Ten years of
Barbican Young Poets

I’m Rooting For Everybody Black¹ 

always.

Mostly that means I don’t want the black character to get dead off first. My hope is a poke at the
swaying Jenga tower. It doesn’t always fall, sometimes the black character get dead off second.

I’m rooting for everybody black
always.

Mostly that means screaming when I see a black face. One you recognise is sweeter; a British one
is sweetest. Like the taste of my shout when I saw Michaela Coel on the USS Callister.

I’m rooting for everybody black
always.

It looks like he’s singing and dancing, but this brother’s taking enormous chances ². Kendrick
finishes. The audience rise to their feet applauding, white froth from every ocean gathered in
that room to clap.

Pastor came and preached the same sermon two years ago. Rockface hits water over and over
hoping at some point thy listen.

I’m rooting for everybody black
always.

Mostly that means paying to see Black Panther more than once. So much black on a Hollywood
screen, I must soak my eyes in it. I would drown in black like a satellite floating in space.

I am hoping against sense that Hollywood is the same. I am done seeing blackberries drowned in
milk.

I’m rooting for everybody black
always

<sub>¹ During an interview on the red carpet at the 2017 Emmys, Issa Rae (award winning actor, writer, director, producer and web series creator) was asked who’d be rooting for that night. She responded, ‘I’m rooting for everybody black. I am. Betting on black tonight’.

² As part of Kendrick Lamar’s 2018 Grammy performance, Dave Chappelle (legendary comedian and actor) made some timely comments about what the great artist was doing. During his second interruption he said, 'Is this on cable, this CBS? ‘Cos it looks like he’s singing and dancing, but this brother’s taking enormous chances. Rumble, young man, rumble!”'</sub>

_{Visit Sugar J's website}

Mother: Juggler of Clouds.

_{Expert in holding the sky when it threatens to fall,
when the Gods strike their fists and the thunder
heads mercilessly for the Earth.}

There is a naivety in your belief,
threaded through your body
like embroidery on silk scarves.
I am unpicking the gullibility
you sewed into my skin.

An open heart is an unguarded target.
I once believed a boy
until my heart became a spinning top.

*
I apologise for trying to crush the questions,
ripe berries, in your mouth.

I must not bite the hand that fed me.

It is something that comes from learning
the origin of your body.

Surely you yourself have felt the dark descend?

One day I will ask which continent made your body
shudder least, think myself more like you than I imagine myself to be right now.

It caught me by surprise when the woman at the counter
said our eyes were cut from the same stone.

Two of my cousins have my face

but we do not talk.

*
Do you sometimes forget those years we shared that same bed
in the cramped bedsit we called home? I sometimes forget

the week you said you were visiting family so my body,
a thief of your love, would not clutter your mind.

Did you nearly believe you had not ended up here?
Was it a shock when I returned, as real as ever,
waiting to be fed?

*

If I were ruler for a day, I would decree a law:

Mothers, when your daughter reaches sixteen,
you must sit her down,
explain the process of how you came into yourself.
You may use photographic aids,
but you must also use your words,
those precious stones you have a habit
of storing – I wonder if they were stones
or unspoken words in Virginia Woolf’s pockets?

*
Your silence is fierce and dark, without hope of light.

I would like to throw you a party, buy you a red dress,
give you a whole night with nothing to do in it but laugh,
admire the length of your legs in such alien heels.

Lady in Red,
as you slip the right shoe off and on, you think
it equivalent to the lengthening of your first born
in those initial six months of no sleep and less money.

*
Though I fear this life chose you, came toward you
like a grey cloud in a barren field,

there is laughter to be found, isn’t there?

The same laughter that came when my cold feet
used to brush your leg in that bed,

there is laughter to be found, the other side of tomorrow,
when you realise you are still here.

Why did you think you wouldn’t be, silly?

*
You have a skill of rebuilding the sky each morning,
refusing to break if some days it is not as high
as your God first placed it.

I am mastering that strength that comes from the gut,
when the rope pulling you up
is cutting your hands to shreds.

This life is a subtle balancing act.
It takes practice, you say,
I’ve been juggling these clouds for a lifetime.

_{Visit Aisling's website}

XY & XX & YX & YY

I was born into tight t-shirts and loose jeans.
Into blue painted tiles and loud tractor cars,
thrown bruise first into aggressive handshakes and puffed out chests,
I was born into boy.

I was born into grasping at tears and opening doors.
Into muddy football games and locker room silence,
smothered watertight with unmeasurable heights and lost expectations,
I was born into boy.

I was born into colourless face paint and bitten down nails.
Into punching walls death, and clenched sore fists,
buried garden deep with narrow tightropes and fatal falling mistakes,
I was born into boy.

I was born into toy soldiers and tarnished rugby boots.
Into thought out drill routines and gelled-back hair,
sealed with the lid shut on navy measured boxes and trumpet marches,
I was born into boy.

---18 births later---

The pulsing wine lipstick took hold of my cracks.
The slick matte polish drowned over my index.
The neatly crafted skirt hung just above my nerves.
I was never asked to be boy

_{Visit Travis' website}