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Dreams of Sand | Khadija Ceesay

Dreams of Sand

I am the Blackest
I have ever been,
standing with my back turned against
white sea foam, my toes
under eroded rocks.

My father is tinted purple and reaches
through my bones with his voice to say

he fears the storekeeper down the street,
who followed him to his car and
checked the depth of his pockets.

Igbo whispers rush through my ears,
push the tears out of my eyes
to drink from my cheeks.

I am the bravest
I have ever been
when I decide to lay myself,
dead, near the shoreline.

When I let the water grab me,
ankles first
rip me through the current.

I drink the ocean,
bittersweet salt.

I let it weigh my limbs down
to this foreign shore.

I am the Blackest
I have ever been with
upward eyes,
my fingers cracked and blue
in the sand.

———
Poem © Khadija Ceesay
Image: Public Domain Pixabay

Khadija Ceesay
Khadija Ceesay
Khadija Ceesay (she/her/hers) is a Gambian poet from Olathe, Kansas. She is currently an undergraduate student at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas and plans to continue attending graduate school to study creative writing. She has been recently published in the Southeast Kansas literary magazine, Cow Creek Review. She has been writing poetry since 2014 about her racial identity in order to understand parts of herself and owes much of the ideas behind her work to her relationships with family, both good and bad. | @/honeycolumn

1 COMMENT

  1. Salutations from the Gambia!
    I write to Express my profound appreciation of your poem!

    For it has reminded me of my origin and true identity as a Gambian!

    May you continue to soar high in the realms of literacy! For black we rep and together we are African descendants! Long lIve Khadija

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