i am lonely in this place
filled with people who
call me by the wrong name.
or the right name. i can't
remember which one.

it has always been hard for me to
use my voice here.
in the real world, so many
parts of myself seem fake.
contrived.
it is hard for me to tell
when i'm dreaming.

najee gives me words of wisdom through texts:
before you can find someone
to love, you
should get a plant,
have a pet for a few years.
give it some time.
find yourself.

i am impatient. i want
to have fun, to
have someone pay for my popcorn and
hold my hand during the scary
parts of the movie.

cyree tells me
you already have that.
how are those things different
from your friends?
what do you truly need?
take your time and
think. really hard.

i am restless. i want
to be somewhere else
doing something new.
i have dreams of
new people and
new places.

my mother tells me
you are living above your means.
what is your back up plan?
i will not always be here
for you to fall back on.
slow down.
live your politics.
think about what's really important.

i don't want to listen.
i want
to get away from here.
i want
to be selfish for once.
but what am i running away from?
what do i need?
i don't know.

today we saw
a baby bird, fallen out of
its nest,
the little black feathers puffed
around its small frame.
tiny ball of fluff, we
almost missed it in the grass.
we came close to inspect and
it opened its yellow beak, and
screamed for its mother.
we could not help it,
could not touch it without
ruining its chances for survival.
"its mother will
reject it if she smells you on the child."
it reminded me of
that 15 yr old girl's ghost,
who decided while living that
death was better than to
let the soldiers **** her over and
over and over again.
how many times did she scream, and
lose faith in God,
before taking her own life?
"her own people would stone her anyway,
if they knew she had been *****"
their only excuse for breaking her spirit.
when we went back to the grass
a couple hours later, the
bird was still there. still screaming, but
no sound could escape its throat.
i will scream for you
i will cry for you
i will fight for you
i will keep screaming
*******
to the world
until my throat goes dry, because
i have to keep hope
alive
somehow.

i have forgotten
how easy it is to love someone
so much. you are
miles and miles away and yet
i can feel your hands
pushing on my chest,
your fingers tugging at my mouth,
pulling my lips apart until vulnerable words
flow out slow like honey, sweet things like
“i miss you” and “please don't leave me here”.
your responses drop in my open mouth like stones,
and i struggle to swallow them all,
until they fall heavy into my stomach.

nature is never quiet.
even here, i am surrounded
by the sound of cicadas dancing
in the trees.
these creatures sound like the ocean.
they sound like wet sand being rubbed
between earthy brown fingers.
they sound like rain hitting
hot asphalt and evaporating into steam.
nature is never quiet. it is restless,
and sleep-depraved.

to the woman
******* on an unpeeled mango
like a woman's ****:
you squeeze out the fruit's juices
like a child
drains it's mother of her milk
until she is empty, a shell
of her former self.
you look at her, your
sleeping daughter and wonder
where your own mother is.

to the man who sees ghosts
during daylight:
the world is out to get you.
stand up, you get restless
lay down, you get robbed
of your pride.
you're still a man, don't
let anyone tell you otherwise.
you can hear people's secrets, see
their thoughts form into words
so real that you can
touch them,
taste their color.
you read so many people, but
to them, you are invisible,
so you shout.
you scream their hate back at
them, laugh
when they finally see you,
watching you anxiously,
surprised that they too
can be judged
by someone as lowly
as a man who makes a home
out of a park bench.

the last time i was home,
there was a dead cat lying
in front of my neighbors' doorstep.
it's not there anymore- in its stead is
a large stain, like a grease spill or a portal.
my mother pointed it out to me as if to say,
"see. look how disgusting."
but death seems to lay in front of
all of our stoops. the television tells me
that a young black girl was shot down
the street from my home, and
my mother ignores it, telling me nonchalantly
about her latest ailments.
"when i cough too hard water comes
out of my sockets." i look at her with sad eyes.
"do you feel these lumps here? and here?"
i probe at her throat with my fingers. yes, i feel them.
she looks at me for a long time.
"what? you should have been here
last week. things were much worse then."
i want very much to look away. this morning, while we
move my things back home, i search for the cat,
half-expecting it mangy black body to still be
rotting in the sun. instead, i see my mother
strain to make her way up the stairs, and i wish
that i was somewhere else entirely.