teenager dreams, my friend's last sentences
we spraypainted the buildings in our hood
we lived this live, tryin to talk like legends
we didn't see an end anywhere, first we invaded streets

and then we gobbled down the city, if they were comin'
we beat em up, every baba that i construct
creates memories like the dawn of my childhood
fakers, jason warriors, half a kid, investment banker,

tremendous windows, art nouveau, and statues
statutes and club guidelines, rich business men
who bled to death in the rain, in front of their mansions
but i just took pictures, afterwards i chilled

there was no future for me, merely rappin provided a shelter
so i chained up my rage, but now i don't have to hide
i'm a giant-sized male and i endure feminists
as long as they never try to convince me of "values"

i'm a giant-sized male, mostly wicked and rotten
you got the palm in the back, catch 500 rocks, jason
into the py of queshaana, my name be tizzop
i am so true, find my face on dollar bills

and in downtown miami, where i'm shining with the sun
in order to negate a female's approach, just a pun?
i am macho like the rhymes, take you to the cinema
that much fun and a few nachos are enuff

to baste you with sm, i got a hammer *****
and hammer nails like a banger, kiddo: set sail
everything been done, and we're flying to venice
fortunately, the beard is gone, gonna meet perla

straight into the face, always for the big splash,
they are just basslines, when i'm stressed out and
hand out codeine like jason to strangers
why you stressed out? i am styling myself walking

smoke during the videocall, like a chimney
fly over the curb, one hundred miles
hunting down the traitor, his name be freddy
but i scented that liar, ****** him good like a big daddy

My perfect winter:
precious in how
the summer still
seems to
simmer within
the metro station’s
humidity.
Even if the palm trees
still do shake
alongside the rhythm
of the wind,
my perfect winter
is hot—
pink like the day-ends
of summer solstice.
They are brown like
the sugar in
how you speak
to me,
sweetened.
Orange for
the lengths
of a coral sky right
before 6 o’clock.

And perhaps
I cannot know
a more
perfect season
until I’ve spent
time away
from my orange,
brown, and pink
winters.
But for now,
I will shiver
at 75 degrees,
I will chatter my
teeth at
this humidity—
so that I may
take your hands
in my own for
warmth,
and so that I
never forget the
coarseness of your
skin during
the most perfect
time of year.

fly me from atlanta to
miami

hurry up
fast

don't make me
wait
you ain't
tizzop

South Florida
if you were a body part,
you’d be an armpit.

You’d be a bulged vein
on the side of a forehead
forever locked in a scowl
behind sunglasses.

You speak the language of horns
middle name, finger
blood type, combustible

You're a melting ***
that's boiled over the lid
sweating salt water at the brows
eyes red as the brake lights
in the maddening brightness,
you’re torrential daylight
heating nerves like greenhouse gasses
waiting for a reason to explode.

You’re a tropical motilov cocktail
no one can afford
2 parts anger, 1 part stupidity
full of yourself in a souvenir glass with a toothpick umbrella
You're all image

You’re all talk: the curse words
breaking out the mouths
of the angry line mob at Starbucks in the morning
You’re the indifferent silence
in the arena at the Heat games leaving early,
showing up late
due to the distance
from Brickell to Hialeah,
West Palm to Pompano
the gap between the entitled and the under-paid
a skyline of condos in a third world country
You’ve always been foreign to me.

You’re winterless, no chill
you attract only hurricanes
and tourists,
shoving anything that isn’t profitable
out of the way like post-storm debris
into the backyards of the Liberty City projects,
onto a landfill off the side of the Turnpike
Hide it beneath Bermuda grass,
line it with palm trees
if only conceal your cold blooded nature:
I see you.
You are overrun with iguanas,
blood-******* mosquitos
hot-headed New York drivers
not afraid to get hit

You get yours, Soflo
and you'll go as low
as the flat roofs of your duplexes
and the wages that can barely pay the rent to get it
latitude as attitude
temper as temperature
if you were a body part
I swear you’re an *******

south of the brain, one hour
in all directions,
I’d find you.
You’d impose your way
onto my flight to the Philippines,
to Seattle, to Raleigh
You’d follow me like excess baggage,
like gravity,
bringing me back when asked where I'm from:

That area north of Miami, I’d say
(the suburbs, but whatever, we are hard in our own way)
I'd show you off on their map
like some badge of grit,
certificate of aggression
I know how to break a sweat
walk brisk, drive evasive
ride storms in my sleep
I know you, I’d say,
“He’s a friend of mine.”
and I’d watch them light up
and remember
the postcards you've sent them
of the sunrise,
welcoming brown immigrants
onto white sand beaches
You were foreign to us
yet raised us as your own
in the furnace of your summers
iron on iron, the forger striking
softness into swords
built for survival
I'm made of you

my South Floridian temper
cools down
in your ocean breeze

if you were a body part,
you'd be a part of me
a socked foot in an And1 sandal
pressed to the gas pedal
as my drive takes me north
of your borders, far from home

I see you
in the rear view mirror,
tail-gating
like a sports car on the exit ramp
the color of the sun.

In those apricot-tinged nirvana days,
cigar smoke filled the stuffy restaurant in which we ate.
At the table across from us sat a couple in their fourties,
Him, a toupee-wearing, finger-clicking car salesman,
and Her, the blonde in a tight dress,
glossy white mink and even glossier white stilettos.

She talked enthusiastically about the new eastern religions,
Groups that offered "clarity" and "spiritual guidance" to the dissatisfied Miami girls such as herself.

She said that she wanted a new way of life.
(Secretly, she wanted the young guru who'd promised it to her.)
Toupee protested:
"But honey, we ain't no slaves to the machine!"
The gold Casio watch on his wrist and the tacky pearls she sported said otherwise.

Upon the waves there's being surfed,
And at cafes delights are served,
While the orange sun shares a ray,
At the end of the glowing day.

A summertime sadness and glee,
Is played alongside of the sea,
Who is rosy, pink as the sky,
As the beautiful waves pass by.