Black Bodies Crippled Criped

To introduce myself I must introduce my body, a neglected site of inquiry.I enter this poem as the flesh, blood, and bones of my ancestors.I enter this poem an undone and remade Black, Queer, Disabled body.I am the labored joints of my grandmother, and the flesh of my grandfather now enveloped in the Earth.I am deconstructed, dismayed, and distressed.I am stolen, stiffened, and criped.I use poetry as a means for somatic exploration.I use this poem to unwind unreleased screams.I use poetry to pry at my grief, a grief that binds and undoes us simultaneously.I use poetry to examine the ravage of our bodies, and how anti-Black violence rearranges stolen muscle.I use poetry to articulate damage.Damage that is physical, spiritual, mental.I write this poem as a eulogy to my siblings.I write for those whose tendons no longer bend, stretch, constrict, or flex.I write to point toward the vestiges of Black death.I write to consider the markings it leaves on our living bodies.Black bodies on Turtle Island have been immersed in a violence that lingers, tremors, and cuts down to our bones.Thus, this poem serves as a call, as a plea, for scholars of social justice to broaden our conceptualization of disability.