Are They Still Here

Dear Brooklyn,

These days your air is thick with water, humid heat, in the best way. It moisturizes my skin, makes my curls soft, envelops me into this underbelly of cicada beats and pigeon coos. I am melting into you, into the familiarity of the bodega guy who just quit smoking weed, into the backyards of restaurants that serve delightfully chilled rosé. I am a child of your streets, the rules are yours and I happily follow them. To feel like this is a home is a new thing for me. I have favorites, preferences. I host friends and family and empty full glass bottles of spirits before sunrise. I read on the rugs and clean up watermelon juice. I’m becoming accustomed to sweat and broken windows. Learning the sunlight streams and how they affect Amanda, Evangeline, Helen, little plants with a chance.

I’ve learned love here. I’ve fallen in love in this city three times over, each time Brooklyn painting new back drops to my tattered journey. Never judging, always supplying.

There are days when I get lost in its sauce, just floating, being warm, relaxing, not opening my work computer, ignoring all notifications, absorbing this life energy straight into my marrow, unsure how to snap back into a productive reality because it feels so comfortable here. How am I supposed to focus? This summer is my breath, is my usage of seconds by choice, and I want to dwell in its epicenter as long as possible. Emails feel far away. My hallways smell of mezcal, roses, incense, cologne. I want nothing but to lie in soft sheets and experience this, my piece of this Earth, a place I can finally call my own.

These halls where I create life, where smiles and pours are never too far, where we linger before being shoved back into the places where people expect our responsible selves.

I have sourced love here, and I refuse to leave it.

Forever,

Selah

Dear Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport,

Our encounters were once so frequent. A hub for joy, reuniting lovers and friends, a transportation spectacle. But I know the real you. I know your AirTrains, the workers at the Popeyes, the menacing line of ants crawling at your entrance. I know the T terminal, the average waiting times at south security. I miss the poster of the wildly diverse group of children that wave at you as you come up the escalator. There was a black girl in the front! That’s how I knew I was home. And I miss the surge of excitement seeing the line of faces populate over the edge of the escalator, people scrambling towards their loved ones. Kids, and sometimes not kids, ducking under the divider running towards someone arriving, fresh to Atlanta soil. I loved your air conditioning—the distinct difference between your cool corridors and my dear muggy College Park.

People talk about you like you’re famous. And you change, but for the most part, I still recognize you.

Fondly,
Selah

Dear Spelman,

This note is long overdue. I’m sorry I left you.
You connected me to my roots long before I knew I had any.

Love,
Selah

7/8/21 (Untitled)

Chasm between
Here then and here now
We only imagine the flowers
They picked in dreams of rest
Singing down by the river side
I remember across the silence
Stringing together beads of optimism
Propped up by trees and half eaten
Hopes
This is brave good valiant work
We tell ourselves
Standing at their graves
Weeping for recipes
Erased off floor boards
Cream colored walls sprinkled with glitter
Shag carpets and plastic lined couches 

In sorrows of lash and wanting
Fear of holding tight
When air promised to be thick
And warm at night
Like a man who tells you all will be well
Trusting delusion as a seed
Planted in mind and womb
Sprung forth from a sick man’s tongue

Come here and collect
Remnants of truths
Scattered corn bread crumbs
Cow peas and collards
Okra slipping through worn fingers
Stir up the pot 
Torn and washed memories
Blown on the clothing line
This is the story
Of many many ancestors
Many many times again

Our work is mending blankets ripped at the seams, quilting heirlooms 
and calling it home.