"Her Sexuality Should Not Be Pathologized", Found Poetry

Published in celebration of National Poetry Month, 2017"Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems" ¹(My source material included free writes, prose, albums, & documents curated and collected as part of a Beauty Breaks workshop, led by Imani Jackson, as well as quotes from my own, unused, draft material)My parameters included:1) Using phrases that referenced or envisioned "Grandmother", "Grandma", "Gramma", etc.2) Using phrases with a color in them3) Using half of the sentence / phrase for each instance (the meaning was re-imagined through punctuation and / or lack of punctuation, where appropriate)

"Her sexuality should not be pathologized".

Red and hot like that candy my Grandma lovedI feel you come closer and your blue energy cools meAnd then she came, coffee skin, red hair -

more red

The whitest background you've ever seenThe velveteen blood orchidPurple sounds so tasty like sweet and tartPurple rainI could still smell its sweet magenta rimmed messagePremonitions of a grown ass woman.