn’t even there? “You look beautiful,” someone says. I don’t want to look beautiful. I want to be seen. I want somebody to look at the storms in my eyes and still tell me mind is a beautiful place. I’ve cried for the past two years, the tears weren’t there but I was crying. Nobody noticed. I wish I knew how to feel in a way that other people could see. I wish I was a person other people could truly see. I am just a pair of hips swaying to an Afrobeat. An afro puff in a cluster of bodies. Do I matter? I mean of course I matter, but do I really matter? In the grand scheme of things? Am I fundamental to the universe? What am I actually doing here? I carry everything. I carried the beat. I carried this poem. I carried my keys til I lost them because I had no pockets. So I handed them to my homeboy, because he had pockets. Thanks for lightening the load. It’s like I’m never actually prepared for anything. I just show up. Taking up space. But not in the way that I want to. A lot of people only talk to me because they like the way I look. I’m not oblivious to the privilege that comes with being pretty. But at what cost? Every pro has its con. Now I’ve been dipped in gold and placed on a pedestal. I’m a trophy. You’ve covered this chipped exterior with a shiny new coat of paint. Cuz as long as I look good, nothing else really matters. Instead of asking how they got there and smoothing out the dents, you just gaze at me through the lens of what I could do for you. Do you know how many times I’ve been dropped? I carry the gold paint, I carry my chipped pieces, I carry the gazes. And that’s why I feel like everybody is looking at me, but ain’t nobody really seeing me. There’s all of these hands clamoring to claim me. Yet no one’s stopped to read my engraving. MVP. Most Vulnerable Player. But hey, at least I look beautiful right?

-jamera naquai | MVP

[jamerasjournal]

If I were to make a metaphor of this body… it’s an oyster. One part shell, one part pearl, and the rest is ocean. I have been drowning in this body for the longest time and I am desperate to come up for air. Because for some odd reason I refuse to die.

How many times can you play the same scenario in your head before you go insane? How many times does my therapist have to tell me, “It wasn’t your fault.” before I actually believe it? I want to go back to the person I was before all of this happened to me. To when this body didn’t feel like it was made for consumption. All my life I have been told I am little. That’s the same thing he said to me when he sunk his claws into my skin. “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” “You’re so weak, it’s sad.” I wish somebody would have taught me how to take flight because my fight wasn’t enough that night. His arms like quicksand, the more I struggled the tighter his grip got. A boa constrictor choking the words out of the back of my throat. I shouldn’t have stayed for dinner. I shouldn’t have come alone. What kind of person can grip a body that is shaking for all the wrong reasons and not be alarmed? Did dragging me to the bedroom make this clandestine act more consensual? Could he not hear my fingernails splintered into the doorframe? Because I knew if he got me in the bedroom, it was over.

I keep asking myself why I gave up. Why I didn’t have just a little more fight in me? Why was he so strong? Why am I so little. Why would he do this to me? Why? Why? Why? I’m tired of asking and not getting an answer.

Do you know what it feels like to hate someone. Because I know what it feels like to want somebody dead. I often wonder what he was thinking as he cleaned the blood out of his mattress. A mark of the beast that I left for the next girl. A warning. Beware of the dog. He does more than just bite. He will eat you alive and spit you back out without a second thought. Does he know how much blood I had to clean out of mine? When I bled for 12 days before I was brave enough to go see a doctor. Does he know how scary it is to have blood running out of you like a faucet or to wake up in a river of scarlet. How dare he clean house and move on. And I am left hurt in a place so deep inside of myself that I know I will never be the same again. How dare he clean house while I am still seeing red. I would give anything to unhear my mother’s scream. I’m convinced that the only reason I am still here is because I never want her to have a reason to scream like that again. I’m convinced that I’ve tricked myself into believing I never want to be a mother because the doctor told me I probably won’t be able to carry a child past 4 months. So what’s the point of breaking my heart all over again. I wish there was a pill called damage control because this body has been detonated. And this pelvis is misaligned. So every day I must take 5 seconds out of my day to pop it back into place. How much more of my time do I have to give to him?

I am tired of flinching, I am tired of cringing, I am tired of mincing my words. I am tired of fighting a trauma response at every corner. I wish somebody would have taught me how to speak the fuck up. My therapist told me that just because I’ve always liked girls, it doesn’t negate the fact that lesbianism is a safety net for me. So now every other Thursday we sit with our scratch paper pen pads and try to calculate exactly what percentage of my gayness is actually rooted in trauma. I’m still working on the equation. I have to figure out if am I really loving freely or if am I loving from a place of fear? Because at least with a woman I can put up a better fight next time. Why do I think there’s gonna be next time? There’s so many questions I need answers for. So many questions I never had before. So many questions that no answer will be good enough for. There is no justification for this wound in my soul. I have to stop myself from saying, “I wish I could do it all over again.” And start saying, “That should of never happened to you in the first place.” And yeah, I am little but I’m allowed to take up as much space as I see fit. I am learning that this body is fluid just like the sea. That I can be anywhere on the spectrum because the spectrum is me. I am learning that I am robbing myself of experiences because I am too afraid to step outside of the box I have nailed myself inside of. I am learning that I am safe in this body. And I want to be less part shell, and more part pearl. I am still the ocean. I’m tired of people wading in me and calling it swimming. This body feels less like an exoskeleton and more like a home for love. And I am so ready to live without limits. Live without bounds. I am learning. I am loving. And this little body with this bald head, and these big lips, and these buck teeth, and this black skin finally feels clean. This body is a sanctorium. A sacred and holy pearl. And the next person who tries to rob me of it will meet the God in me at the door.

- jamera naquai, Pearl

[jamerasjournal]

I think that a hug is the closest you can get to someone without being inside of them. I love how we instinctively know how to fold into each other. The sense of safety that it brings is a balm to the soul.

I recently realized that many of the times when I feel my loneliest is because I just want to be held. Or to hold somebody. But what body is better to hold than my own? I am teaching myself how to hold myself close. To unlearn the detachment I have mastered to protect myself. I have been neglecting myself of comfort for years. Sometimes I forget that I am matter and that I should touch my body in loving ways far more often than I do. Lately I’ve been sitting with my knees to my chest, arms wrapped securely around my legs. Anchoring my heart to my body. It feels like I’m giving my heart a hug. An act of service. It’s the closest I can get to being inside of myself. My favorite way to cry. With my head on my knees, I feel protected. There is often no here to hold me. And no one here for me to hold. So I embrace myself fully and firmly. My arms are a sanctuary, I am my own safe space. And I will practice until I instinctively know how to fold into myself. For I know that in my own arms, I will always belong. Because I belong to me and me alone.

-Jamera NaQuai, Embrace

[jamerasjournal]

Guilt used to have his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. Knuckles white, muscles straining. “How could you leave someone who needed you so much?” he’d spit. At night he’d sit with his knees on my chest, face contorted, pressing me into the mattress. I’d look up, eyes wide with terror, clawing at his hands. I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t been able to breath in months.

It felt all to familiar. It felt like you. With your hands wrapped tightly around my throat. Knuckles white, muscles straining. I remember how it felt when you first placed them there. Gentle, like a hug. But as time went on your grip tightened with your trust issues and codependency. Your counterfeit god complex cracking under the pressure. You weren’t the person you told me you were. I had to pry your fingers from around my neck. You used to cry all the time. How did it feel when you realized your tears weren’t working on me anymore? A last ditch effort to throw me off course. One finger, two fingers, three fingers, four. Five fingers, six fingers, seven fingers, more. I loosened the grip of your anxiety ridden projections. 8 fingers, 9 fingers, 10 fingers. I freed myself from the inadequacy you made me feel. And I ran from you. Heart pounding, lungs burning, but God, I was breathing for the first time in months. I had forgotten what it felt like to not be made small.

But Guilt always found me in the dark. Because how could I leave someone who needed me so much? And for nights he tormented me with his iron grip around around my neck. One day I looked in the mirror and noticed how wilted I had become. My petals darkened and dry.

Virtue came and met me in the light. She bathed with me, washing my back with the sweetest of affirmations. She carried me to the garden and placed me in healing soil. I remember the panic that rose as she covered me with the darkness of the earth. “Keep me in the light,” I begged her. She pressed a dusty finger to my lips. “This is the only way for you to grow.” So I lay back in the cold dirt. The all too familiar suffocation pressing into my chest. And I waited for Guilt. I knew he was coming. With his twisted sneer and his icy grip. My body was stiff with deathly expectation. “How could you leave someone that needed you so much?” Guilt hissed in my ear. My throat constricted. But instead of trying to pry him off me, I reached up. Towards the light peeking through the soil. Towards Virtue. And I wrapped my hands around his throat. Knuckles white, muscles straining. See the funny thing about Guilt is that he’s only as a big as you make him feel. You see, Guilt is a coward who only shows up after the tough decisions are made. Guilt is pointless. Guilt is a thief. Guilt is an attacker and his only weapon is your mind. Guilt gets under your skin and turns you against yourself. Guilt wages a war inside of your head and tells you that regardless of if you win, you still lost. So I held Guilt there, writhing in my hands. I told Guilt not welcome here anymore. I told Guilt he’s no longer allowed to take up space. I watched as he shrank, his hands now clawing at his own throat. But I refused to let up, knuckles white, muscles straining. I refuse to let anybody make me feel small. “But how could you leave someone who needed you so much?” he choked. I balled Guilt up in the palms of my hands. And I told Guilt, “Because I need myself more than anyone could ever need me.” And I heard Virtue whisper from the garden. “Now you have to let Guilt go.” I looked at my clenched fist. Knuckles so white, muscles still straining. I didn’t want to let go. What if he came back? But no. I forgive myself for leaving someone who needed me so much. I forgive myself. For my forgiveness is the only I need. And I let Guilt go, watched him evaporate like smoke. Virtue was right. The only way to grow, was to sit in the dark. And now my next lover will get to kiss a neck that is free from bruises.

-Jamera NaQuai | Knuckles White

[jamerasjournal]

It is not enough to just love your body. Respect and honor it as well. Allow it to take up space. Loving your body is more than just accepting what it looks like physically. Give thanks for everything it does for you. Daily. Honor it for the way it moves, the way it functions. The intrinsic and intricate design of your true home. The way it feels and the way it looks. In the morning remind yourself that waking up is a privilege, not a right. Thank it for its strength. For it’s gut reaction when something isn’t good for you. For your body knows when it is not safe. Hold space for your instincts and intuition. Your body is a vessel. The only thing grounding you to this earthly side. You create and hold life. Touch your scars lovingly, even those that tell the tale of sadness, agony, hopelessness, secrecy, ache, or discomfort. Look at you, you beautiful tapestry. Changing, stretching, fading, and flowing. Allow yourself to bloom.

- jamera naquai | Your Body Is A Home For Love

[jamerasjournal]

This year I hope we all make a commitment to loving ourselves more. More consistently, more gently, more passionately, and more graciously.

-jamera naquai

[jamerasjournal]

This is the passage through blood, sweat, and tears.

An open prayer of hearts, souls, and hands.

An offering of melancholic gratitude.

Black truth, black pain, black power, black blues.

I am so proud to present my debut poetry book: So Black I’m Blue. It is angry, it is raw, it is hopeful. I wrote this for me. I wrote this for us. I wrote this for you. 💙

You can purchase it here:

[jamerasjournal]

Match my mental. My intellect should be the first thing on the list of things you love about me. Not how I look. Not how I dress. But how I turn words into brushstrokes, poems into paintings. My journal an art museum of many muses and inspiration . Interpret me. Read between the lines of the designs of me. The inside of me. It might be too much to bear. Or perhaps it’s too hard to not stare at the ink dripping from my lips like the blood of a vampires first kiss. May this pen immortalize me, etch my name into the atmosphere. So that every time you look up, you see my inky grin. Oh bookish girl, who knew what you’d become. Versifier, sonneteer. Some may even call me spellcaster. Burn me at the stake and these words will rise from the ashes. A phoenix resurrected from a mind misunderstood. I can write you into moondust or I can write you into moonlight. My words my power. My words have power. Oh, this power you shall see.

jamera naquai | Words

[jamerasjournal]

I need someone that loves me thoroughly. Through and through the easy and the hard. Someone who is unconditionally compassionate towards me. So that my heart may find rest. So that I can dwell in safety. I need true kindness and support. I need to bathe in their honesty, sip from their reassurance. I need effortless celebration of the glory of who I am. I need to be gripped firmly, not tightly. No noise, no chaos. Balance. Ease. Healing. Reception. Through and through.

-jamera naquai | Through & Through