black girl
burnt fingertips on blunts and radio knobs
singing along to the words
pretending to fall in love
black girl
stuck with scratches
ashes
burnt skin
a taste for
female friends that benefit
black girl
can't hide her DNA
as easily as her true colors
black girl best friend
back girl white for a black girl
black girl lives on the north side
has a side ******* the south
black girl plays blues
bumps Kings of Leon
and Future
wondering which of the two
will be her future
black girl
never cusses in front of her sister
even though all she says is
'**** it'
black girl white car
black girl no license
black girl speeds
black girl art school
black girl need scholarship
black girl raps
and forgets the words
black girl gossip girl
black girl breaks cigarettes
black girl never laughs at me when I think she will
black girl psh
black girl so much better
than who she thinks she is
black girl can't take a compliment
won't take credit
black girl so beautiful
black girl never pays for drugs
but gets high every night
black girl sometimes makes me jealous
sometimes I want to make
black girl jealous

it's Tuesday afternoon,
101 degrees
my car is about to overheat
police sirens blaring
stuck in a mile of traffic on the north side
I'm late and losing my mind
and then i drive by the smashed pick up truck
tainted red as the blood on the concrete,
the teenage driver getting pulled out of the debris strapped on a stretcher
that could have been my brother
etherized
and all I could think was
what should an atheist do instead of pray?

my religious best friend said that I could just hope for the best
with a smirk on her face
and I wondered why that didn't feel like it would be enough
and praying does
it's the same thing,
just hoping to some higher form above
for strength
for the ultimate matchmaker
to help you find love
never realizing that's the ****
you need to do for yourself
but praying for the ones you can do nothing about
is better than nothing,
sometimes I think faith is better than nothing,
nothing will never be enough
so where does that leave us?

I know I probably chose to be this way
my parents never forced anything upon me
despite the episcopal school I attended until 10th grade
chapel every week
I'd bow my head
clutch my hands
and pretend to pray.

in elementary school
I begged my mom to take me to church
my whole world in his hands
when the pastor came to our class
I was never afraid to sing
I wanted so badly for someone to look out for me
and I can't remember exactly when I stopped believing
as I grew up
you made less sense to me
it was always:
science
evolution
the big bang is my heartbeat
living a life of logic
neither of faith
I remember the kids protesting my 5th grade science teacher
when we learned about the Grand Canyon
"erosion?
but god created the earth in 7 days!"

you can take back my sins, but my demons are here to stay,
I'll burn all of my rosaries, I don't deserve them anyways
oh my God
(capitalized g)
I'm sorry.
maybe if my hands were clean from the start
I wouldn't have wasted so much time
getting them *****

sometimes I feel like clutching crosses for dear life
burning all of my textbooks,
this isn't how we were raised
but I still haven't brought myself
to bring my hands together
even though my soul is ****** for all of eternity
if God loves everyone,
I like to think he might forgive me
blame it on existential brainwashing
fingers crossed there isn't more to all of this
fingers crossed my fingers will never need to cross
that the burnt cross won't burn my fingers
that the boys life will be spared whether it be by you, or a defibrillator
prayer or science
at the end of this, we'll find out if this was all for you,
or if my biology teacher was right about evolution
but until then
I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

I'm starting to permanently
smell like fire
you and I
we burnt our names into the sky
by your mom's old apartments
cracking cherry bombs
us runaways aim high

we would always fantasize
about how we live now
four years ago
dumping out secrets into childhood music boxes
church parking lots
climbing the roof
throwing shade
taking shots
i miss the days
when we didn't have to think about tomorrow

time changes things
and there's no way to stop it
but little reminders of us
are scattered around my room
torn and tattered in the carpet
littered burning butts
your old cowboy boots

we would always fantasize
about how we live now

come back into my life,
let's make this a reality
cuz sometimes
I still fantasize about running away to Cali
getting our own place
playing music on the streets
the days where we didnt have to think about the one that follows
but now
you're living paycheck to paycheck
and neither of us return our calls

I don't know where I'm going
but I want you to be there
I don't want to let you go
it's always been
and it should always be
you and me
everywhere

tonight
there is going to be a blood moon
snow
sun
and rain
all in two days
lunar eclipsed
moods switched
maybe god is saying something
to us
who
pump atmospheres with debris
co2 and apocalypse
but somehow,
we are still made of stardust
the universe composes us
and this is what we give back
blood red
we weren't the ones that designed our veins
we were made this way
for a reason
survived by the stars
live like the night
but we take it granted
the moon and the sun
aren't only here to shine
hear the howling
god doesn't want you to miss this
harvest, rare and pure
maybe we don't deserve it
but everyone, regardless
will
look up

in the sixth grade
i asked my parents
to buy me World of Warcraft for christmas
to impress a boy that i liked
i never even downloaded it

i pretended fictional characters in young adult novels
were my boyfriend
i wanted so badly
to feel teeth

i imagine
she had already felt them
her blood isn't as clean
as the day it left her legs
she's never changed her sheets
since the day he left her bed
praying for a miracle
but God and Mother Nature
are two different people
that never got along very well

i imagine
she was spending her saturday nights
in the ditch by the creek
lying on her back
counting how many days left
counting how many days late
counting the stars

adolescent alone
abandoned baby daddy
already has a kid of his own
my friends joked,
"better call mtv"
what a nightmare,
we used to crush rolls and roll around
pop bottles not baby formula
it scares me
how quickly things can change
just by living how you live
like any other day

i wonder what her mom will say
i wonder if we aren't friends anymore
because we never see each other
or if I'm worried what my mom will say
scared of perpetuating
living how we lived
like hooligans
too much of an influence
that was the summer
she was always breaking things
she was such a clumsy lover

she is with child
she is child
one more statistic
according to the state
and groups of friend only last
as long as fate lets us
because now,
he is in the navy,
they moved away,
he is selling drugs again,
knocked up,
i found a new boyfriend

i didn't know so much could change
just by living how we live
like any other day
one too many things broken,
that's all it takes.

you were the sun and the thunder all at once
I saw you through the rain
that night we were dancing on top of police cars
running across the river
to this day
it stills smells sour
like the syringes you promised me
you'd never touch again

i was looking for an escape
you were looking for someone to change
you said it's not peer pressure
it's just your turn

but this isn't about those nights
we stole ***** from your dad's cabinet
danced to dubstep
stuck spinning
wishing
wanting
forgiving
dim days cracked open
like my ribcage
i wanted to give you everything tucked away
that no one else had uncovered
that night tucked underneath
your lost promises
pierced right through me

but I'm grown enough
to leave those bleached white
suburban downy wishes behind
left me crying in the kitchen
like this was all my fault
the blood isn't just on my hands
both of us
ran away from the days
we ran away to the pool house
hid out in the backseat
but now i'm grown enough
and i'm still stuck spinning
wishing
wanting
forgiving
on my own

i saw you through the rain
and i wonder when you decided
that you would be the one to tear me apart
on and off
making wishes on dying stars
but you were my galaxy
i traced your outline on the dust next to me
this backseat is so
empty

and i hope you're much better now
i hope you got to achieve
all the **** we talked about
over cigarettes and coffee
and those are the nights
i hope i won't forget
you're 10,000 miles away
i won't forget
the way your skin felt
unexplainably smooth
how nervous i felt
just standing next o you
but really i just want to thank you
for filling me up
then leaving me out to dry
and i hate it when people see me cry
so i hid my face in your arms

but now you're gone
and i'm finally starting
to dry my tears on my own

when i was a kid,
i was terrified
of being alone
i would run screaming through the house
if i was by myself for too long
i would pray
no one would forget
to pick me up after school
and interrogated my mother every night
"is the stove off? the doors locked?"
not able to bear the thought
of letting anything
anyone go

and growing up,
i've become more prone
to burning bridges,
old pictures,
only holding on to
what kills me
all the things
i want to forget about in the morning

but i remember
one especially frantic day,
my brother and i
searched the house for our parents
that had never left in the first place
but he said
if they didn't come back
that he would always take care of me
and out there on the porch
that we painted with our father that summer
already peeling, faded like the
grass we accidentally suffocated with mulch
i believed him
and
i still do.