To the sycamores, redwoods, pines, firs, and sweetgums
Unwitting adventurers
Who have seen more of the universe than I
Or the bravest sailor or mountaineer.
Tell me your secrets, I beg.
You dare to stand tall and brave
Untouched by a trauma
You can scarcely recall
From a trip 'round the moon.
I am the seed you once were.
Taken from my homeland.
Denied the comfort of soil.
Weightless, wanting, and
Utterly unable to return.
How can you stand there
As if you were always at peace?
How can you be grounded
Having touched the universe?
Jan 31, 2022
Jan 31, 2022 at 2:37 PM UTC
We don't want the world.
No one asked for this.
There's only so many walls,
So many scales and shells
And piles of warm blankets.
So many deep breathes
And shallow pursuits.
We can only scream so loud
And quietly dread
And wait for the ending.
Apr 20, 2021
Apr 20, 2021 at 11:56 PM UTC
There I was, as a child, sat
Beneath the willow tree
Beside the pool
Near the badminton court
While soft branches swayed down
Wisping onto the neighbor's yard
Like the gentle caress
Of a lover's touch
Or the fall of your hair
As you lean down for a kiss
In the pool of pillows
Where I make my nest
A child then and a man now
I love it in your shade
Aug 2, 2020
Aug 2, 2020 at 8:07 PM UTC
Abolish the police for crimes against us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the prisons that enslave us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the Guard turned against us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the army primed to stop us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the chief who rails about us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the laws that sanction “justice”
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the state unjustly above us
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the capital propping them up
(Go further; to the root)
Tear down their factories choking us
(Go further; to the root)
Crush the billionaires into dust
(Go further; to the root)
Abolish the voice inside of us
That tells us the world simply “must”
Jun 24, 2020
Jun 24, 2020 at 3:23 AM UTC
We will never forget the names of those
Who should have been known for so much more.
Sandra Bland. George Floyd. Tamir Rice. Riah Milton. James Scurlock. Rem'Mie Fells. Breonna Taylor. Too many to name. 400 years.
We remember them for all they could have been.
Not martyrs. Murdered.
People living and then gone forever.
White supremacy is not poetic. It is a blunt instrument.
We must fight it every day.
Jun 15, 2020
Jun 15, 2020 at 4:31 PM UTC
On summer days,
Still wet from thawing, I bloom
Into the person that I love
With all my heart, I sing
And laugh and race around the fire
On summer nights when my arms
Ache from a day of heavy living
My feet are light and my skin ripens
And I think, finally, "I am me"
And I pause to consider the grey,
Cold drudgery that consumes
This man for too many months.
I would weep for him, but
Cannot catch my breath in the sun
Jun 13, 2020
Jun 13, 2020 at 12:24 AM UTC
All the world is sorrow
As we force our eyes
To read the names
Of all we have lost
All the world is restless
Like a tape stuck
In a stunted spiral
Waiting to begin again
The world is dying
And so are we
One by one it takes us
And the list grows long
May 24, 2020
May 24, 2020 at 3:26 AM UTC
Every morning I microwave myself
Reheating stale words on my lips
As I shuffle toward the inevitable
Sleep that never quite takes
In the vain hope that tomorrow
There exists a new "me"
Who is finally ready to become
Jan 8, 2020
Jan 8, 2020 at 3:37 AM UTC
My mother eats music like chocolates
Consuming sweetness and sadness slowly,
And always in moderation.
Too many Adele songs, she warns,
Might cause the heart to bleed
And the world to become less solid.
She revels in austerity;
Proud that her life is clean
Even if it is sterile.
But I want to feel it all for myself!!
I want to scream a tornado from my lungs
And crash the moon into darkness...
I want to love and hate and die and ****
To live without dread for a single second.
To squeeze the sweetness out of every pop song.
I want to kiss a boy that I like so much
Without a voice in my neck
Choking my ambitions.
I want to live without a howling past.
To die without a fettered future.
To dream without a present tense.
To eat the madness of the world
In a feast of fancy
From which I cannot return.
Dec 30, 2019
Dec 30, 2019 at 3:02 AM UTC
What the boastful fail to say
About “a man at every port”
Is how a soul can crack
Between the vast distances
One beloved in [redacted] who feels
Like smooth liquor and cries
So softly when I rub his back
Because I cannot touch him much
To be greeted by the too-slim smile
Of another in [redacted]
Who screams my name with a vigor
As if to remind me I’m still here
A third to the West
Who I visit too infrequently
But whose spark is still bright
When I darken the door
One more is a ghost
Whose visage travels with me
Who’s made the living look pale
Since the day that he ghosted me
A painful plight to be totally free
To hold someone in the night
And to flee by late midday
Never whole or fully held
Dec 1, 2019
Dec 1, 2019 at 4:48 PM UTC