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Uploaded:2020-06-08
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Tabia Yapp reads "Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s", a poem by Morgan Parker.

Tabia Yapp:
https://www.tabiayapp.com/
https://twitter.com/tabiayapp

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Hi.  My name is Tabia Yapp and I chose a poem by Morgan Parker and it is titled, "Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s" and I love this poem because I love the way that Morgan Parker has been able to seamlessly integrate comedy into her writing and I just think she's a beautiful poet and a wonderful ancestor for us. 

Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing
a Rib in Alabama, 1990s

Since I thought I'd be dead
by now everything
I do is fucking perfect walking wreck
reckless and men
I suck their bones until they're perfect
I don't sleep with accolades I don't get touched
in the night all men do is cry
and ask me to be their mama I can't
get a decent fuck to save my
when I think about their feelings I don't care
It's cool it's cool come to mama there is so much
death here she is casual and almost fragrant like
the word kill doesn't sound as bad as it is
All my friends are sisters and husbands I'm afraid
to be uncharted I want an empire in my teeth but I can't
be bothered to wear anything but silk
I have grown up less mysterious than my myth
All men do is think I'm looking at them
When I think about them tasting me I don't
I mean don't Google my tits when you can just
Unfortunately I have a body and I'm the only 
one in charge of it you know what I eat the bones too
I'm in the world I'm in the world
nobody cares where I came from