sweet refusal

darkness—shared, tasted, embodied, enshrouded

barefooted or sockfooted over the slick bricks

i’d slide, smiling onto my stage

the mountains as my witness,

the clouds at my back blossoming into the Black

Did you know the lifespans of the struck souls

sent to the shores of South Carolina, shuttled to the marshland

that sits behind the home i cannot claim as my own

to wade into the alligator’s terrain for feeding the whites rice

was an average of five years? So now then,

selling away my own freedom, a waist-deep betrayal.

What have I learned from my nation of origin?

Entitlement, in spite of the efforts of so many.

A weapon of protection i suggest to every Black American,

for it’s one thing to demand what has been denied to you,

and it’s joyfully another to set off on a journey and stumble upon it in offering.

What a sweet shock to the system to be treated with respect, to be tended to as the garden you are.

Freeing myself and the spirits who choose to move with me

has been my greatest honor, my deepest joy,

and you won’t get me to regret it. I won't feel shame around it,

this tool of the white man and his god of guilt.

I refuse to strive for being feasted on, this hungry nation

leeched the lifeblood from my ancestors since its inception,

my sisters, my kin, fuel to maim and steal and kill across the globe.

My refusal is the right i raised and wrangled all on my own

my pride, my yes, rest is resistance for Black women

and resistance is the secret to joy

rest is justice-in-action, truly existential justice,

for we who have had our rest stolen across centuries.

No, we cannot be colonizers, don’t you see pieces of us

strewn across these lands, that we are made of

our lost sisters, stripped and shipped, could be anywhere,

dispersed in the sands of time, calling out to us to come home.

Oh, i am meant to find our way back

away from hell, into the high waters that carried me here,

I will dive from this sinking ship crafted from blood and bone,

my spirits learned from our mother how to breathe long ago,

there is nothing for us in this world they carved from flesh

unmired by theft or greed or shame or stress.

Rest is restoration, rest is retribution, rest as reparation

I will steal it back, will gnash my teeth into it, set my jaw,

if anything will be mine,

It will be my time.

My refusal is as sweet as the scent of the storm

brewing in the hills of South America where i hide,

fugitive, from the foes forcing me to stop dancing and dreaming

of the forever freedom we’re forging, me and my folks

with the lightning illuminating the sky

and the trees waving in the night

and the flowers blooming into the black.

kay, darling (kay/they/she/we) sagittarius rising, leo sun, virgo moon kay is a disabled and expansive writer and counseling astrologer raised in Charleston, SC--searching for home across the globe ever since. she’s a co-creator of cosmic healing, a queer Black sista-led endeavor dedicated to honoring the realities, hopes, and destinies of the most marginalized in our communities through an astrological lens and is available for readings now, on a sliding scale and which all Black people can access at whatever they can afford. contact kay at cosmichealingfam@protonmail.com read kay’s newsletter, Sag, Rising at kaydarling.substack.com check out cosmic healing and a complete list of our offerings at linktr.ee/cosmichealingfam

The first time i left truly, with the intent never to return, i was meant to die at any time, and yet all of a sudden we were reborn. i don’t believe this is by accident; the meaning we make of this, our salvation. Our artist ancestors: Audre, Alice, James, and our activist ancestors: Assata, Kwame, Angela found themselves, the rest of themselves, these parts of themselves that are not simply suffering slaves or capitulated capitalists—we are made more so whole when we are able seek something more so free. i am convinced Black people don’t realize how quickly this would all collapse were we simply to stop participating.

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