I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.

If you’re gonna
Die in the apocalypse
Drop out of school
Dump yourself into that little
Ditch you made that was stemmed from
Decades of anxiety and
Depression
You might as well look good doing it.
If your mascara runs in the eternal
Race to your dripping baby chin
It might as well be mixed with the glitziest
Eyeshadow you can afford
(Mine is hand-me-down from my mom,
Who has been called a drag queen too many times
For her to count but somehow
That makes me, her little genderless clown,
Feel connected in some cosmic way
To her ****** again).
Save your pennies so you can
Splurge at the thrift store on
Sweaters that go down to your knees to hide
Vaginas and ****, bits
That maybe you wanna be coy about today,
So all the people spitting in your eye can at least
Trip on your pronouns and your triumphant
*******
Can scrape the heavens.
You’re allowed to buy that tie, I mean
Easing the pain in your wrists and your heart and your stomach
Is done best in floral print,
In pop culture t-shirts,
In femme/butch/femme/hard/soft
**** culture, *** tantrums,
If you’re gonna get called by the wrong ******* name all day
At least look your best when you resist the urge
To send fists sailing into their face.
And it’s not just us but anyone,
If you’re ******* angry that someone keeps commenting on the size of your
Thighs the lush of your
Lips and some ******* keeps
Trailing you on his bike
Shake your studded gloved fist at him and tell him
THIS IS NOT FOR YOU, LORD OF THE *****,
LORD OF THE NORM, I PICKED THESE
FIVE DOLLAR SHOES FROM THE RACK OF GOOD WILL,
SHONE THEM UP LIKE I SHINE MYSELF
FOR MYSELF
WITH MYSELF
I AM MYSELF.

This is not meant to rhyme
But I find that when I write it flows every single time
The last time I was on stage... there were issues
I thought hard about it, 'Is hip hop something we were destined to do... or is it something that we choose?'
Then it hit me after a period of insecurity
My confidence is the only thing I need to surround myself with, I should keep it 'in security'
This thing flows in my veins blood, so I need to get it in with purity
Talent in its rawest form... way above the norm
It's a gift I need to use
A gift I can't refuse
Deny it is something that I can't do... even if I want to
There is no other way around it
No other way to go about it
I had a bad experience... well...
I could either be a ***** about it...
Or meet this doubtful phase with some mad resilience
Because no one can sound like I do
No one can do what I do
I need to...
Tighten up my belly bump, pull on this belt around my waist
Confidence is the only raw ingredient upon which what I do is based
This ship has always been afloat, who am I to sink it?
Bizill the rapper/poet/artist was meant to do this for a reason
Who am I to over-think it?

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.

Strange now, to think of you
amidst this aftermath of scattered atoms and queer cells,
this apocalypse, the collision of bone and skin,
all gnashing and trembling and brimming with heat
left over from the creation of our aching, leaking universe.

Strange to remember those clarion eyes and fishgut teeth
and tongue curled up around cherry blossoms and beatnik poetry;
it seems, somehow, significant
that I still carry on my lips the shape and timbre of your smile,
each particle of warmth and aftertaste,
another furtive hope, another offering to absolution.

There was some hesitation
even in the last glows of these days
we spent in the laps of Sartre and Moses,
and while you dreamt of children with teeth like mine and eyes like yours,
I contemplated the vacuum between molecular bodies
and the heat death of the cosmos.