Bound, bone straight.

Shackles finally soften and fall at my feet, with strands soon to follow. 

Rivers of hairitage lap at my back, woven from intermittent, perennial, 

and ephemeral streams; with mouths sealed in buckets of boiling runoff.

I yearn for the cool of the ocean.

Through the wire, sweat beads from a muscle’s flex as undulations unravel

beneath the flats of fingers. I send waves crashing like fourth walls; 

raining down Mother Nature’s liquids, oils and creams, as She turns winds to water, 

clouds to coconut and sunshine to shea.

Weather me undone. Weather me, Oshun.

Weather me, ocean born of braun, not brush;

born of care, not comb; born of serenity, not sulfate. 

Ocean as wide as you are deep. As tall as you are vast. 

For volume begets volume, and this Sunday is loud and long:

Aṣẹ Rapunzel.

– words by Emma Hanson