The illusion of elegance,
copied from her mother.
Childhoods left undealt with,
but she wears her traumas
around her neck in that
beautiful southern style
passed down from her mother.
Enforces her new rules,
ignoring the past that got her there
for a new sense of priority.
Her pearls are lost,
sold long ago by someone else,
and she has forgotten
what they stood for.

invisible umbilical chord
ties me to you
feeds me love
even in your death

i inherited your fight    
to make sense of the nonsense
you live in my rebellion
against the world

i’m bleeding out screams through
words on the paper
if I don’t make sense that’s because
death doesn’t either.

will you protect our
heritage?

will you tell mom the
truth about us?

would you die for
me when they shoot at
us again?

last time nine
bullets hit me as i hustled
to save
tizzop

We board on the lazy sea crawler,
us cowards, in tea and cream and glory.
Martha, hands in her hair, in her sweet age;
We lurch, cold, remaining in sweeter earth,
And I into Sam's cloud of august.
We are hearts only bent on fame,
While the ashes of our cousins —
A new lineage in lieu of dirt —
Begs us in their choral aching for a keening.

My hair is black and yours is yellow
But they never call it that;
Blonde, or like spun gold
Stunning, precious, unattainable.
But you have it,
Like I’ll never have you.
My hair is black but my skin
Is yellow
They call it that
“Slant-eyed”, “foreign”, “unnatural”
At eighteen, I broke black locks with bleach
(I’ve always wanted to be blonde)
And it didn’t look natural at all
I will never be blonde, I will always be
Yellow.
They ask: What are you?
“American, like you”
But they roll their eyes
They tell me to forget my native language
And I don’t know how to tell them I already am
Black and yellow
I think of me then think of bees, and recall
Being stung in the first grade, and how
Ever since, I’m paralyzed at the thought
Of black, and yellow
Black and yellow
Save the bees! on shirts and posters
But no one is saving me.