Ocean
by Lysz Flo
Florida, USA
Maybe we emerge ourself
In the cleansing of all
our ancestor’s grief and defiance
Simultaneously
love and desperation
Cover me in the waves
Releasing the hopelessness and hardship
To be joyful in this black body
The irony
floating and submergence
Resulting in a drowning kinda freedom
Buoyancy of burden and curses
The salt cuts
The salt heals
deep so many centuries of wounds
reaching the shadowed bottom of
ourselves = the ocean floor
Only to live on the shallow beginning
Cutting through the surface
Lifted ( by the lack of gravity )
Lifted supernaturally by
Kin
maybe fearless, fearful, or discarded
STILL F R E E
I plunge
Head first in prayer
Asking
Forgiveness for the cowardice and resentment thrusted on me from
this world
the one before us
Too resilient/Too stubborn
to let their hatred define themselves without dehumanizing me/my
Kin
This fight to be free
i slosh asking for release
Sometimes taking in the burning salt
Other times holding my breath
Existing in their wisdom filled silence
In these waters,
housing ashes in the sand
Feeling accompanied, I dig my toes deeper
Reconnecting with the godliness of myself and my ancestral lines.
I gather strength,
my pain dissolved
I am made a renewed reinforced warrior
Lysz Flo
Lysz Flo is an Afrolatinx, trilingual spoken word artist, author of fiction and poetry, member of The Estuary Collective, and a podcast host of Creatively Exposed and Voodoonauts Summer 2020 Fellow. She released her poetry novel Soliloquy of an Ice Queen, March 2020. Her poems can be found in Royal Rose Mag, Hellebore, Skin Coloured Mag, Digging Press and various anthologies. Online Crystal and Spiritual wellness shop owner at Astrolyszics.com