Pass It On

By Ayisha Knight

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.

It will be our little secret.

In the basement,

clean laundry mixed with

dirty deeds

allow a secret to be kept.

By the time I rejoin

the party that never missed me,

I have buried the memory

beneath lost time

and the lie that says

I have the right to

remain silent,

but not before

I remember

the smell of semen and tide.

Alone I

Remember and

Anger metasticizes into fists

Pulverizing internal organs until suicide permeates

Every thought.

Memories stain my consciousness

with false testimony

given by lying tongues

pre-treated with

fear and guilt

until I, brainwashed

start spinning through

endless cycles of self-hatred

soaked with shame.

I was so confused,

I couldn’t even remember my name,

so I wore the label of victim

forgetting I was neither

until ten years later,

when wisdom cloaked

in poetry

unraveled lies with its

spoken truth

and healed this

wrinkle in time.

Ladies, gather round,

listen to the whispers

then pass it on.

Tell everyone,

they have the right to

speak the word

because elevation begins with

revelation and dirty laundry

mixed with dirty deeds

have spelled trouble for too long.