we read the same books.
watched movies together
and would share a salted
popcorn. 'because sweet
was always too sweet',
we'd say. i'd listen to
the sound of her voice at
four am, she'd listen
to the sound of mine ten
minutes later.

three months later, the
spark died down and
it was as if i was looking
in a mirror. changed the
angle and now i don't
like what i see. i hated
her, changed more about
me so i wouldn't be
my mirror girl.

Discipline your mind to think rationally and realistically
Let your reasons rhyme and your rhymes never be without reason
Resist resistance and render all rendering rendered
Be relentless with repentance,
righting every wrong until there’s only room for rewards
Whether god sent or godless be on guard regardless
Rearrange the soul of your renegade, show him how to be a real man
Until the distribution of retribution, this is the restitution
And remember, you are who you think

Preserve the past in me
Like a mummy I’ll bring my riches
to another world


My sabatoge is your secret weapon.

-Sindi Kafazi

Bang the bell
start the tellin of a story 'bout a man name…

Yo, t'was a wombed man, ennui is no excuse
onus is on you. vive la differ-ents.

True, t'tell, she was an upgrade. Mito-mom.

First ol' Ish said, it sounded like,

"Wow, ishi mine? How'dyoudothat?"
so for a while ishi was her name.

Was I sleeping and now a wake, or

are we past all that?
The garden walks meeting all we met, with names,
knowns, all named

The I in Ish knew names of every man-named thing,
but Adom 2.0,

she was something else. Ish could hardly think

something so beautiful is made of me?
Why, Ish wondered, but didn't say aloud.

Is she curiouser than me?
Is that what's different? No, there's more,

but that's a lot, curiouser and curiouser,

Here come the servants forming to inform,
curios come,
kachinas from the west.

This night we all learned the dance the angels do,
on the point of no return.

Too beautiful for words and then,
past the point of no return,

Ish take her and she is mother of all living,
Eve for short. Mom.

how can i have peace of mind,
when i can’t help but feel like there are
missing pieces of my mind?

i gasp for air and realize I’m no longer whole, feeling the winds of regret
through and through.
my lungs feel as weak as the
late November leaves
that are left behind
during the changing of seasons.

i am reminded of the times i gave
the worst people
the best parts of me.
words they didn’t deserve to hear,
skin they didn’t deserve to touch.

i can’t turn back into my old self,
but in its absence,
i felt presence.

recognizing that
i was once just a flame,
but now i want nothing less
than to be a forest fire.

I don’t have the right to miss you,
because you were never actually mine.
You were just a passing day,
a place and a time.
Your eyes burned through my skin worse than
the sun does in mid-July.
Your fingertips lightly imprinted my neck
and lit me up brighter than the early summer fireflies.
But this thing we built collided into nonexistence
when the cold came.
Because without the heat I was now nothing,
but a lifeless flame.
Soot covered branches, burnt and cracked.
All I felt was tears, when all I wanted to hear
was your laugh.

But I didn’t just lose you,
I lost all of the best parts of myself, too.

You had taken my warm June heart and
somehow turned it into a January afternoon.
I yearned to be painted a shimmering gold,
no longer a toneless blue.
So I started caring for myself the way
I used to care about you.
I tried my hardest to scrub my wine stained soul clean.
I woke up, realizing there’s so much life to live,
I was only nineteen.
The seasons changed and so did my mind,
and I finally felt myself let you go,
after all this **** time.