Settle down, quiet everyone. 

Can I please have your undivided attention 

After careful consideration and zero debate 

The committee of all things Black is hereby 

Revoking all previous invitations to “The Cookout” 

Yes, you heard correctly. We are taking Black I mean back “The Cookout” 

From hence forward white women will have to do more that rock Bamboo earrings and sleep with Black men to get a slice of my Big Mama’s sweet potato pie 

White men, that weak ass jump shot 

your ability to do the dougie while maintaining a Black friend since middle school will no longer be enough 

We ask that you turn in your Black by association cards immediately We realize that for some of you this may come as a shock 

But the will of our ancestors must be done 

To white parents of biracial children we ask that you drop your children off at the gate You may watch the festivities through the peak in the gate 

No you can not get a plate to go 

And while we're at it 

White people of mixed couples since we all know 

that you got in here by the hair of you chinny chin chin 

We kindly ask that you huff and puff and blow yo ass out of here 

Because we are hereby revoking all previous invitations to “The Cookout” Can everyone please line up in an orderly fashion 

The reviewing process will begin now 

May the odds forever be in our favor 

HOLD….. Now look at this 

It is clear that we have found ourselves faced with a grave mistake 

Here we have caucasian A 

coming in here with you Dr. Pepper and your Mountain Dew 

didn’t your one Black friend tell you 

that this is a Cookout around here we drink Dr. Thunder 

Oh I guess you too good for Mountain Lightning 

Access Denied 

Now I know damn well you did not just hand me no potato salad with raisins Is that cat hair?

If you don't getcho 

Hmmmm, lets see 

Says here that you’ve attended several Black Lives Matter protest You’ve read James Baldwin 

You Katori and Regina Hall good, Good 

Oh but you let your friends say the N word 

You don't correct them because you don’t want to seem problematic Who’s next 

You have several Black friends 

Yet you still believe that “All Lives Matter” 

Well maybe you should take that energy to a picnic 

Cause this here is a Cookout 

And Black Lives have to start mattering before they all do 

No amount of style, seasoned fried chicken, knowledge 

of rap lyrics, black squares on instagram, Kylie Jenner lip injections Quote, unquote woke awareness 

You never owning slaves but being embarrassed that your ancestors did Will get you through the gate 

Not during this season 

In this season you will have to fight with us 

Vote for us 

Be affected by Black pain and cause yourself to move 

And I know you have the best intentions 

You really want to learn 

But I just can't let you read White Fragility over breakfast and think that you’re all caught up 

So with all disrespect we are permanently here by revoking all previous invitations to “The Cookout” 

I am simply not sorry but we just can’t let you in 

Because when you leave you take our smiles 

Pack to go boxes of Black bodies tuck them underneath your arms and still demand from us seconds 

Like my culture wrapped in tin foil handed over to you just isn't enough You want our spirits in sippy cups 

Like for generations we ain't already breastfed your children Ain't you just fat and full from my peoples sacrifice 

So how dare you ask to be a part of our celebration

Now you may take your oppression 

Your green bean casserole 

and find yourself another park because this one is Black and taken

You mock God and our love with you sacrilegious prayers 

You put him in our business like you yearn for the angels 

to know of the time I turned my back against religion 

Sacrificed all that I knew 

Followed you down the alter only to find that you don't 

practice what you preach you’ve made a fool of me 

Your tongue hasn't been baptized in years 

Your heart is of false prophecies 

Yet you continuously tell the heavens that you’re still in love with me 

As if you ever were 

As if we never broke those vows we once made 

when our sheets couldn't tell difference in whose skin was seeking pleasure and whose body was inflicting pain 

On nights when we devoured confession like communion 

Didn't bother to clear up the confusion 

One Angel bragged on how you often pray that God gives me peace Isn't it just like you to demand that he does all the heavy lifting 

Like he aint already unweighted your burdens by giving you me 

But you bandage my wounds in religion 

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done 

Unlike the congregation we both knew that my salvation needed your presence more than your roof top prayers 

But your ego obeys more sins than commandments 

Saw the black beneath your eyes when I proclaimed to love you to death You tilt my head towards the sky demanding I die in order to prove it Lately I been talking to the waters and they say you wasn't baptized right And keep my mama’s name out ya mouth 

Ain't been able to show her face in a month of Sundays 

Got the choir ladies humming tunes on how her daughter just can't seem to keep a man Not knowing that I just couldn't keep his lies besides 

Pastor Jenkins said he always saw the devil in you 

Like you be praying for my peace because the narcissism in you 

still thinks it's somehow linked to yours 

The truth is we could have never bed a holy benediction 

always knew from your touch 

There’d be no scripture in your repentance 

You taught me not to forgive and forget

So instead on these unholy grounds I’ll simply remember to regret you

He turns to me with a smile on his face 

and confidence nestled in the basement of his throat and says 

You look good, for a dark skin girl. 

I stood there not knowing if I should say thank you 

or if I should physically react by smacking his own heritage into his system I mean, who came up with that line? 

As if my skin tone makes me the villain and the victim 

The antagonist and the protagonist 

Do you want me to be ashamed? 

It seems like we still got that house nigga mentality 

Leaving some to believe that a lighter skin tone makes you more beautiful or superior than most 

How dare we drink their toxicity on such an empty stomach ?! 

Compliments like these are the reasons why little Black girls 

Spend hours amongst hours bleaching their skin 

Simply trying to fit in 

This is not your typical Hollywood trend 

Stop the madness 

Breaking news, the NAACP sends out an Amber Alert 

for you to find pride in your culture 

Gather up your fellow brothers and sisters because in this we are lost Because contrary to popular belief and what history movies doesn't want you to see Cleopatra was in fact dipped in Black gold 

As if finding me appealing is some form of a grand gesture 

Cause this goes against what your father taught you 

What Massa instilled into all of his first born sons 

and you being of rape descendant had no choice but to cling onto daddy’s words Like he be too proud to sleep with us field nigga types 

Like he wants them in the water but not wade in the waters 

You see the most beautiful rainbow 

that I have ever laid eyes on is ten different shades of Black women lined up in a row So I want to take the hand of that little girl whose skin tone 

looks like sprinkles of Mid-night on top of a double scoop chocolate fudge sundae and tell her hold your head high 

We are not beautiful despite the way the Sun decided to kiss 

our coco butter melanin dipped skin 

We are now and will always be beautiful because of it

​

My mother cleans like Pine-Sol cures poverty

Like if you hand her a bucket of bleach 

She can wash away the inequalities

And I’ve always hated her optimism 

The way it shines through stain glass windows

Why can't she see that the glass is attracting the dirt?

Why won't she just stop trying

He says I come in peace 

With a switchblade in his right hand and a ancient torturing device in his left 

Passed down by his grandfather 

Built by Carthusian monks who grew weary of silence and solitude 

I could see the other women spilling down the side of his mouth

Their hair still caught between the gaps within his teeth 

Made sense to keep them there 

Their limbs covering the space where his missing tooth once sat

I was told that in moments of submission they grew weak 

so he chose to swallow their words for them 

How else was he to have the final say? 

It was better this way 

to show his hand as a gentlemen 

Made sure to step over the lifeless body of his last victim 

who hung around his ankle 

The weight never interfering with his step 

He steps to you and says, hello 

or maybe you spoke first 

The clarity of your memory is always so fragile next to his perception 

He holds up a magnifying glass to assure you that out of all the other boys 

who skipped over academics to bench press their masculinity in gym class 

Indifferent from the ones who cheated on their exams for an easy A

You were the science project that he was dying to explore 

You feel lucky 

Chosen even, in the way he chooses to protect you from the truth. 

He hands you a weighted blanket of his lies 

You tell yourself it's best for your anxiety 

Not the load that keeps you stagnant 

or the burden that keeps you near 

No this was an act of Human Kindness and who are you not to indulge 

To allow him the necessary freedoms to treat you like all the ones before

There is so much blood……. 

He had to cut you open 

The thickness of your skin made it hard to access the purity of your heart 

You ask if this is necessary 

This brutal form of lust 

This medieval method of  love

But with the prick of the blade he reminds you 

that he desires your body in the literal sense 

What a lucky girl you are!!!

Unlike the others he didn't have to break your bones in order to break you 

What a fucking ease you have become…. 

The feminine figures whisper 

Their ghost should have warned you 

That when he says he comes in peace 

what he means is he comes in pieces 

And he is only held upright by the things that he's torn down