ASHIA AJANI
nameless
At coffee shops, I take on a new baptism. I just want my
cold brew. The jumbled pieces of genealogy settle into
old dust. Seeds knocked from my braids long, long ago.
My ancestry, choking on seawater. Lost, phonetically
abandoned. Softened cheekbones. Facing eastward. Always.
Any time some variation of my name is uttered, a dead
slave rises from behind my ear and pinches the skin red.
At the border between Zambia and South Africa: fresh.
Someone pronounces my name correctly for the first time.
All that is left in the space bounded by home and history
is longing. The hyphen between African-American. Super-
imposed identity. I surrender a piece of my body every
time I am asked to place root. Interesting enough to inquire.
All the mistakes of the Atlantic reside on my face. Nameless.
I’m sorry, I don’t have any clean answers for you.
I think the Blackest thing about me
are my eyes.
Bless how they were taught to keep moving.
To seek truth.
To always greet the dawn with devotion.
Ashia Ajani is a Black storyteller and environmental educator originally from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains and the unceded territory of the Cheyenne, Ute, Arapahoe and Comanche peoples. Ashia is an environmental justice educator with Mycelium Youth Network and co-poetry editor of The Hopper Literary Magazine. They have been published in Hennepin Review, Exposition Review, Frontier Poetry, Them.us and Sierra Magazine, among others, and have forthcoming work in Apogee Journal and Thimble Lit Magazine. Follow their work at ashiaajani.com.