The name Ilanah means a tree... tree

Nothing bold like 'judge of God' or to be watchful and observant or pretty like 'princess, beauty or precious gem'

My name is seemingly simple

Too simple in an opinion long since reevaluated, because I have come to find the name more than fitting

 

I am a tree for the way the strands of my fully picked afro that no you can not touch blow softly in the wind

And how my "wash and go curls" bounce back to their origianal positions when playfully tugged

Because you can try to shape me, but I will grow out of whatever self-satisfying, unnatural configuration you trim me in

 

My trunk is large and round

Frequently admired for it's size and thickness

It is solid... inspirational

You formulate synthetic wood based on my trunk

 

My roots stretch deeper than 

A rich white man's pockets who's wonderin'

Which person of color not to cast in his next production

Since he knows it's all about representation

 

My arms are branches

Willowy muscles full of DNA laden with memories of brothers hanging from my boughs

And women stretched between me and another in order to extract unborn babies

 

Sap is the milk you stole from my breast

Tore my nipple from the mouth of babe

Disrupting it's nourishment, encouraging your's to feed on me

Saddening, but I heed because... I got to keep this one

 

Skin like bark protects me from your bite

Vicious dog urinating at my feet

I refuse to be nurtured by toxins

For my soil to be contaminated by constant, persistent whispers seductively coaxing me to hate myself

Hollers that temptingly invite me to the sadness

Hypnotizing chants beckoning me towards hopelessness

 

I will not be suffocated 

Take away my Carbon-12 and watch how well I finesse with 13

I continue to stand and still I rise

A tree does not grow beyond it's ability to support itself

People do not grow beyond their abilities to support themselves

So I photosynthesize my potential into existence

I can not be stopped from recapturing the light that is already mine and molding it into everything that I have always been

 

I am standing in the Sun

You meant to plant me where the Sun don't shine, but I'm the one who casts the shadows

I am a powerful tree unwavering in illumination

Excercising my perogative to shade where I please

 

My name is Ilanah

The meaning of my name is not simple

It is intricate

Much like myself

Treelike