Recipe for Black Girls
By Gloria Blizzard

In order to get to the other side of exclusion, you must grow wings.

Sit loudly when the room clamps down on your breath.

When odd looks turn your way and are blind of your personhood,

breathe in cool air.

Spot the other excluded ones and smile broadly.

Cross the floor,

bring them trinkets and warm gestures.

Thank them for their existence and photograph them at loving angles.

Become expert in thriving.

Grow bigger.

Avoid the chronically insincere.

Eat marvellously round foods and drink in all colours.

Your being is effervescence.

It can scatter like fireworks and reform at will.

Spin around the limitations of those who would do you harm.

They will not catch you. 

Gloria Blizzard is a non-fiction writer, poet, and penner of songs, whose wordsmithing has appeared in literary publications, magazines and sound recordings. She is currently an MFA Candidate at the University of Kings College. You can find her at www.gloriablizzard.com, IG @gloriawrites, and Twitter @gloriablizzard.