Fourth Thursday

Ahriyana always admired
The fingers of Alicia Keys
But couldn't forget Rihanna's songs.
I watched as
She would press between black keys
And hope to see the stems
Of techno-pop anthems spring
From the strings of the baby grand.
Alicia would tell her to be a superwoman
And my cousin kept her head up,
Even when Rihanna told her
Rehab was okay
My cousin would grow the hands
Of Alicia Keys and the head
Of Ri-Ri.

Ahriyana met Stanley when
When the good girl went bad,
2007
Rihanna's song stopped in 2009.

My cousin won't tell us how often
Stanley hit her. We don't know
When the techniques of BF Skinner
Were used on her, Conditioning,
where his palm
Kept her silent and his fist
Kept her obedient,
where his knuckles
Suppressed her opinion
And where his eyes swallowed
Her indecision.
17 and impressionable,
Carrying the head of a Barbadian
Goddess with no Kingdom,
My cousin walked away from
Her piano and became a drum.

Sometimes, I wonder how hard
It was for her to push those piano keys.
I wonder how much weight she
Pressed down every time a d-flat
Rang from the hammers striking
The strings, How hard was it to
Keep her head above the
Keys, to not drown at the pedals,
to see the notes she grew up
Knowing.

How hard was it to remember
The A-sharp that started her name.
How hard it was to know the tempo
Of a heartbeat
How hard it was to remember
What fingertips felt like
I wondered when I would get the strength
To tell her
"That your voice was not created to be wasted,
That your body was not created to be a tool
But as a vessel,
That when a man speaks to you,
He'll me speaking his future,
Even when he's stuck in the past
That you are more than sum of your parts
You are a math that can only be
Explained in the form of hearts and treble clefs…"

I wondered
until Ahriyana found her
Hands again.
Her hands, which molded melodies
And brought chords together
As families, held men and hugged
Women
She found those hands that
Couldn't break bones but
Could scratch skin and tear
The flesh of any animal
Willing to harm her,
Those hands that made songs violent
And made lullabies sweet,
Those hands that demanded respect
Even when she's falling
In and out of love.
Ahriyana found the fingers
That didn't press keys,
But became them,
Which would one day hold a child
And which would hold the hand
Of the partner who wished to help,
Once again, her hands crafted
Masterpieces, and I hope
They show him
That the cracks in her palms
Do not harbor hate,
But are the proof that she
Is still alive,
That the strength in her fingers
Are the not the sign of a man
But the beauty of a lady
I hope that Yani's Hands
Remind Stanley what
a woman's worth really is.
Her hands move men to curl
Their hands around pens
And rewrite their own albums:
Apologies
In A-Minor.

Yani is not Alicia Keys.
She wrote her own song,
No longer listening to the drones
Of SOS, no longer needing a replay,
She needed her own hands,
Her own keys.

I am not defending Stanley.
I am merely remarking upon the
Wonder of watching a woman
Rewrite the melody of her
Own song.