Beyonce's Lemonade Visual Album: Lemonade Poems by Warsan Shire

LEMONADE

Poems by: Warsan Shire

Visual Album by: Beyonce

Intuition

I tried to make a home out of you, but doors lead to trap doors, a stairway leads to nothing

Unknown women wander the hallways at night

Where do you go when you go quiet?

You remind me of my father, a magician ... able to exist in two places at once

In the tradition of men in my blood, you come home at 3 a.m. and lie to me

What are you hiding?

The past and the future merge to meet us here

What luck. What a f*cking curse

Denial

I tried to change

Closed my mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less awake

Fasted for 60 days, wore white, abstained from mirrors, abstained from sex, slowly did not speak another word

In that time, my hair, I grew past my ankles

I slept on a mat on the floor

I swallowed a sword

I levitated

Went to the basement, confessed my sins, and was baptized in a river

I got on my knees and said 'amen' and said 'I mean.'

I whipped my own back and asked for dominion at your feet

I threw myself into a volcano

I drank the blood and drank the wine

I sat alone and begged and bent at the waist for God

I crossed myself and thought I saw the devil

I grew thickened skin on my feet, I bathed in bleach, and plugged my menses with pages from the holy book, but still inside me, coiled deep, was the need to know ... Are you cheating on me?

Cheating? Are you cheating on me?

Anger 

If it's what you truly want ...

I can wear her skin over mine

Her hair over mine

Her hands as gloves

Her teeth as confetti

Her scalp, a cap

Her sternum, my bedazzled cane

We can pose for a photograph, all three of us

Immortalized ... you and your perfect girl

I don't know when love became elusive

What I know is, no one I know has it

My father's arms around my mother's neck, fruit too ripe to eat

I think of lovers as trees ... growing to and from one another

Searching for the same light

Why can't you see me?

Why can't you see me?

Why can't you see me?

Everyone else can 

Apathy 
So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you've killed me?

Here lies the body of the love of my life, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head

Here lies the mother of my children, both living and dead

Rest in peace, my true love, who I took for granted

Most bomb p*ssy who, because of me, sleep evaded

Her god listening

Her heaven will be a love without betrayal

Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks

  

Emptiness 

She sleeps all day

Dreams of you in both worlds
Tills the blood, in and out of uterus
Wakes up smelling of zinc, grief sedated by orgasm, orgasm heightened by grief
God was in the room when the man said to the woman, "I love you so much. Wrap your legs around me

Pull me in, pull me in, pull me in

“Sometimes when he'd have her nipple in his mouth, she'd whisper, "Oh, my God." That, too, is a form of worship

 Her hips grind, pestle and mortar, cinnamon and cloves

Whenever he pulls out ... loss

Dear moon, we blame you for floods ... for the flush of blood ... for men who are also wolves

We blame for the night for the dark, for the ghosts

Accountability

You find the black tube inside her beauty case where she keeps your father's old prison letters

You desperately want to look like her

You look nothing like your mother

You look everything like your mother

Film star beauty

How to wear your mother's lipstick

You go to the bathroom to apply your mother's lipstick

Somewhere no one can find you

You must wear it like she wears disappointment on her face

Your mother is a woman and women like her cannot be contained

Mother dearest, let me inherit the earth

Teach me how to make him beg

Let me make up for the years he made you wait

Did he bend your reflection?

Did he make you forget your own name?

Did he convince you he was a god?

Did you get on your knees daily?

Do his eyes close like doors?

Are you a slave to the back of his head?

Am I talking about your husband or your father?



 
Reformation
He bathes me until I forget their names and faces
I ask him to look me in the eye when I come home

Why do you deny yourself heaven?

Why do you consider yourself undeserving?

Why are you afraid of love?

You think it's not possible for someone like you

But you are the love of my life

You are the love of my life

You are the love of my life

Forgiveness 
Baptize me ... now that reconciliation is possible

If we're gonna heal, let it be glorious

1,000 girls raise their arms

Do you remember being born?

Are you thankful for the hips that cracked?

The deep velvet of your mother and her mother and her mother?

There is a curse that will be broken

 

 
Resurrection

Something is missing

So many young women, they tell you, "I want me a hu — see, all them make me feel better than you." So how we supposed to lead our children to the future?

What do we do? How do we lead them?

Love. L-O-V-E, love. Mm-mmm-mmm

Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus

I just love the Lord, I'm sorry, brother

I love the Lord

That's all I got.

When your back gets against the wall and your wall against your back, who you call?

Hey! Who you call? Who you call?

You gotta call Him

You gotta call Jesus

You gotta call Him

You gotta call Him 'cause you ain't got another hope

You are terrifying ... and strange and beautiful

Magic.

 

 

 

Hope

The nail technician pushed my cuticles back ... turns my hand over, stretches the skin on my palm and says, "I see your daughters and their daughters."

That night in a dream, the first girl emerges from a slit in my stomach

The scar heals into a smile

The man I love pulls the stitches out with his fingernails

We leave black sutures curling on the side of the bath

I wake as the second girl crawls headfirst up my throat, a flower blossoming out of the hole in my face

Redemption
Take one pint of water, add a half pound of sugar, the juice of eight lemons, the zest of half a lemon

Pour the water from one jug then into the other several times

Strain through a clean napkin

Grandmother, the alchemist, you spun gold out of this hard life, conjured beauty from the things left behind

Found healing where it did not live

Discovered the antidote in your own kit

Broke the curse with your own two hands

You passed these instructions down to your daughter who then passed it down to her daughter

I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up

I was served lemons, but I made lemonade

My grandma said "Nothing real can be threatened."

True love brought salvation back into me

With every tear came redemption and my torturers became my remedy

So we're gonna heal

We're gonna start again

You've brought the orchestra, synchronized swimmers

You're the magician

Pull me back together again, the way you cut me in half

Make the woman in doubt disappear

Pull the sorrow from between my legs like silk

Knot after knot after knot

The audience applauds ... but we can't hear them

 

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