voices

1.
what is madness
is it an outbreak of dawn, a wild blood sun
killing this night
this touch less night

it is the wale of a full moon
over the breast of a homeless mother
or the shriek of stars
witnessing murder

to risk living
you encounter madness
broad based and picking its teeth
the insane sigh
and pull you to their chest

sometimes, you must stop breathing
to leave them
and leaving the insane
is again, madness

a run towards orchids
blooming in a field of broken glass
a terrain too dangerous to walk over
and running doesn't avoid the danger

but then, this is
the risk of living
the blood letting among flowers

2.
what is madness
a cacophony of voices
in our armpits
hurling us into stillness
banging our heads with memory

i remember when small
the voices were crystals
easy to hold and pray to
at night they were bells
listening to the wind in my breath

when small
the voices taught me how
to ride my bike down steep hills
how to turn sharp corners

the voices made me
laugh at the dark
and the darkened places
kept the voices hidden

from pointing fingers
of mommy
she - wanted to know
who i was talking with
she wanted to know

why I sang even when
daddy was drunk
beyond a reason
being here

she wanted to know
what allowed me to sleep
the middle of her crying
and why i never awoke with tears of my own

the voices
I never told mommy about the voices
and how they whispered me
into dancing to the edge of everything

how they hummed
as i curtsied for the old ladies
and kissed the sunken cheeks
of old men

how at times they riddled me
to a windowsill, or a bridge
or a razor, or daddy's whiskey
but just for fun

just to see me dance to
and away from another edge
the voices are such testers
when small, i never thought of failing

3.
now, tapping
behind my ears awakening
too many pieces
the voices are rivalry

jarring, rampant
between my fingers
between my toes
i hear them

even as i run towards the orchids
i hear them
belittling my escape

4.
what is madness
a seagull impaled on a fence
a cat walking into a river
a baby sucking needles in the center of a room
rain beating holes into the eyes of a dead dog

when did the voices
become
so diseased and angry
and whose strength do they use
to carry us to such unfamiliar place

they can pull triggers
they can throw us off rooftops
they can split us into uneven halve
whose strength do they use

6.
a man i know
is fighting these mutant voices
he is scraping them from his walls
dragging them from under his bed

somehow they have read
his books and his mind
they quote his fears
hear them, whose strength do they use
hear them, whose strength do they use

they are charging up this man's back with swords
an army paranoid of his every blink
they bulge his eyes
see them, whose strength do they use

the voices are taking this man's dark brown skin
and stretching it across his memory .
he stands before himself like a crucifix
his palms showing the lines of too much and too many

a mother, two fathers, three brothers,
two sisters, two daughters, one son, two wives,
three college degrees, no job
i hear this man shouting at the voices

a cacophony of his own
a litany of statistics
of dark brown women and men
the number on ships

the number killed by whips
the number in chains,
the number swung from ropes
the numbers, every number heavy in his throat
a malignant phlegm

i've seen this man try
and inch his skin away from the voices
seen him count the spots of light
left by other dark skins

and carry this number as if a
candle to his brain
illuminating the horrors
and when he speaks

it is of the women and men
ripped open in front of their mothers
it is of the fathers crippled by
the weight of silence

this man's tongue is thick
with the silence of dark brown fathers
and the voices dare him to speak
dare him to dare

these voices jealous
of this man's 46 unbending years
threaten him with death at any corner
threaten him with the lethal stare of a stranger

7.
what is madness
hot tar cooling on dark brown skin
pickled genitals in a jar

and when we run from these voices
we wish for the wings of eagles, for the grasp of hawks
a caravan of warriors in our sweat
our eyes screaming madness be still

not another dark brown body
will it take, not another
will it take to its rage ridden room
not another foot, tooth, or strand

of tightly coiled hair
this man and i poised against our walls
ready for attack
see us, our skin, our only weapon

8.
what is madness
the smell of orchids stronger than the smell of blood
how many pieces of glass embedded in my feet
i mustn't stop to look

no, i mustn't stop to look
i want these flowers
i want this sweet touch
risking life for beauty

risking sanity for love
a bit of hope covering my wounds
a bit of hope covering my wounds

~ Safiya Henderson-Holmes ~