Beautiful Black Child

How your melanin radiates amid your confidence,
the shine that exists just because you do.
Winds move through your curls,
each coil an archive,
strong enough to outlive the fire.

Each strand carries the echo of languages,
older than empires.
A drum that refuses to rest,
a pulse the world failed to still.

Your joy is rebellion.
Because they tried to make you smaller than your own breath.

It blooms where the earth was sworn barren,
Your skin is a hymn,
sung in a dialect the world could not erase.
The resonance of every ancestor who refused to bow.

A mountain rising without permission,
You are a diamond shaped by centuries of pressure,
By hands that tried to break you into dust,
and they still wonder why you shine.
Because divine you are.