they don’t love you like i love you
my mother said this to me long before
beyonce lifted the lyrics from the yeah yeah yeahs
what my mother meant by don’t stray
was that she knew all about it the way
it feels to need someone to love you
someone not your kind someone white
someone some many who live because so
many of mine have not and further live
on top of those of ours who don’t
i’ll say say say i’ll say say say what
is the united states if not a clot of
clouds if not spilled milk or blood if
not the place we once were in the
millions
america is maps
maps are ghosts
white and layers of people and places i
see through
my mother
like your mother has always known best
knew that i’d been begging for them to
lay my face against their white labs to
be held in something more than the loud
light of their projectors as they
flicker themselves sepia or blue all
over my body
all this time i thought my mother said
wait as in give them a little more time
to know your worth
when really she said wait
meaning heft preparing me for the yoke
of myself the beast of my country’s
burdens which is less worse than my
country’s plow
yes when my mother said they don’t love
you like i love you she meant natalie
that doesn’t mean you aren’t good

Transcribed from the video “Natalie Diaz: They Don’t Love You Like I Love You” by Natalie Diaz and Mellon Foundation.

About the poet Natalie Diaz

With references to songs “Hold Up” by Beyonce and “Maps” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this poem takes popular music references and invites us into the privacy of the poet’s family life to share their feelings and path to healing. Learn more about Natalie Diaz HERE.

Maps by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Hold Up by Beyonce