i remember us when we were young.
we two little girls,
not yet three,
sitting on my front steps, you
spitting sunflower seeds at my feet
and me ******* on the salt and
saving the insides for later.
we, inseparable at four,
singing and dancing at your bday party
(only two days before mine),
smothering cake all over our faces,
shoving icing covered fingers into our open mouths.

i remember that you were larger than life.
your head was always trying to
catch up with your body,
that expansive geography of
flesh.
even when we were kids, you
would pass your rolls of fat off for *******
(except for that summer, when
i came back and you moved away.
i was the one with the
biggest ******* on the block
then, and
instead of boys,
girls came running, wanting to see
what was hiding under my shirt.

that summer
i started my first love affair
with my new neighbor. the one i said had
the ghetto name? we would meet
in my livingroom- she on the couch and me on the floor
or
me on the couch and she on top of me and
she would lift up my shirt, struggle with my bra
and cradle my budding ******* like newborns.

...i never told you about that,
but i wanted to,
and i'm sure that's the summer when you came back to visit
and tried to get me to come out in your sly way.
you told me, "mali,
what's the point of boys? they're all trouble
anyways." and i mmed,
and you waited
and i changed the subject.

remember that time i bragged to you about smoking ****
for the first time? and little Rich
from up the block
tried to sell us bud, but we told him
we had our own? so to look cool, we stole
your grandma's ****, and i felt bad about it but
you told me it was okay because
she bought it
from my dad
anyway. i remember we rolled
a joint the size of your middle
finger and we smoked the whole thing.
i said i didn't feel nothing, but when your grandma asked us
about it, the only answer i could muster was,
"****?
what's that?"
i don't think she believed me, but she let me off the hook
and i wasn't allowed
to come over for a little while.

i remember being seven
on summer nights
and playing tag in the bushes that separated our houses or
catching lightning bugs in jars across the street
in front of the church because there
adults couldn't hear
our whispers about naughty things
like
cute teen boys and
what *** must feel like.

you seemed
to have so much freedom. you could
walk around the corner,
past the crumbling apartment where
crackheads would stumble out during midday-
all the way to the gas station
to get a huggie and a bag of chips, you said, but
who knew
what exciting adventures you might have had,
what interesting people you might have met?
my dad rarely let me go up and down the street.
i remember being so mad about that that. my big brother said
it was because me and him, we were
different.
now i realize he meant that we were
(supposed to be) better.
back then,
i wanted to be like you.
free to make my own choices. when your grandpa candy
asked me if i wanted to go on a ride on his motorcycle,
my little body shook with disappointment, because i knew
i had to say no. i sat on my front steps and
waited forever
until you came back, half hoping that
you had toppled off, or one of the other
dangerous things my mom warned me about
had come true.

instead,
you came back looking triumphant, your round cheeks
burning
with the excitement of your trip, your
half-permed hair
a messy halo
around your head.

outside,
the world is doused in
gold light.
the woman across the street
prunes her roses.
three hipsters
giggle
on the porch next door.
a mangy black cat prowls
the street, mistaking
the twinkle of wind chimes
for a nest of chirping birds.

inside,
bruiser and i are
still. (what does
a tornado look like?
what does it
feel like?

it feels like
waiting.)

i have spent the last three days humbled
on hands and knees, relinquishing all of myself
into the welcoming mouth of the toilet seat.
i don't know what is wrong with me.
i havent seen you for a while but i am certain that you hate me.
i can't help but think that this is my fault,
wonder if i should be giving more of myself-
something other than mucus and bile.

i look back on the day that i cut my hair,
embarrassed that all i had to give you was
a lock of it, a small insignificant piece of me, knowing that
you wouldn't have accepted all of me if i had offered.
i don't know how to show you that i've tied myself to you,
that you now possess a piece of the last nineteen years of my life.
i bet you threw me in a drawer or underneath the bed,
let me drop unnoticed behind the bookcase:
out of sight, out of mind.

i now know what lovesick looks like
although it is not the kind of love (or sickness)
that you would accuse me of being capable of. it is more like a mother
ripped away from her suckling child
by the guilt instilled in her through a man's laughing eyes.

i wish i could leave this body,
fly away to worlds untouched and forget you, but
i am still learning that we are rooted to this earth by hatred and hips,
destined to be left behind,
no lumps of flesh to save us,
flapping behind our backs or between our legs.

and when hagar looked down upon his beautiful face and froze,
i'm sure she contemplated driving that knife
in the centered nook right below her own ribcage,
confused as to which she should aim for:
the heart or the womb,
both equal conspirators in her shame.

i'm a man, who
carries his
*****
*****
like a knife,
ready to tear
into the skin of
white america.
i'm a man, who
holds my head
high, and
my back
straight, and
looks down on
anything
that tries to
hold me down.
i am a man,
a black man,
who walks over
the bridges of
my black sister's
bodies, forgetting
the times when
i ****** on her ****,
drew out her power
through her womb and
called it
revolution.

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.

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.

i remember
that one time when you lay in my bed, still,
your head a mess of curls peeking from the sheets.
i smiled, warmed that you had chosen to stay, knowing
that i wouldn't have been able to ask you to on my own.
the movie ended, and
we crawled into bed, the springboard groaning
under the weight of two, the twin-sized duvet straining its
stitches to cover both of our bodies, although in the end
i let you have it, let you twist around in the sheets
like a kitten laying down to nap.

i came up with every excuse not to sleep that night.
loud noises, flight fright, stuffy air, but maybe
i just wanted to lie next to you with my eyes wide open.
my body took in everything: the restlessness, the
quiet moans, the perplexed face that looked very concentrated
on sleeping. sometimes you were so still i would lightly
touch your back, just to make sure you were still breathing.

do you remember?
that night that i looked down at you and cried.
i think you must have known because
when i crawled into your arms for solace, you welcomed me.
your hot skin burned mine,
and your heart beat so fast that i was still, and listened closer
(although thinking back on it now, it could have been
the watch i wear around my neck, mischievously ticking away in my ear.)
in that moment, before i let go out of embarrassment and overheating,
something in my heart clicked-
right then, i knew that i could have loved you.

the next morning, we shook hands, made our goodbyes short,
and laughed about it afterwards.

i found a new word
to describe how i feel
abt yr body,
pressed up against mine.
(you make me feel
like i am starving.)

i almost
feel embarassed saying it,
admitting that
i miss yr body,
miss intently staring
into yr eyes, searching for a pattern
of freckles
similar to the ones scattered
across yr back.

i miss yr curled fingers
tugging at my hair,
keeping time with yr
surprised moans and giggles
(a funny dialogue on
the sharpness of my teeth.)

the word "miss" is strange.
it's gone
before you even get the vowel out.
i remember the night i told you
that i missed you,
& you laughed because
you were still curled up
next to me. i hope
you now understand
what i meant;

you were gone
before i even got to savor you,
before i had a chance
to get used to the taste
of you
heavy on my tongue.

now that you're gone,
i spend my nights
rummaging in the kitchen,
trying to find a texture
that reminds me of
******* you.

i'm caught-

somewhere
between
coffee ice cream &
stale
dinner rolls.

When Tzitzi and I walk, we discover forgotten places.
In the middle of the field, she
twirls her body around, arms spread out and
eyes shut, like a distraught baby bird.
She finally stops, and for a moment,
I am sure that she will collapse, dizzily,
onto the grassy floor. Instead, she points forward,
and we follow the direction of her fingers
(me, stomping- and she, tripping)
through what used to be a corn field.

Behind the book center, everything is still.
In this blue-grey light, I can imagine Pompeii,
when all the dust settled and solidified everything in ash.
Many of the rooms are still dimly lit,
and I am afraid to look into the large windows,
not wanting to see a spectral face
peering curiously back out at me. "You scared?"
Tzi asks, and I laugh,
trying not to show my chattering teeth.

We continue walking,
past the pristine bushes and trickling fountain,
to find a floor of linoleum tiles.
This pale, beige floor looks out of place here,
against the bright night's sky, but this
is what we have come here to see.

Tzitzi prepares herself for her next task. Suddenly,
she is kicking hundreds of little rocks against the sandy tiles,
and the noise sounds like the rattling of hollow bones.
The notes echo off into the woods,
and I feel happy and safe and pleased.

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.

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.

i have dreams
where i lose my teeth,
pull them out of my mouth one by one, while
new teeth push themselves
from my swollen pinkgums
making me repeat the process,
spitting them out, pushing them out
with my tongue
until they fill my mouth
with the hard, bitter taste of enamel.

i have dreams
where people die,
the words "revolution" on their
lips, eyes heavy and clouded
with sleep and delusion
as i watch them get carried away
and forgotten.
(I could have told you
not to die for something stupid-
yr head is not hard enough to
withstand the fall,
yr back is not strong enough to not bend.)

i have dreams where i forget to wake up.
dear universe:
i am ready to wake up now,
to still my tongue, to bow my head,
to listen.

i drink my coffee black
with a hint of honey, just like she liked it.
sip on the bitter brew, condition myself to like it.
i hold my cigarette in the corner of my mouth, like she did,
practice smoking it to the nub like she taught me to.
i ignore the rain outside,
imagine cold spring sunrises on the porch
and try to finish my work,
all the while dreaming of sleep
(where you will visit
simultaneously cursing me and
asking for my forgiveness).

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.

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.