the scent of eucalyptus
smells like trauma

and rooms with purple walls
are challenging to breathe in

and occasionally, I meet
someone whose voice
flies straight through
my ears and rushes
to my memories.
I can't hear them.
I can only hear my past.

I know that
to anyone who
doesn't know me,
I am confusing.

you can tie me up
and **** me hard.
I like the pain.

but touch my feet,
and I will attack you.

and I won't warn you.
I won't tell you that once,
an ex broke nine of my toes
so I couldn't run away.
you'll never know.

you can smoke
standing next to me.
it wont bother me.
I smoke too.

but move your hand
a little too fast
while you're holding
a lit cigarette or joint,
and I will attack you.

and I won't warn you.
I won't show you
the cigarette burn scars
that he left on my skin.
you'll never know.

you can take me to a
concert where the bass
shakes the floor.
I'd love that.
the noise doesn't
bother me at all.

but there are some tunes
that practicing musicians
sometimes play on the drums.
play those, and
I will attack you.

and I won't warn you.
I won't tell you that
my ****** was in a band.
he was their drummer;
maybe he still is.
you'll never know.

I panicked once
in my sleep, and the man
who I fell in love with
tried to comfort me.
I didn't recognize him.

by the time I did,
he had blood on his shirt
dripping from his nose.
I had blood on my knuckles.

I didn't want to hurt him.
I don't want to hurt
anyone who I love.
I don't want to attack you, or
have to warn you that I might.'

I'm not violent, I swear.
that isn't me.
I would never hurt you.

but for a moment,
when I hear or taste or
smell or see something
that triggers me,
that isn't me.

it's my body, yes,
but it's not me inside.
I have retreated deep
inside of myself,
and all that's left
is a hollow shell
made of my skin.

for a moment, I become
a person trying to survive a
threat that is no longer there.

for a moment, I won't know
that it's you. I won't see you or
feel you or hear you talking to me.

because for a moment,
you smell like trauma.

for a moment, you make it
challenging to breathe.

for a moment,
my brain won't register
that you are you.

all you are to me
in those moments
is another danger.

I don't want to hurt you.
it's the opposite.

I want to escape so that
you can't hurt me.

your last text to me
wasn't anything special.
"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
that's all you said.

I thought that maybe
it would be easier because
we didn't have any amazing,
memorable last conversation.

I thought that maybe
it being so normal
would be good,
but it's not.


it's not good
because your last words
were in the form of a question.
a silly question, yes,
but a question nonetheless.

"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and I didn't respond in time
and now the weight of
everything that I could've said
is forever on my shoulders.

"McDonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and I didn't respond in time
and now whenever I drive past
either of those billion locations,
I think of you
and all of the things that
we left unsaid.


"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and then you died,

and you left me
with no more time
and no right answers.

you are not the first man
to take off my clothes,

but you are the first man
to see me naked while
my clothes are still on.

even as a kid, I knew that
forever didn’t exist.
I pulled tulips from the earth
and brought them home with me,
but I wasn’t looking at the petals.
I was looking at the tiny hole
left behind in the soil
after the roots were ripped out.

it wasn’t about the
beautiful thing I had taken;
it was about taking something
from the planet that had
taken everything from me.

the tulips went into a vase and
I kept them, like any other kid.
but I wasn’t the kid
who marched in and proudly
showed them to their parents.
I didn’t show them to anyone.
I sat by the vase and
watched them rot.

they were my physical proof
that death is real,
evidence that my friend’s dog
did not run away to a butterfly farm,
and the old man down the road
did not mysteriously go to a better place.
they died, and they rotted.

I think about this often now.
I killed flowers not to admire them,
but to prove to myself that
even beautiful things can die.

I know how morbid that sounds,
but what you have to understand
is that my whole life had
revolved around death.

my childhood memories
were a sickening collection
of wilted flowers, of worms
burned into the concrete
after a storm, of rotting fruit
and swarms of flies.

my young mind showed me
the same images on repeat.
dead friends, dead relatives,
people who left me,
people who left this earth.

for my entire childhood,
I never got to stop seeing
lives that weren’t fully lived.

even as a kid, death didn’t faze me.
violence was nothing to me.
pain wasn’t fun, but it was tolerable.
even back then, I was numb.

I remember how being
so numb at such a young age
terrified my teachers and
scared my friends’ parents.

I didn’t know how
to explain that I was numb
because no matter what
horrors I was shown,
I had already seen worse.

you are the type of person I’d
write poems
about

but you’re also the reason
I stopped writing poetry
in the first place.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”
you said, quoting some author
I hadn’t heard of until then.

I wanted to tell you how
I loved it when you talked about
the books that you read,
how I loved hearing the passion
in your voice over something as
simple as a well-written paragraph.

I wanted to ask you how you always seemed able to live in the moment,
how the past never bothered you
and you always had faith
that the future would be beautiful,
and that somehow everything
works itself out in the end.

I wanted to say “I love you.”
I didn’t.

to this day, I don’t know what
stopped me. I tried to come up
with a reason, telling myself that
I was seeing someone else then,  
and it wasn’t a good time, and
I wasn’t sure if I loved you.

I told myself not to be impulsive
because we had the rest of
our lives to figure things out.

I see now how ******* stupid
those excuses were.

the man I was seeing then didn’t
care about me, and he didn’t
even try to act like he did.

and there’s no such thing as
a perfect time to say something
that you’re scared to say.

I remember how we stood on top
of this massive hill one summer,
and again, I found myself
wanting to say “I love you.”
and again, I didn’t.

the accident happened
a few months ago.
I just found out.

I’m sitting here, replaying
all of those moments in my head,
all of those conversations
where I didn’t tell you
what I wanted to say.

I should’ve screamed it from the
very top of that huge hill that day
so that you and I, and all
of the neighbors below us,
would know that I was sure of it.
they’d know that I meant it.
I did mean it, even if I didn’t
have the courage to say it.

my mind keeps taking me back
to that quote you said.

“it’s not always necessary
to be strong, but to feel strong.”

what if I am strong,
but sometimes
I don’t feel like it at all?
what does that mean?

I never got to say what I needed to say.
even though now, I’m the only one
who can hear it, I need to say it aloud.
I need to get these words onto paper
before they eat me alive from the inside out.

I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

and I always have.

I am not white, but
my skin is light enough
that I can walk down
these suburban sidewalks
without fearing for my life.

my brother shares my blood,
but he doesn't share my privilege.
his skin is not light enough
for him to avoid prejudice.

growing up, I couldn't see
how we were any different.
to be honest, I still can't.
but now I know that
other people can.

we are apart by two years
and fourteen and a half inches,
and we share only one parent.
but even now, I can't understand
why that makes us so different.

the ironic part of it all is that
people are afraid of him, but
I'm the one with a criminal record.
my brother has never
seen the inside of a cell.

I remember this one time
when we were walking
and this man pulled his truck
over to the side of the road
to ask me if I needed help.
I looked at him and said,

"this is my brother.
if I needed help,
he would be helping me."

he stared at us in disgust
and he drove away
without another word.
I was afraid, but
my brother wasn't.

I couldn't understand
why he didn't react.
now I realize that
he was already used to it.

my brother and I
are adults now.
we've both moved away and
we don't live together.
we aren't so young anymore.
we aren't innocent anymore.

we're still best friends,
and I still can't understand
what makes us so different.
I still see him on the holidays.

I still love my brother
and he still protects me,
the same way he did
when we were kids.

but it hurts me
because I have realized
that even though I love him
more than anything,
I can't protect him.

every time the TV
shows another black man
shot in the streets
in broad daylight,
I shake with fear.

I call my brother
and I'm not religious but
I pray that he answers.
I can't calm down
until I hear his voice.

I can't convince myself
that he's at home safe
when I see so many young men
who don't ever make it home.

when we were kids,
we lost our older brother.
he drank too much and
got into a car one night
and we waited, but he never
pulled into our driveway.

we thought that he had
stayed at a friend's place,
or maybe he had forgotten
to charge his phone.

we never thought that
his car was flipped over
at the bottom of a hill.
we never thought that
our brother was
under a white sheet.
we never thought that
we wouldn't see him again.

I am so afraid that one day,
my phone will ring
and I will find out that
my brother was shot dead
because of his skin.

I am so afraid that one day,
I will lose another sibling and
there will be another funeral
and my life will have
another gap in it.

I am so afraid that my brother
will become yet another statistic.
I am so afraid that my brother
will be stolen from me.

I am afraid that one day,
when my brother has children,
they will grow up facing the
same hatred that has existed
for so many generations.

one day, my brother
might be the next face
shown on the news.

one day, he might have to teach
his children to move slowly
and to put their hands on
the dashboard of their cars.

one day, he might sit at home
and shake with fear
worrying that his child
will be stolen from him.

one day, I might have to look
his daughter or son in their eyes
and tell them that their daddy
isn't going to come home.

I don't know how
I would survive if
my brother or his children
are stolen from me.
I don't know if
I'd even want to survive.

so how is it possible
for you to steal the life
of my brother, or of a child,
and to then walk away
as if nothing happened?

how could you
destroy the lives
of an entire family
and a whole community,
and continue living your life
without any remorse?

how do such hateful people
exist in this world?

and when can I stop fighting
for this world to change?

when will I be able
to pause and take a deep breath?

when will my brother and I
look the same to you?

will we ever stop being afraid?

when I picked up my pen,
I wanted to write about
gray skies
and thunderstorms
and the sound of rain
and laughter
and splashing in puddles.

I wanted to write about
the hole he left in the wall
by the staircase,
and how it seemed so much bigger
than his fist.
I couldn’t believe he made such an impact
with one blow
before he walked away.
I couldn’t believe he made such an impact
by walking away.

I wanted to write about
cigarettes and smoke
and young men with blackened lungs
and why we love
the things that destroy us.

I wanted to write about
this numbness
and how I feel nothing
but everything
at the same time,
and how I’m not sure
which is worse.

I wanted to write about
your cologne
and your citrus-scented shampoo
and how the smell lingered
on my pillow
long after you left,
and how I found someone new
but still fell asleep
to the thought of you.

I wanted to write until
my fingers blistered
and began to ache,
and my demons fell
from my overflowing mind
and drowned in ink.

but when I picked up my pen,
I had shaky hands.

I sat there silently
and I trembled
and broke down
and let my tears fall,
and my thoughts did not stop
racing through my head

but none of them
managed to escape onto paper.

I have met dates online.
I've had friends set me up.
I've gone to so many dinners,
and I've gone home with
more people than I'd like to admit.

I have slept with men
and I have slept with women.

I have left someone
and I have been left.

I've been in relationships
that ended mutually,
and I've been in relationships
that ended in heartbreak.

I learned the hard way that
*** is not equivalent to love.

I learned the hard way that
I didn't know what love
was supposed to feel like.

I learned the hard way that
I deserved so much better than
what I was doing to myself and
what I was letting others do to me.

I learned the hard way that
I was making the wrong choices.

but I am so glad that I learned,
even if it hurt.

some people never learn
to see their own worth.

I am not afraid of
showing you my body.

I am afraid of
only showing you my body.

my mind is a mess.
a deep, beautiful,
complicated mess
of thoughts that twist
and turn and tangle.

I want you to be more interested
in prying open my mind
than prying open my legs.

I want you to be more interested
in me than my skin.

anyone can hear a heartbeat.
anyone can see a body
if it’s in front of them.

not everyone can hear thoughts.
not everyone can see love
if it’s in front of them.

"you'll understand
when you're older."

I was told that
over and over.

when I asked about
anything bad or scary
or even something that
they simply didn't
want to explain to me,

that was the response.



what's global warming?

is grandma dying?

will my parents ever
get back together?

what is suicide?
why would someone
ever want to do that?

why do I have to
look away from
this scene on TV?

can boys kiss boys?
can girls kiss girls?

what is ***?

drugs are bad, so
why does my mom
use them every night?

where is my big brother?
when is he coming home?

"you'll understand
when you're older."



I'm older now

and still, there
is so much that
I can't understand.



a black man gets
shot in front of his
children and family.

the person behind
the trigger is human.

how could a human
take the life of another
human with no regrets?



my brother was killed
on impact when his
car flew off the road.

my other brother
smiled through his tears
and thanked god that
he didn't have to suffer.
he thanked god for our
brother dying instantly.

what kind of god
takes the life of someone
so young and so bright?
why should we pray
to a god like that?



the last time I saw her,
my mother was just
a walking corpse.

she had bruises and welts
and emotionless, dull eyes
and a rib cage viewable
from outside of her body.

why did my mother
turn herself into this?
when will she die?
is it wrong for me
to hope that comes soon?



they told me,

"you'll understand
when you're older."

but all I understand
is that there are things
that were kept hidden
from my young ears.

I still don't understand
why these things happen
or who to blame for them
or if people are good or bad.



"you'll understand
when you're older."

I'm older now.
I don't understand.