Hold close to your friends, your family, your loved ones.
If you've got nothing else,
You've got love,

If you've everything else, but not this,
Then you've got naught.

For love is sustenance for the soul--
And the soul needs nourishing more than the body, after all.

What is life, if not for love?

Thank you for your love.
I love you.

Crawl on, soldier.

Crawl in the name of liberty,
Justice for all.

March on, sister.
With your shoulders slumped and spirit downtrodden,
March for your life.

Drain the swamp, fellow sewage workers of the republic.

Flee to the ballots,
To that last bastion,
The last remaining bulwark of our republic. 

Cast your votes.

Cast them in steel and forge them in hot coals
Let your anger rage,  
Break, blow, burn,
And make us new.

Run through the dogs,
Through the fire hoses,
And tear gas. 

Cry, and salt the America of old.
Run through the deniers,
And **** sympathizers
Cast and cut them down

With your voices,
Loud and clear.

Let the peal of truth ring out,
Let freedom ring! 

Invite Langston Hughes to the table,
As company,
For he, too, is America.

Choose the ballot or the bullet,
In the words of Malcolm X
Who, too, is America.

Just as surely as #MeToo
Is American
As American as apple pie,
As American as you or I.

March to the ballots,
March for your America.

Because
Despite the words of our current senators,
And those who would question your experiences,
And deny you were *****,
Deny you were shot down,
By lawmakers and police and agents of oppression—

Despite all their yelling and bravado,
They are scared of you.

Because, you, too, are America.

So march on, brother, sister, countrywoman—
Friend.

March to the ballot.

I suffer from a self-inflicted affliction,
Indeed, the guilt of my benefaction
By the decree of my skin tone at birth,
At the expense of the bodies and souls of my darker brothers and sisters,
Gnaws at the rough edges of my soul.

I feel shame when I consider
The ease with which I move through the circles of society,
While others pause at every edge,
Eye their surroundings,
Look for exit points,
Gauge their safety.

And I double down on my guilt,
Knowing that it is more coping mechanism
Than it is agent of change.
“As bad as things are,
At least I feel bad that they’re bad,”
I reason.

As if that makes things better.

As if that’s oxygen in the black man’s lungs.

As if it helps him breathe.

Still, I do what I can.

I confront racism where I see it,
Voice my opposition to the systemic injustices from which I benefit.

I have made enemies,
Perhaps even of myself,
A price I’d gladly pay
Ten thousand times over, for 400 years and more.

Because it’s not about me.

Not any more.

It’s not about me.

Where is my home?

Is it in the bed of my parents' house,
The one I've come to know and love?
The bed, I mean,
Not the house.

Is it in my parents' house,
The one I grew up in?
The house, I mean,
Not the walls and corners and doors.

Is it in my lovers' arms,
The ones in which I rest?
Her security, I mean,
Not the lovely limbs themselves.

Is it in the company of friends,
The beers and shared times in which I take comfort?
The laughter and memories, I mean,
Not the rooms and spaces in which they occurred.

Is it anywhere at all?
Or is it everywhere?

Where does my soul itself reside?

In all of these?
Or none of them,
Somewhere else altogether?

I can't pretend I know.

But I know I call all of these my home.

I hope your homes are as lovely,
As cherished,
As secure.

I hope you feel--
Safe...

At home.

Research paper due
Hours away, and yet I
Have no urgency

two papers are due--
academia threatens
to swallow me whole

There is a bullet in a box of crayons with really strange names like Parkland Perrywinkle, Sandy Hook Sanguine, and Great Mills Green in a place where children play Russian Roulette with their school supplies when they reach in to grab one and they’ve been learning about probability this week Forrest Gump will tell them you never know if you’re going to finish the lesson or turn into a statistic my sister likes to create mosaics by putting a hairdryer to crayons melting cascades of wax down a blank page sometimes she reaches in and it’s the one lead crayon at the top of the page and it’s only one color that seeps down into the crevices of the cafeteria’s tile floor that proceeds to wash away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers washes away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers I see another child reach into the box and I write another word problem I write another word problem: “Zoey reaches into a box of crayons. What is the likelihood she will not get to hang her drawing up on her kitchen refrigerator? What is the likelihood her funeral photo will hang there instead?” Draw students’ attention to the key word “likelihood.” Tell students This word shows that the question is asking whether or not you will live to tell your parents how your day at school was. and I wonder when school desks will take the shape of caskets in a place where both screams of laughter and screams of terror
are permitted