awkward thanksgivings
by: Natasha Adiyana Morris

In the new millennia we are tapped into more possibilities than ever
Still, I might be a smidge #overit
Dragging centuries of mutating trauma
All the while, taught a to earn seat at the table, flipping past footrest in the fine print

My grandmother is a Trump supporter
I wonder how she can be pro racist and still love her granddaughter
She’s a typical Canadian, to say she believes one thing, but votes another
To gleam that we’re tolerant progressives, unlike the eyesore south of the border

But I can admire her forthcomingness, to at least say it out loud
Trump’s not so different from a populist liberal shepherding the crowd
Be it one white man or another, a South Asian or a Brother
The entrance fee for politics is wealth and fame, red or blue, is more or less the same

I, on the other hand, am here for Black Futures. Black Owned. Black Legacy. Black Love.
Where my story does not start at slavery nor end at civil discord
Where ancestry.com is a resource for fun and not because I actually have no idea where my ancestors were stolen from
A diaspora of orphans, forever seeking home even if, what once was, is long gone

If I was targeted to label immigrants aliens, perched at a coveted tax bracket
#metoo
But I pray my daughter be wise to the political polarization
The bots, algorithms, and anti-privacy privacy statements
To will away the fluff of clickbait headlines and withstand the trance of misinformation
Understand a sound bite is not a quote and that canceling the blind does not prove that you’re woke

My daughter, may she inherit the earth
As the Illmatic meek, spitting a Meek Mill verse
May my daughter get the real tea
The one steeped in the east and dismantle the imported imperialism of foreign aristocracies
To dream outside the lines of whiteness
In the likeness of God and not of man
To have a sense of fearlessness never witnessed in our lifespan
A multilayered, technicolored, vigilante, warrior
Three generations of women, all wishing for a different future