I had writing group today, otherwise known as the Black Writers Coalition (BWC). A mix of brilliant, beautiful, black women + one dude (hey Matt!) spanning coast to coast that comes together every other Saturday for kinship, freedom dreaming, and writing. It’s become a space to bring trials, tribulations, and more importantly – triumphs! Today there were many of the latter and we talked about how important our shared writing space was for truth-telling in a way that made a path forward possible. A path that returns you to flow and sets you up to WIN and grow in all ways. I’m so grateful for that space.

The prompt was provided by my dear friend and co-lead of BWC, Tina Starks. After listening to a spoken word poem, “Mississippi Says to City Girl,” by Sasha Banks, Tina invited us to write using personification in a socio political context. The first object that popped into my head with a voice was the flag. So, I give you, “stars and stripes.”

xo, adrienne

stars and stripes

i wish my colors would bleed right on out

leaving me bland and blank and standing for

nothing more than potential

 

i wish the threads that bind me to

a standard of greed

of hatred

of pride,

right alongside the stories

of sacrifice, of family, of history,

would unravel 

and show the world

the whole truth

hidden in the seams

 

i wish the stars stood for dreamers

and the stripes stood for all the paths

we could take to something better

 

i wish i could wrap my arms around every 

living soul upon this land 

and sing them a lullaby instead of a war cry

 

i wish they’d burn me hot enough

to send smoke signals through the ether

to call forth a symbol worth serving

 

cuz it’s not me