Raven Taylor
Raven Taylor is a queer poet of color. She has been a member of the 2011 and 2012 YouthSpeaks Slam Team. She has preformed in a number of different venues around Seattle such as Town Hall, The Triple Door, The Neptune Theater, The Moore Theater, and the EMP. Raven Recently competed in IWPS 2013 and was ranked as the 18th best poet in the world! Raven writes poems about grief, survival, growing pains, being a black girl, and the strong women who raised her. She used poetry to tell stories, hell, and make sense of all the changes that happen in her life. She is currently working at Queer Youth Space as the Wing 1 Coordinator of Cultural Activism.
A love poem for the fat brown girl
Remember that your thighs are thick with history.
They are a mausoleum of so many brown women scorned.
So many brown women hung by the throat to keep their voices from existing.
Remember the smell of a full kitchen, the way the sound of an oven timer feels in your blood stream.
Remember the taste of the food and the god who blesses the table. The swelling and the half moon eyes inside of your stomach.
This poem is for the first time you found a stretch mark
Scaling along your stomach like an unwanted tattoo, a forgotten birthmark or the only real evidence of your body trying to destroy you.
Remember the first time they called you fat.
Remember the exact people who said it.
Remember the way their lips moved.
The way your body sank and stuttered and forgot how protect itself.
This poem is for the first time you thought about throwing up your food.
For every holiday meal you were afraid to eat.
For every time your mother told you weren’t fat and shamed you for eating all at the same time.
If you do not feel pretty today, remember that your body is a black church in the middle of the summer.
Hot and sweaty, overfilled with the spirit of god.
Your body is gold plate and silver spoon.
Is earthquake and canyon.
Is sermon and alter call.
Your body is no temple.
Temples are silent, your body is a commotion.
A storm with no calm.
If you do not feel pretty today, remember the way their lips moved.
Remember the exact people who said it.
Remember the first time they called you fat.
You are more than just an adjective.
You are the diamond and the rough.
The empty and the taking up space.
Remember the fullness of your breast and the choir in the swinging of your hips.
Remember the full kitchens and the women who fed you.
Remember the swelling and the table and the history.
This poem is for every meal that you did or didn’t throw up.
For every single part of your body that couldn’t remember how to protect itself.
For every meal and every mirror inside every dressing room that you couldn’t walk out of without feeling like you lost a war.
Remember that your thighs are thick with history and stories and I love yous.
They are a mausoleum of so many fat brown girls.
They did not taste the food.
Did not open their half moon eyes.
Did not feel the sound of the oven timer in their blood stream,
So many fat brown girls who decided not to sit at the table
