By Khari Dawson
 

I thought I was black too.
I thought everyone loved Jamaica.
Thought Jeezy played at all our Bar Mitzvahs,

Thought we all came into consciousness 
at the bottom of the sky.

I thought that music preceded 
nigga–
thought nigga preceded women, 
even white women. 

I knew I had good hair–that’s why
I thought I should intwine it with itself,
close to my skull. 
At first I wanted the braids to say nigga but
I thought that would be too much. 

I thought everyone felt that grasp at their ear
like the leather of a finger–jostling them toward 
da gutta
I thought you could have other people’s memories 
inside you, 

I thought there were ovens in my stomach,
I thought I was gilded in glass like a gullah tree.

I thought the revolution wasn’t supposed to be on TV.
I thought you and me were sinners both,
I thought we liked the bones 
as they gamboled in the ground beneath us.

I thought the nfl hated niggas and their knees, 
always locked with the grass edge of the field, 
asking for nigga stuff.

I thought I could be anything I wanted to be.
I thought my freedom would help me walk right 
into every chest
and stay.

Khari Dawson is a multi-genre writer and musician based in Maryland. She is a 2024 Martha's Vineyard Creative Writing Institute fellow, a 2024 Watering Hole Poetry fellow, and recipient of a 2021 Arts Under a Minute short film grant from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  She holds a BA in English and a minor in Film Studies from the University of San Francisco. Her poetry was most recently published in the Jan/Feb issue of Poetry Magazine, selected by Elizabeth Acevedo. She is a founding board member of Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, Inc.