My name is Porsha Olayiwola.

I'm a writer, educator, and curator. The poem I'll be reading is called "today is a day of tiny massacres" from my debut collection of poems "i shimmer sometimes, too." "today is a day of tiny massacres" uses afrofuturism, afro horror, afro-pessimism to look at some of the microaggressions that marginalized identities sometimes experience on a day-to-day basis. today is a day of tiny massacres wherein the flight attendant laughs about my name, or i am pulled over on my way home from tour, or the european foreigner ask me where to buy drugs at the bar and so, before i leave my home, i remove my skin i pull the nude

zipper from under my chin down to my waist. i reach to my shoulder and peel

back the

dark bark

brown coating. i pull the sheath to my knees and step out of my skin like it is a jumpsuit i spent too much time letting the outside get on, i hang my skin over arms of my chair like a leather jacket wrinkles, a rippled heirloom (de) faced myself in the mirror this flesh, all veins and

blood and meat animal large eyes sphere stare back black blooming pink salmon budding bright

red

lines running all

over my

body like soldiers.