i flipped a table once | 2025 Lenten Devotional | Day 24

March 28th, 2025
by Roya Marsh

i flipped a table once.

By Roya Marsh

CONTENT WARNING: LANGUAGE

cups, plates, scattered
spaghetti massacre on laps.
all the restaurant alert
&this ga'damn tv
sayin' WE lost!

white girls vanish
the whole world grit they teeth,
but a black girl's disappearance
warrants city wide curfews;
a second silencing
60 black girls ghost //
in the nation's capital
&my phone never rang about it!

64,000 in the world
&Lady Gaga ain’t sanging bout it.
whole world a stop motion.
freeze frame.
stand still.

just that final gust of wind
that kills the candle.
*shiiiiit, WE already dead.

ain't no "epidemic"
of people being snatched.
it's a rite of passage.
every gentrified brick is
another brown future
collapsed into rubble !

no one told the Black girl
"see you later" was a prayer
begging us survive our own erasure.

they finna celebrate our absence
with silence. no sense
in giving white media the right to speak
for us

ain't no siren
news segment
no forest fire
or biblical flood
coming to make us anew

if nothing has tried to kill you
you have failed
bullet be to black body
like our body be nothing at all
ain't no video of our maim & murder
cameras couldn't capture our kidnapping
our mama’s tucking in a phantom
at night
an invisible vigil
a memorial
for the girl
the world has already forgotten

we gotta be our own
saviors
I'm fighting for you
got my eyes & ears peeled
knuckles bare & bloody
hoarse
you ain't gonna never be alone
long as my heart
got rhythm

!scream!
!exist!
go Jesus in the temple on em'

let them hear our battle cry
let's crash this
private lynching
let loose our noosed neck
leave the gawking crowd
astounded
when black girls
rise from the dust
they make of us

ALERT
Dashaan
I'm crying your name
Relisha
Alert
Taylor
I'm looking for you
Dayana
even if no one else is
Talisha
call back
Morgan
come back
Jacqueline
Robin
Aniya
ALERT OLUWATOYIN
ALERT OLUWATOYIN
ALERT OLUWATOYIN
ALERT
ALERT
ALERT
________________

yeah, i flipped a table once
fucked they whole shit up//
and i'd do it again
if that's what it takes for y'all
to see us

Bronx, New York native Roya Marsh is a poet, performer, educator and activist. She is the author of dayliGht, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry. She works feverishly toward Queer liberation and dismantling white supremacy. Roya is the co-founder of the Bronx Poet Laureate, a PEN America Emerging Voices Mentor, Lambda Literary faculty and an awardee of the Lotos Foundation Prize for poetry.

Listen to Today's Scripture Reading

John 2:13-24

Jesus in Jerusalem at Passover

13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. 15 He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. 16 He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me.

18 Then the Jewish leaders asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?”

19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.”

20 The Jewish leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?” 21 But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23 While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, many believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs that he did. 24 But Jesus didn’t trust himself to them because he knew all people.

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Posted in Lent Devotional 2025