A Letter to Black Femmes
by Assetou Xango
Black femme.
You night sky,
You starless galaxy
You
stars for eyes.
You
are so full of empty
of womb
of creation
You
balance of holy fire
You misunderstanding
You
misunderstood
You
so beautiful
so lawless
so… dark
They branded you that, you know?
“dark,” “black,” “demon,”
You
all reclamation
all “yin,” “rebirth,”
You
beaten spine still straight
you clawed teeth
you rip them apart with rhetoric
and discourse.
You
all community,
all let’s talk this through
all “What is ailing you, my love?”
Them
tired of hearing about how black you are,
How straight your hair is not
Wishing
you’d just blend in
Wishing you’d stop being all bold colored font
You
all redefining black as beautiful
nappy as galaxy
You all proud
them all scared
You not running
them all shaking.
You
You
You
stand tall against the wind
You recognize your skin as baobab tree
You all deeply rooted
You
wondering about your roots
on a land that feels like sand
You clinging onto the depths of empty
You know empty
You’ve claimed it
made it friend
You know what happens here,
in a starless night,
in a planet-less galaxy
in the largest womb ever known.
Here
is where you have always
created best
Assetou Xango is a poet and community activist born and raised in Colorado. They have been writing since they were in 8th grade. As a teenager, Xango was featured on HBO’s Brave New Voices 2010. They are a two-time TEDxMileHigh Speaker. Xango has represented Denver in spoken word poetry competitions across the nation and has been featured as one of Westword’s Top 100 Creatives. Their work has been published in Glyph, Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s literary journal.
Xango is currently the Poet Laureate of Aurora, Colorado (2017–2021). They run their own coaching business, helping Black Femmes heal their unworthy stories and live the lives they desire. In all of their work, Xango is dedicated to advancing the visibility and rights of womxn and gender non-conforming people of color and to promoting the use of storytelling to dismantle binaries and divisions.
