A Poem by Tayi Tibble: ‘My Ancestors Trip Wit Me’

My ancestors trip wit me.
They twerk on the roof of the Uber
as I’m pulling up late to the occasion.
They gasoline me full tank and
yas me within the mirror
as I summon them out of me with
my mascara wands and glitter and
each time I draw my eyes on
Nana you encourage me
to maintain my chin lifted upwards,
my eyes filling up with stars.

I do know I stroll on
salt blood water tears.
I do know the earth has been
overwhelmed down and made gangsta
however typically, e hoas,
I simply need to occasion.

My ancestors trip wit me.
Don’t inform me what they might do.
I do know them higher than you.

I sat within the lap of my great-grandmother
till the flax of her couldn’t take it.
So she unraveled herself and
wrapped round me like a blanket
and at her contact the privilege of me
was a headrush as I remembered
making attire out of sugar packets,
my bro getting blown up in Forlì,
my grandfather commemorated underneath one tree
despite the fact that he pressured himself into our bloodline
after which deserted me and me and me.
My mom saying go
marry a white man
you deserve higher
so I left
the bone leftovers of dwelling
figuring out that in two generations I’d be referred to as
an Oreo and my enamel painted into pink brick,
two mouthfuls of pink roots and boiling water
for dinner, for nearly each dinner, so
once I’m out with my mans consuming
an costly hunk of no matter
my ancestors and I share
the identical style and you’ll see it
in our smile so forceful it splits
the space-time continuum.
Bizarre flex I do know. They taught me that
the whole universe is malleable and mine to mould.

Let me mould it of their picture.

My ancestors trip wit me.
Don’t you dare inform me what they might do.
I do know them means higher than you.

I’ve identified them
since they had been a 5-year-old
who was advised on her first day
she couldn’t play as a result of
she wasn’t the appropriate shade
however the different children didn’t know
that she was truly a witch,
a direct descendant
of tohunga and had
transformative powers
and in that occasion
their hex grew to become a spell
and it modified her into
an immortal factor,
a jaw, a whale, a knot
created from her grandmother’s hair,
and in that second
she realized that life
was not going to be truthful
but it surely may very well be
ferocious and forming
if she surrendered herself
to the brown, crying, clay.
She knew that at some point
she would make one thing,
puoro, gourd, vessel, physique
of water unimaginable sufficient
to hold all of them.

My ancestors trip wit me.
Don’t inform me wtf they might do.
I do know them means higher than you
and I do know the wild
number of issues
they needed to do
to get me right here,
some voluntary,
some pressured,
not all of them
tika or textbook,
postcard or fairly,
however God!
Aren’t you infatuated
with the nerve that they had
to think about me
and make it occur?
You possibly can’t inform me that
my existence isn’t something
however the existence of our outdated magic,
our outdated methods, our bloodlines,
our belief within the river,
once we first hopped in that
souped-up waka
and seemed up on the stars like
u acquired me? They usually mentioned
exhausting
so now

I’m tougher than a scrum of mountains.
I’m present like I’m water.
I whip just like the wgtn wind and
I’m hotter than the solar.

And my ancestors trip wit me
like dawgs. After I whistle
they run and run and run.