Water by Porsha Olayiwola

In 2010 six black teenagers drowned in the Louisiana Red River, researchers found that 70% of black people do not know how to swim - that black kids are three times more likely to drown, the question became: ‘why do blacks possess the fear of water?’

I’ve heard sharks followed slave ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean, trailing black bodies thrown overboard
I heard during slave time white masters refused to let blacks learn them to swim cos a swimming slave could get away,
Could swim to freedom
Could figure out a way to wade in the water-
I heard little black kids ain’t nothing but 'gator bait; 'gator bait lets you catch an alligator so big, so vicious it’d bite like racism
Black momma’s be like 'keep your kids out the water, it ain’t safe child’

I heard a Jim Crow North and a Ku Klux South kept coloureds out of public swimming pools and off public water fountains,
I heard they hose niggers down with a firefighter water hose like you hose down a rabied dog in the summertime heat

A New Orleaner heard come hell or high water they were gonna watch niggers drown in a hurricane down south,
Heard they knew the levees was gonna give in and break
Knew the waters was coming to wash niggers away

Tell me, how do a nigger keep their head above water if niggers can’t swim? Niggers can’t doggy paddle, niggers can’t tread water,
Niggers jump, but never jump in
I sprint, you swim
Niggers can’t float - our body’s too dense,
We don’t fuck with the rain cos our hair just got did.

I heard yesterday, in Detroit, they cut the water off
I heard the water don’t run
I heard the faucets run dry
I heard kids are dehydrated, niggers is thirsty.

Heard they’ve been gasping for air
Been drowning in oppression
For what feels like forever, ever since crossing the Atlantic
Been feeling lost at sea
Been feeling like a fish out of water
Like a body sinking in the deep end
Like treading troubled waters
And drowning.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmS9JEvYKhE
Porsha Olayiwola - https://www.facebook.com/PorshaO

Body Image by Miko Berry

Someone's put on a bit of weight!

They always say this with a smile so patronising you wanna knock their teeth out their head

And a tone that's as sarcastic as Satan when he says, is it too hot in here?

I know they're just teasing 

And they're well within their reasoning cos I'm not exactly that fat so how can I possibly have body image issues

They don't know

And they don't know the journey I've been through - but you

You do

You were there and you saw me struggle through school with all the bullies that replaced my name with insults for so long that - I forgot who I was

I knew myself only as a punchline look I was a lot bigger then

I remember I thought I could reason with the bullies but it always came out so fucking pathetic like 'Guys! Stop! You're hurting my feelings!'

I remember one of them said 'FAT PEOPLE DON'T HAVE FEELINGS!' and do you know what, technically, hunger is a feeling

But I've felt plenty more besides that

I've felt the word fat quickly go from observation to damnation and so my only hope for salvation was to swallow their abuse

To eat up their insults until it made me sick

Three times a day

After every single meal don't ask how I feel I know it's how I look that matters

I lost twenty percent of the person that I used to be 

And people would hold my hips like the handles to some trophy they'd just won and say 'WOW!'

'You look great!'

'Tell me what you ate for dinner cos I just like totally hate my figure and it looks like you're getting thinner so maybe you're onto a winner and.....'

Yeah.....I got slimmer but I never got better

I never got healthier

See I was never once sat in the doctor's waiting room because of my weight

I was there because there's an evil man in my bedroom

He lives behind the glass and he points at everything wrong

He says my eyebrows look like they wanna hold hands

And the only thing that will ever stand out about me, is my gut

He's says 'Nice bracelets'

'When are you gonna get the necktie to match?'

When I finally lost all the weight he was the first one to point out the stretch marks

On the backs of my legs were disgusting

He said my spine bones made me look like a monster

Spikes were just trying to  

Pierce through the skin so don't tell me that beauty magazines only affect women

Cos every single airbrushed starlet with flawless skin and unimaginable proportions she's eventually swept up off her feet

By a superman 

With a - six pack, pecs and bulging arms and that's why in every gym you will find young men

Screaming

Look I won't tell you this for a reaction

I just need you to understand that for me and so many others this battle has got nothing to do with being thin

It's about learning to appreciate the skin, that we are in and it's a goal I'm so afraid I will be chasing for ever so believe me when I tell you

I'm not getting fatter

I'm getting better

This performance place at Evidently at the Eagle Inn, Salford

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b18LNxmFFZ8

https://www.facebook.com/mikopoet