to the world's woes elude me
from down here spinning around
trying to make sense
while making cents into a dollar

or writhing lonely
while  a billion stars
glow in the sky
and the pizzeria
right next door

I find the neon distracting
the clown delivery cars
delivering to the hungry
while I starve
right under the glow
ironic

until I noticed the old woman
at the washeteria,
watching
the washer spin to a stop
slowly with her walker

stoop down in pain,  
unload her knitting of booties ,
with a faint beauty
a smile on her wrinkled
eyes and lips

•  Old dresser drawers reopened
• silly, simple T-shirts back in style
• confusion of how the last 5 years of fashion
• abandoned honesty and compassion, straightforward presentation

• he swims into the swatch
• it fits perfectly, but what to wear with it?
• total mystery; his sleek, **** jeans?
• his soft, comfortable shorts?

• maybe this would be easier if
• he owned less costumes
• silently noting that nudists
• likely feel quite comfortable in T-shirts

• shuddering @ the thought of such vulnerability
• he sorts through another stack
• faded reds dredging long drowned days
• eyes closed, sun bleeding crimson, thoughts lofty

• wondering what the sneakers he used to wear
• really said
• long sigh, less than hopeful
• but these things are cyclical, you know

• what goes, eventually comes
• old pictures always met with "what was I thinking"
• with fashion, you never can be sure, not even later
• besides, one day you'll just wear a suit, so be simple now

I started writing a book
and I have a title and everything

and I wrote the first few chapters


do all writers go through this, where they sit and wonder...

do I need to live more?

I come from a place
you had to hustle for a date,
words were chosen not for
their rhyming
but for survival,

in this land a kid had to be a man
from ten, had to learn words to keep
him breathing,
and his family was a crackhead mom, a different
dad for all ten
of us

A diaper , you learned to steal for your
baby sister and put it on her, mom was gone dads all
wherever, hustle was taught young,
because we had to eat.

So we all ran for the man. Made a buck
and a good shiny pair of Nikes.
fed  our siblings and ran from the enemies.
Who were everywhere.

Is that America. We are Free?
Are the young condemned by
survival of the fittest?
Give me a break, politicians
corrupt as the ministers
who feel the need to get rich and feel the children up.

We learned young to cook rice and a rock.
Took what we took to get by. And were took also,
into a hopelessness, of society .

I got my first gun at thirteen. A man I thought it made of me.
Most likely , I will die before twenty.
So, who then will change the diapers?

there are invisible children hidden behind
miles of above ground swimming pools
and wooden swing sets. they've seen
life sized doll parts scattered across
their front lawns and were taught how to
take their first steps
as though they were being sent off to war;
knees straight. head tall.
don't flinch at the sight of blood.
a few weeks ago i turned on the local news,
the upcoming story took place in the west side of Detroit.
a photo of a young, colored girl wearing
butterfly shaped barrettes in her hair comes up,
the headline at the bottom of the screen reads,
3-YEAR OLD SHOT IN FRONT YARD
the news reporter talks about the situation
as though she's being forced to discuss
the weather in the middle of a heatwave;
it's the same. ****. thing. every. day.
i'll tell you what no one pictures
when they hear about another ******
in the same city that might as well
start building their front doors
like cemetery gates.
picture the mother
trying to sell a cradle so she has the money
to buy a 3-foot long casket. picture her
walking into her daughter's room
to tuck her into bed & remembering that she's
got nothing left but empty hands.
dear america,
tell me why some of us were born
with targets sewn into our backs, tell me if it
disturbs you at all that there are children
who want to chip off their skin, that want to be painted
a new color because they want to see if the light
will hit them in a different way,
& make them less invisible.

recoil in agony
remembering seeing you
standing in the rain
cryingtearsstainedmascara
covering my world with anger
myfistsclenchedwantingtostrangle
him you black and so blue
you defending him
the rain fell for days
in stupid bursts of putrid

the curtains pulled
on all the world black
the heavens cried the grass leaned over in brown agony
the evergreen tree lost all it's needles
the squirrels stopped gathering
for you
give me
ten minutes
to talk
will you girl

I rarely edit my work
I prefer the fresh
green
words that sprout in the moment
There is something disingenuous to me
about letting someone
even a later self
uproot and replant my ideas

My mother wants me to
let the editors inside
she wants me to open my sanctuary
to the norms
the opinions
the pen
of the world

I'm afraid to touch my own words
because god loves ugly
because
I
love ugly
what would happen
if I let
them
touch my thoughts?

I think therefor I am
so if they help me think
am I still?

give me your downcast, your ugly, your broken
the grit and the grime of your teeming mind
I lift    my       pen, I peel back the wool
this is life, there is no golden door of escape

complacency is sickness
have I found it
of from it do I flee?