i didn’t know she
existed outside my dreams.
i’d never been good at keeping
my hands empty, or
my cup watered, or keeping flowers
alive, until my knock-knock jokes
bloomed and ran over the edges; until
I became more
forever than
funny.

“i am a pen,
with a bullet in the
chamber.”
—
i am a black boy
reading a book
about God.

i am a hug,
with a hoodie on,

and i know…
i know…
my love is scary.
but yours is, too

“i am a pen,
with a bullet in the chamber”
—
i am a black boy
reading a book
about God.

i am a black boy
writing a book
about all of the times I’ve failed.

i am a sinner
standing on the corner
looking to the sky,
trying to carve a dream
from the clouds

i would give any of my things
to have anything
worth crying that i
cannot hold.

“i am a pen
with a bullet in the
chamber”
—
i am a black boy
burning a book
about history

i am a black boy
painting new colors
on a flag —

it didn’t match
my shoes, red’s and whites
only remind me bloods and angels
I don’t know how to pray to, and I
don’t believe in that
purple predecessor.

i am a spectrum of sunkissed
skintones, calloused and weathered
and stress-tested

those of us who survive the firing squad
are fileted, and
skinned, and worn

they say, the first man who wears
a ******’s skin, inherits his
rhythm. and the blues he spent so long
running away from will lay
by his headstone.

i don’t know how to
comfort humans, I don’t
always understand them, us, we
don’t find history or truth
to be gentle, respectful of the sweet,
the way we prefer
our medicine; our neighbors don’t
lend out even spoonfuls of sugar like
they used to, and all the gates and triple-locked
doors make the transition from momma’s house
to the warden’s all the easier,

i wouldn’t have known how to
tell him his momma wasn’t coming
she was going to find out about this from
a phone call from a doctor
who wouldn’t pronounce his name
right, no familiar hands were
going to help carry him into his chariot

but when he was laying on
the cement, having been dragged
out of the car that flipped twice
by people who were “basically
paramedics, and knew they
didn’t have to stabilize his spine before
moving him,” who were basically just
used to paramedics not showing up
when they called, when he was
laying on the cement, he never called for his
mother or father or sister or
any one else who might have found a way to leave him, he
just screamed out
at
or
for
God,

and either way, I just kept mumbling
“preach.”

Don’t question the way
my heart, or my eyes, or
my fists know love, these
hands only fetch how
you taught me, these stripes always seem to paint us like
blood stains dripping parallel
from the bullet-holes, forgive me
for growing tired of playing
catch in a yard without grass,
or not trusting the names and sharp objects thrown
at my brothers.

Do not be alarmed, Jim,
I know how you feel
about silence, but it’s not
what you think, we have simply
chosen to begin
counting our dead in the words
they lived, and in our own
languages; ones
built with more light
more love, more
Glory
than the ones you gave us.

We are tired of watching
pieces of ourselves ascend
to Heaven, only to have their
dispatch demand that we pay for
the opportunity to stand
closer to God.

Sincerely,

A Beautiful Night Sky,
With More Stars
Than You Have Bullets.