Winter Poetry Issue: Diamond Sharp

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**Black Lady Lazarus**

Dying is an art and we Black girls do it so well. 
Sandra & 
Aiyana & 
Rekia & 
Tanisha & 
Yvette & 
Miriam & 
Shelly & 
Darnisha &
Malissa & 
Alesia & 
Shantel & 
Shereese & 
Tarika & 
Kathryn & 
Alberta & 
Kendra & 
Natasha & 
Janisha & 
Mya & 
Eleanor & 
&&&&& 

**Black Girls from the Future:**

I dream of purgatory rooms that serve whiskey sours. 

I want to slit my wrists — vertical not horizontal — _I like to be successful_. This is not
something you can say in polite conversation.

Fuck polite conversation. 

I’m not into Whiteys on the moon, but I belong there. The rat done already bit me. I’m
rabid. Beam me up, Sun Ra. Space is the place. Where else can black girls from the
future go? 

The future has been around so long it is now the past. Black girls like me — where can
we go? Spoiler alert: No where. 

There are hoodoo women, Mississippi clay & tinctures in my blood. Was born a diviner.  
Root woman. This is what they called women like me then. This is my inheritance. 

We have always toed the line between the fourth dimension and the other side.
There’s no place for us now. 

No one loves a crazy child. 

_Diamond Sharp is a poet and essayist from Chicago. She is an associate editor of Rookie and tweets at (1)._

1) (https://twitter.com/diamonde)