united snakes of america

nina, 

while watching the netflix documentary on your life, "what happened, miss simone?" i was struck by the sheer pain and heaviness that you carried in your eyes and in your voice. your eyes seemed to overflow with all the words and pain and emotion that your soul simply didn't have space to carry. i admired the way you were unapologetically yourself and how you used your voice to talk about the things that mattered the most to the black community. i love how expressive and unyielding you were when taking about your sexuality and vocalizing on a very national and public platform the importance of sexual pleasure. i think that for a black woman to say this during the 60s is revolutionary and powerful. you are revolutionary. 

i love how you moved your shoulders and arched your back when you danced on stage. your movements were golden, graceful strokes like that of an antelope. 

there is so much i would have liked to ask you. did you ever want to feel less deeply? sing less achingly? love less powerfully? care less keenly? 

or do you embrace those things entirely because they are the reason that you are exactly who you are?  did you feel misunderstood all the time?

towards the end of your life, your shoulders seemed to have gotten more sloped and it seemed that the sheer burden of the pain and tragedies bore its weight on your body.

the snakes crushed the life out of you, nina. america, the white man's playground only tolerated you while you were quiet. after you set loose your voice and used it to threaten the white man while talk about the beauty of blackness, america chewed you, spit you out, and left you discarded on the sidewalk. your husband wrapped himself around you, stuck his fangs into the side of your neck and emptied in you toxins so destructive, that they almost broke you. 

nina, you are a traveler, you are african royalty, you are a black queen. i bow down to you. 

faatimah