On the fence of first times, I find a new song about a Black Mermaid’s rarity
So, I looked up the songwriter, only to find her ‘Black mermaidery’ symbolic
She says she “will teach you how to love…,” and she will “wait for you to see…”
Well, hun, it’ll be a long wait at that bus stop, especially at the bottom of the sea.
But my wings, my fairy dust, my beauty. Mine is real.
All literal. All magical.
And when I tell you how tired I still am of putting my voice down because it’s a tough habit to break
Excusing the idiocy of trying to be loved, instead of trying to be me, even as I fall deeper in love with myself
Now I only partially clean up the fairy dust I leave behind me because somebody, somewhere old and cold, told me I made a mess
And every feather of my wings still stretch out like fire and smoke
Even bruised down to the purple so much it pretty much became my signature color
Yet I exult in the brokenness because I had to get here
To be here, and see here
That my wings, my fairy dust, my beauty.
Mine is real.
All literal. All magical.
Because my thick thighs hold tight the strings of fantastic realms, and I ride them like winged unicorns
Chocolate-Charcoal-Ebony-Burnt-Sienna ones
Even as I swish my improbable tail
Setting free my captured mermaidery every day and twice on Sunday
And my fingernails scratch deep the scalps of intellectuals and stars when I exhale words
While I rock on dancefloors not made for my long, skinny-ankled feet
Sometimes, the scales are on pause because I’m sky bound
My wings, my fairy dust, my beauty.
Mine is real.
All literal.
All magical
And not so rare as all that.
Black Mermaids, Fae, and Less Apology
