Between star and night,

between black skin and white skin --


our fire is burning.

The sun never rises here, the moon never falls,
despite the nightly intrusion of thoughts
that never seem to expire into the current.

Two birds screech above but I do not listen:
“Our religion is one of love,” they tell me
while they slam the door in my face
to go and vote for a straight man elated
to erase the love I have for nobody but me.

“Church is the only path to Salvation,” he tells me
after a night spent in my hometown bed;
hypocrisy is the root embedded throughout the forest
of Fatherly Love, created only to benefit those
normal enough to write the rules
before anyone else could…
                                                  How convenient.
Our Father makes no mistake
and carefully creates us all,
yet my love is seen as a ******* painted onto
a blank canvas thrown across a rusted floor.

“A genetic error,” say the men who later imagine
the ache of my nails digging deep into
their rugged, tightened backs;
the wedding ring on their finger
refracts the light of the bathroom mirror
as cans of crushed beer pile high
in the trash strewn
on the ground behind them...
                                                  So many frauds.
I live my days on the edge of whitewashed insanity,
yet forever closing my eyes to darkness
is a life I wish not live:
the mothers who birthed us to fade into the grave,
the love they lent evaporating upon expiration,
our fathers who protected us far removed,
their eyes forever closed, their life no more.
I cannot fade into nothing, this I won’t believe…
                                                                                      So hopeless.
The God I love does not punish
those defying the rules He’d always known
would one day be certainly shattered;
He does not make me love men
and sentence me to die in the same command
despite the thousands of hymns I whispered
in the solace of my childhood room.

He does not send men to sleep at night
and force them to question what they feel—
tossing the sour taste into the background,
ignoring the truth of the real me…  
                                                             How cruel.
The God I know made me the way I am
and is proud of me for taking it in stride.

He does not wish to see me change --  
He frowns at the men desiring revenge
on us who wish to be left alone --  
we do not need your opinion,
we do not need your love,
we do not need your thoughts or your prayers,
for the God I love welcomes me with open arms
unlike the multitude of others I no longer remember…
                                                                                          So unimportant.

Lumpenproletariat's                     
Comprise the population
Revolutionized, new variants
Attempt consolidation.
Socialist experiments or
Anthropology's deviation?
Avoidance- societal detriments of health:
Classism's obliteration.

Why people see potential in me
When I feel I am so empty,
And unworthy of warmth,
I cannot conceive

How fortunate I can claim to be
Of the love I have received
That has been held in reserve
For far too many

And it starts with you and I,
Cause I've got love to share
And you can help yourself
Till you've got enough,
Cause I care

If you need a hand,
That's something I can lend
If you walk shoeless
You can have the ones I wear
Forgo crumbs, break off a piece of my bread

What price is too high, for a just world that's fair?

White notions of superiority
Blessed under white lights
Souls sold
Between punched holes
Ring binders brim-full
***** overfills
Scripted words
Meals of rotten platitudes.

Here is my grateful smile
Here is my pleated skirt
Here is my servitude

You did, you said: I.

How dare you! What do you think!


That you are something?

You did, you said: you.

As if I just have to be --


obliging to you.

Like you, I look
for the distinctions to understand
what has been

different in the womb
in the neighbourhood where we grew up
and with the people who lived there

And I do not know
We look alike, this or that way
we rolled down a sand hill

whistled on a straw or acorn cap
discovered the zero after a lot of counting
learned to write with bread

and tried our best to get permission
to eat the letters, it was
all differently the same

Also the uncles and the aunts
and the children from the neighbourhood:
the differences are numerous

but too small
to be able to catch them
So I have to swallow

and admit that it is true
that you are just as good
as I think I am myself

Life is learning that

you are No'other, almost --


the same as I am.

Just sully your hands

and cover them, draw the veil --


of your black money.