I slept for 9 hours and somehow
woke up feeling drained. And I know complaining to
a room full of strangers won’t release any of the pressure,
but the faster I speak the less I feel right now and…

My brain is pounding, my ears are buzzing,
all I know is that
I feel the way cicadas sound in the afternoon heat
where all the flowers bloomed in the morning
and then wilted, like us,
defeated.

I lay in bed next to him knowing it’s too soon to get up
but I’m addicted to the taste of my own demise,
so I raise my eyes and hold my breath.
I scan the room and all
that is left of his are
five kisses.
Not the kind that are placed gently on trembling lips
but the kind wrapped in crinkled
foil, the leftovers from the pile
that he would eat in the middle of the night
while everyone else was mid-sweet dream.
I used to be the Queen in his dreams once,
but he traded my crown to her for a picture of her smile
and still there are
Cicadas buzzing in my ears.

And my biggest fears are being recognized;
because there is no compromise to be made between
me, his dreams, and the stars.

Even if I wanted to forget about him I couldn’t
because my phone corrects the word “two” to his
name because his name is always
on my tongue and dripping from my fingerprints.
In essence he is me.

Cicadas buzzing in my ears.

I chew my lips and taste the blood.

Every day
My “black mother of a black baby”
rage bubbles like the worts
my lover brews
on dark rainy nights,
when he can no longer sleep or dream.
Another child murdered
at the hands of wild hogs
repeating on our screens—
Their screams keep me up all night
and beat me back down;
as the sun rises,
I boil, then still—
A hot bath of Skunky American brew.

Will my daughter ever know justice?
Or will she sit uncomfortably with the
rank taste of inequity and iron
on her lips too? I refuse to
Go down without a fight because
with trust in her heart she leans
into MY chest at night;
with fire in her eyes she reminds me
that one day she too will be ready to fight
this same fight
if it calls her.