End Word: A Poem (text and video)

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"Nigga" is a spoken word...
A poem I wish I never heard
A haiku that tastes like a lollipop or butterscotch
With a bubble in it that cuts the roof of your mouth when you suck too hard on it

"Nigga" swirls an effervescent tingle at the back of your throat,
Before it backflips quick off the palette like a gymnast

Yet I wince, 
Every time I see white folks hear me and my niggas saying it

We use "nigga" like a slave masters last name
Both lies about our past – that we adopt anyway

"Nigga" hangs in our mouth like niggas hung in the south



"Nigga" is a culture cut off from its glory
So we make up a kunta kinte or kwanza story

"Nigga" is tale of regret with too many forgotten sequels
Like the one titled:
"White People First Bought Black People From Other Black People"

Funny how "niggas" think misspelled vernacular makes a word better...
Funny how "niggas" are not supposed to use words like vernacular...

See "niggas" be like blind mice
See how they/we run,
See us sell crack to our own color
Sometimes to our own mothers

Cuz "niggas" are near sighted and desensitized
Can’t see the blood streaming from the diamond eyes of their Jesus piece

But "niggas" do shine some times...
Though we only seem to get recognized
Playing the roles of mammies, slaves, butlers, and maids…

"Nigga" is the separate but unequal legacy of minorities force fed inferiority

And just look at what they market to "niggas":
Menthols, fake hair, cheap ass malt liquor

But aint we supposed be free?
Free to especially employ the jargon of Jim crowed jigaboos
Free to trade our acres in for 40 ounces and drug mules,
While the revolution gets postponed
A trade for free agent contracts, record deals, million dollar homes?

See invisibility is not the devil's greatest trick
It’s convincing "niggas" that there’s wisdom hidden in ignorance

But maybe one day we’ll have ourselves a funeral 
And bury "nigga" in a plot-
Next to the one they tryna dig in for "Redskins"

That will be the day when we’ve stopped
Forging justifications for linguistic self- mutilation

A day we let go of
“We’re-taking-the-hate-out-of-the-word” claims,
 When we stop using apostrophe's and liquor brands for our kids names,
When we stop thinking the Underground Railroad had a goddamn train

A day to come when"niggas" pull more weight than they push

And pull less on triggers,

Making "nigga" a poem whose verses are fading away into a whisper

When "niggas" finally find their destiny and become 5/5ths free,

And turn oh-so finely into:

PEOPLE…



(c) Taj Ashaheed, 2013





         

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