HOW DO YOU MATTER? to a country that sees your skin as a weapon. your sibling. your father. your mother. your close friend. slain. it’s a wound you carry like bites on your ankle. covered with socks and silence and neglect. how many souls have they misdiagnosed? misunderstood? punished? they know. but… Continue reading Matter.
One in the Morning. One hundred dollars to be loved for one hour by a woman named Beloved. The volume on the rental car radio is turned all the way down to one as you and her wrinkle the leather in the backseat with your naked, dry flesh. One time when… Continue reading One in the Morning (A Ghazal)
it was always me vs the world: buying hot cheetos and a fountain drink a cashier behind a counter calling the cops. walking down the street a blind woman calling the cops. laughing during a movie a woman with popcorn calling the cops. unlocking the door to my apartment a jogger… Continue reading DAMN (inspired by Kendrick Lamar)
“Regularly going to concerts could lead to a longer, happier life.”––Patrick Fagan of GU elbow to elbow in a hot and loud crowd of intimate and noisy strangers that are drenched in spores of sweat as they dance and stomp recklessly with their limbs and sticky hair on top of hardwood floors stained with… Continue reading Endorphins
I think about the mornings it saved me: a purple dinosaur in the morning. a big, yellow bird in the afternoon. old plastic bowls full of warm milk and colorful cereal residue. loud weekend living rooms. cooking pies with cold dirt and pebbles in the white, hard plastic house with pink shutters in… Continue reading Alta Vista
I come from a long line of black faces sculpted from the dry, jet black meat of a sunflower. Created in thirty different shades of black, but all given the same smile. White smiles as shiny and sly as the fat beads of sweat running down the sun’s thick neck. These faces and smiles traveled… Continue reading From a Flower
The burgundy bugs crawl all around in my brain. Dancing under the pink meat of my face. Their little sticky, sinister feet march again and again. If I wasn’t insane I’d probably feel the bass of their feet dancing under the pink meat of my face. Chomping on the raw insides of my cheeks… Continue reading A Pantoum on Infestation
Sonnet 2: The Blues A blue butterfly landed on my windowsill last night and I let him in because you had the same eyes. But his skin was blue and yours was black but your aura had a blueness to it. Do you still feel that way sometimes Blue? You never told… Continue reading Sonnet 2: The Blues
Sonnet 1: A Love Poem I’m exactly what you said I would be. The sin, the stain, the blood, the pain, the wrath, the greed. I’m nothing more than you thought of me. I’m just like your nightmares, except I bleed. My blood reeks of salty teardrops and hate. It reeks of soggy darkness… Continue reading Sonnet 1: A Love Poem
He stood there. Co-existing with Water Grass Mountains Every form of a beating heart. He looked down. He was too busy In the rocks To notice The gray sky cast above. He chose the rocks. Over the Water Grass Mountains His heart. He chose the rocks. The Sulking Dark… Continue reading Blood and Stones.
