I am

[Verse]

I am a flowerpot sitting on the subway platform

Dreaming of a southern sky

I am the southern sky

Bruised hues of blues and inner city with an ocean front view

A holy ghost tongue possessed between the pews

Sleepless in the twilight

A vision board invisible to eyesight

Loose hips humming under summer porch lights

I'm the djembe drum

Rhythms spun between love-drunk knees

I'm a runaway river

A sawed-off shotgun creeping through the leaves

A kiss that quivers

A machete that bleeds

I'm the bananas on Josephine's skirt, a brown liquor flirt

Thе gardenia in Billy Holiday's hair

I'm a blues song in a cigarettе's glare

A beaded Zulu hat on Makeba's head

Bob Marley's lock, a natty dread

I'm Marcus Garvey's last microphone

Ancient lady of grace Nefertiti's royal throne, I'm a poem

I'm a poem handwritten by La Lupe on the Malecón

A grassroots meeting of orishas in the basement of a brownstone

I'm a homegirl homegrown, made of magic

A mermaid of memories swimming through tragic times

I'm the one that got away

I'm the love, I'm the love

I'm the love I never had

A cipher of butterfly wings

I'm a little girl who had big dreams and prayers in my mother's purse

I'm the color of Saturday, bouncing off the walls

I drizzle in the wind like a sun shower shawl

I'm the final hour, before the moon rests

I'm what a day looks like, honest and undressed

I'm la cascarilla on the door, windows and vents

A protector of realms

A protector of realms

I'm a Bwiti shaman who ascends

I'm the mirror

I am the mirror

I am the mirror, I'm the root and the end

I am

I am

I am not that I am

I am and we are

We, we, you and me

I am

I am because of you

We are here together

There's no me without you

I am

I said there's no me without you

We are, we, we, I, I, I

I am

I am, because we are

We are

I'm only possible because we are, you and me, we are, woo

I am

You made me possible

I am, ooh, I am

I am, I am because we are