you are a man of many colors;
i am a woman of none.

you shine bright;
i am dull hue.

you blend in with the sun;
i fade into the background.

i float down the river
to the other seemingly grey
bodies of despair.

you stay on land,
grouping with other rays of light
and you all share stories of good times --
which are those times you aren't with us.

we cannot blame you.
we hardly even like each other.

we're as different as night and day,
black and white;
hot and cold.

i just wish our differences
could have kept us at peace,
instead of stripping us down
until we were cracked
and shattered bones
trying to find the glue
that held us together
in the first place.

Right now,
I believe I have no name.
Right now,
I could probably write a 351 page book on how I am nothing —
on how we are all nothing —
and pass as very intelligent,
very entitled psychologist
who knows so much more than you.

grow back what he took from you;

you lie at depths he will never be able to fully reach.

(a.m.)

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that if the phrase “adding insult to injury” had a feeling,
that would be it.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it sounds like “hands up, don’t shoot,” like “i can’t breathe,”
like blood hitting a pavement that seems as though it was built
to catch those droplets.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it tastes like skittles and arizona tea,
four years old but still carrying the fresh sting of a wound just opened.
i imagine that it tastes 
like history repeating itself,
like seeing your son or daughter recycled each week
on every news report, on every tv station.
each time it is a different body, 
but it is always the same hand pulling the trigger,
the same black blood being spilled,
the same cries left unheard;
we shout “black lives matter”
and yet, still,
they cut them too short.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it looks like a web of lies too thick to cut through — 
every strand another weapon that he did or did not have,
another order that he did or did not follow,
another sin that he did or did not commit;
the only black they care about
is the color of the ink they use
to draw your angel-headed boy
a set of horns.
i imagine that it looks like evidence hidden,
like sparknotes-type skim-throughs labeled “thorough investigations,”
like another unindicted officer walking freely atop the cries of those 
who charged into a battle they knew they would, but hoped they would not, lose.
a battle they have fought too many times before.
i imagine that it looks
like an empty chair at the dinner table,
like cold-blooded ****** disguised as justice
with the help of a blue hat and a badge.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but if you listen closely enough,
you can hear it
in every cautious goodbye she says to her children whenever they leave the house,
or in the silence that those goodbyes used to fill.

can you hear it?
you will have to push past the shouts
of the big bold letters that they want you to believe.

somewhere,
somewhere in there,
a black mother’s heart is crying.
it is a gentle, hushed cry 
that the world does not want to hear.

but the tears are still just as wet.

(a.m.)

from miles away i can see you erasing me.
you might not feel it, but i do.
i know you are.
it always goes this way.

from miles away i can see you erasing me,
and i want to shout at you, to tell you to stop,
but i have always been quiet in the moments when it would matter most to be loud.

i wish i could go long without love.

i will never ask for a second chance because you would then ask when you ever gave me a first one.
because you would break me down.
so erase me.

this is burning bridges still being built;
this is the familiar taste.
i wish i could go long without love. i wish it could have been different.

are you content watching the flames?

this is being sorry.
this is not knowing what to say.
i never know what to say.
i wish i could go long without love but i can't.

from miles away i can see you erasing me.
i am sorry that my desires never manifest themselves into something beautiful.

i wish i could
                    love.

i
        long.

from miles away i can see you erasing me,
so erase.
perhaps it will be better for the both of us.

(a.m.)

sometimes i think
that if, perhaps,
i could shrink myself down into something a bit more beautiful,
then maybe you would love me.

in the ugly, unafraid, truth-telling part of my mind,
the part i seldom dare to visit,
i know this is not true,
know that you could never love me,
not now.

i can make myself,
as much as i like,
into wood to be whittled,
but i cannot make you crave those carvings.

you can lead a horse to water,
or whatever it is that they say.

but i fear i will always be a well run dry in your eyes
(or perhaps one that never had water to begin with).

so i combat this fear in the only way i know how:
by turning away from it,
pretending it does not exist.

by shrinking.

and sometimes,
sometimes,
when you don't seem as far away,
i think that if, perhaps,
i could shrink myself down into something a bit more beautiful,
then maybe you would love me.

(a.m.)

it is a bit past 3 AM and i am waiting for you to see me.
see me, see me.

you told me to write you a poem so here it is.

i am invisible and i am waiting for you to see me.
i cannot make myself seen, i cannot make you look.
so i wait. i wait, for it is all i can do and i cannot live with the feeling of doing
nothing.
powerlessness, in its all its bitter comfort, cradles me like an old friend.

a reconnection.

right now i am putting on the record we both like and i am pretending that you and i are the only ones who have ever heard it.
in a brighter moment i might sing.
in a brighter moment you might see me.

but for now, invisible,
i dance. my feet kiss the floor and my fingers kiss these keys and i am writing you the poem you wanted and waiting, waiting, always waiting.

you may not see me but i will write as if you do.

(a.m.)