Trigger

I’ve heard that when I write,
I write too many rhymes up in my lines so the intellect gets left behind.
I heard I sound good but I don’t write good,
I mean write well
and well, hell I heard I wasn’t ever supposed to be heard.
That I’m from the south side
and I was born with a pussy
and pussies were never meant to speak
they were meant to purr.
They say I got a tongue born ratchet.
Say the way my tongue fixed to say
fuck you to your God ain't ladylike.
My tongue don’t come trimmed.
It ain’t primed and proper like a classy bitch’s tongue is supposed to be.
My tongue is thick.
I heard it’s more oppressive than a misogynistic dick-
My diction ain’t no Ivy League words of choice.
I’ve heard my voice sound like children trying to play grown up.
I’ve heard my voice sound like women trying to play grown up.
It sound like I’m bitching.
It sound like I’m a woman in a world who done lost her place and winds up outside the kitchen.
You supposed to listen.
You supposed to be seen,
you ain’t supposed to be heard.
I heard my voice sound like the screech of a nigga’s neck coming unhinged from the lynch rope.
My voice sounds like niggas singin and rappin and dancin and tappin in a hip-hop show.
I sound too stupid, too poor,
too black , too woman,
too Charles Ramsey on Fox News
too Rachel Jeantel in the courtroom,
too Sweet Brown “well I had woke up to get myself a cold pop.”
Mouth stay steady, ready to pop off at anything ready to pop off.
My tongue is a trigger, click.
My mind is a grenade, boom.
I stay with words that hit like bullets.
My language pops a pretty packed pistol every time I preach.
Every time I speak my mouth is meant to blow you away.
This is no dead fuse.
This is no silence.
I am not mute.
I’m not meant to cookie-cutter loud thoughts to carve down big speech.
I don’t give a flying fuckery about your comfort level.
You will not chop off my tongue.
You will not cut down my language
or grammatically correct my ebonics.
I am not hooked on your phonics.
You will not claim me.
You will not change me.
You will not silence my screams or crack down on this truth.
I am louder than this.