What Kind of Song Are You?

What Kind of Song Are You? by Cheyenne Marcelus

What kind of song are you?

Strung through the saddle like satin

Or like barbed wire,

Colliding across cilia

Or screeching off the wall,

Smooth like jazz,

Like a Manhattan,

Like warm maple syrup,

Freshly lotioned hands gliding across a lover’s back

Or bass like thunder

Roaring down pain so they all know,

So they all will feel

Loudness like lightning

Striking violently

Setting the ground ablaze

A fire that grows and consumes

A trail of lovers burned alive?

What kind of song are you?

A lullaby

Or a drive by

Shouts and shrills singing praises

And professing lowliness

Are you like gospel?

Hands high

And hips low

Shake the devil off

Round through the pews

Grabbing of hands

Latching together of loved ones

A community at the altar

Bowed before the throne of togetherness

Are you a dying genre

Of fatherless kids

Rocked to bed by styrofoam cups

Filled with lava

Passed from mouth to mouth

Destructive words geniusly parsed together

For the catchphrases to the detriment of a nation?

The ornaments fall from the alter with each syllable

A community member detaches with each lash of derogatory lyric

Like a whip across her womb.

<img class="wp-block-coblocks-author__avatar-img" src="https://evepoetry.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/8964a-cheyennemarcelus_eve-poetry.jpg&quot; alt="<strong>Cheyenne Marcelus

Cheyenne Marcelus

Cheyenne Marcelus is a health research professional by day, Poet by night, and round-the-clock mother and wife. She is the author of the poetry collection Good to Me: A Poetic Journey to Self-Acceptance and Self-Preservation.

She has performed at various spoken word events across Canada and the United States, and is a former Southern Regional Winner and State Finalist of the Mississippi Poetry-Out-Loud Contest.

Cheyenne is a Columbia, Mississippi native residing in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband and son. Follow her on Instagram @cheyennemarcelus or check out www.cheyennemarcelus.com for more.

Cheyenne on Instagram

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