<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Say Her Name<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p class=""><font color="#020202" class="">I am a w</font>oman carrying other women<br class="">in my mouth<br class="">behold a sister<br class="">a daughter<br class="">a mother<br class="">dear friend<br class="">spirits demystify<br class="">on my tongue </p><p class="">they gather to breath<br class="">and exhale a dance with the death we know<br class="">is not the end all these nameless<br class="">bodies haunted by pellet wounds in their chests<br class="">listen for them and the saying of a name you cannot pronounce</p><p class="">black and woman is a sort of magic<br class="">you cannot hash tag<br class="">the mere weight<br class="">of it too vast to be held</p><p class="">we hold ourselves<br class="">an inheritance felt between the hips<br class="">womb of soft darkness portal of light<br class="">watch them envy the revolution of our movement<br class="">how we break open to give life flow</p><p class="">while the terror of our tears the torment of our taste<br class="">my rage<br class="">is righteous my love is righteous<br class="">my name<br class="">be righteous here what I am not here to say<br class="">we too have died we know we are dying too</p><p class="">I am not here to say look at me how I died<br class="">so brutal a death I deserve a name to fit all the horror in<br class="">I am here to tell you how if they mentioned me<br class="">in their protest and their rallies<br class="">they would have to face their role in it too<br class="">my beauty too</p><p class="">I have died many times before<br class="">the blow to the body<br class="">I have bled<br class="">many months before the bullet to the flesh we know<br class="">the body is not the end<br class="">call it what you will<br class="">but for all the handcuffed wrists of us the shackled<br class="">ankles of us<br class="">the bend over to make room for you<br class="">of us how dare we speak anything less<br class="">then I love you </p><p class="">we who love just as loudly in the thunderous<br class="">rain as when the Sun shines golden on our skin<br class="">and the world kisses us unapologetically we<br class="">be so beautiful when we be- how you gonna be free<br class="">without me </p><p class="">your freedom tied up<br class="">with mine at the nappy edge of my soul<br class="">singing for all my sisters watch them stretch their<br class="">arms and my voice how they fly open chested<br class="">toward your ear<br class="">listen for<br class="">Rekia Boyd, Tanisha Anderson Yvette Smith<br class="">Aiyana Jones<br class="">Caleb Moore Shelly Frey<br class="">Miriam Carey Kendra James<br class="">Alberto Spruill, Tarika Wilson,<br class="">Shereese Francis<br class="">Shantel Davis, Malissa Williams<br class="">Darnisha Harris Michelle Cassell<br class="">Pearlie Golden, Kathryn Johnston<br class="">Eleanor Bumpers, Natasha McKenna<br class="">Sheneque Proctor<br class="">We</p><p class="">we will not vanish<br class="">and the baited breath of our brothers<br class="">show me show me<br class="">a man willing to fight beside me<br class="">my hand in his the color of courage</p><p class="">there is no mountaintop worth<br class="">seeing without us<br class="">meet me<br class="">in the trenches where we lay our bodies down<br class="">in the valley of a voice<br class="">say her name</p><span class="gmail-HOEnZb"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Aja Monet</span></div><div class=""><span class="gmail-HOEnZb"><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span class="gmail-HOEnZb">To hear Aja read her powerful poem: </span><a href="https://youtu.be/aL_yzeM7wY0" target="_blank" class="">https://youtu.be/aL_yzeM7wY0</a></div></body></html>