we were born
the same year. we have three
white hairs near our forehead. we will
become two silver foxes,
you and I.

you ask me
if we can take the elevator
to the roof.

the cool air is irresistible.
i stare at you,
as you pull your shirt off,
over the roof top
and I proceed to pull
mine off too.

there is no difference to me,
that you are labeled as a “man” and I
as I “woman”.
I am too old for gender norms to keep a sweaty shirt over me, when I could cool
down too.

the cool air is cool.
my chest is a chest.
you and I exit the web of fiction
and emerge naked of them,
as if rescued from a sunken ship
–we inhale the air fresher
because we chose.
we chose.

over your head
you can keep ten cloaks
hide behind enough distance
so that everything might be
half life and half made up
in your mind–
but I want to witness supple miracles
tucked in reality’s silk slip, it’s splendid
tales so unbelievable
they shakes reality’s vines to offer
the juiciest of grapes
I honor all creases, all bruises
all howling nights if it means
I can see the day breaking
so bright and clear over the my life’s
horizon

The deep crease in my eyes
is as deep as the ocean
and as profound
as every word I sincerely
wrote to you

I swallow, all the light
in my cup, all the light and hope
my father poured, when
he would take us out
to protests

It feel it ,warm light, traveling
down my throat, my white
ancestors atoning, my black ancestors surviving transatlantic ships
still praying,  my indigenous
ancestor watching their home
burn down and still building
a new one

I swallow all their light, amidst the sorrow…
I must not coward…not now… I cannot …
I drink from their light on days like today

For all my lives lived and lost
I cry for none of them

for now in understand
What a gift this mystery is

for all my lives lived
I am thankful for each of them

Sometimes it pulsates in pain
and I ask “ is death near?“
but then I think when has it
never been near
from the time
my mother birthed me
it’s been looming
over my head
holding hands with my nativity

There is a smile on
my face
I toil in small increments
towards dreams