#qpoc poems on Hello Poetry

the innkeeper Dec 2019

I feel like in all of our processing conversations
The ones we enter into with our expectations
Of coming out with definitive positions
You finish with the condition:
Yes. But don’t fall in love with me.

If I told you how many times folks have told me that lately
I told you my mantra after they said they wouldn’t date me
Maybe you would find the levity of folks breaking up with themselves for me

And saying “don’t fall in love with me.”

How long until I’ve gone in and through the all of the tumult
The stumble that humbles the pride that had been built from the rubble
And I begin the mumble of “don’t.”

When all I want is to break into a million universe pieces of dust in your hands,
but instead I’ll pretend. And before this all ends
I’ll be the one to take the hope
and break the spark

And exhale thinly through the dark
Please—don’t...
...fall in love with me

#qpoc #queerlove #queerlovepoem #pocinlove #heartbreak

the innkeeper Jul 2019

How is my heart?

My heart is open and getting softer to
This unruly, textured, tender, layered existence

This isn’t new though

It’s always been a giant beating thing.

It beat for acceptance and praise and approval
As if those things were Love
As if those things sustained anything besides veneers

When my heart beat for anybody but myself
Kids, partners, parents, friends, strangers
It beat so loudly that it drowned out
The sounds of its own losses

This time and space forced me to be so
Unraveled
So broken open
That the only beating my heart did at first felt traitorous

Slowly, slowly when I had no reason to protect myself
No reason to deny my small self anything
Because there was nothing left to grasp for...
My heart turned to itself

#healing #breakups #grief #selfhealers #queerlove #queer #qpoc

the innkeeper Jun 2019

Integrity

The things we built were on a rickety scaffold
stretched as high and fast as our love
when we got to the top I wanted to cling to you
and look in your eyes
and tell you that I was scared.

I’m scared.

And your eyes are gone.

The scaffold has tumbled
and the pieces are shiny
and sharp
and broken

#qpoc #breakup #breakups #grief #queer #queerlove #lovepoem

the innkeeper Jun 2019

I want for nothing

My existence isn’t something
you test out your empathy on

My humanity is not something
that asks for your sympathy

My life and loves and lived experiences
are liberated from your thin,
watery approval

Your opinion holds no bearing in my body.

#asiaamerican #queer #qpoc #marginalization #microaggressions #liberation #notyourmodelminority

the innkeeper Jun 2019

Keep the dreams

I don’t want them.

I’m scared to sleep again because that’s where the dreams live
My dreams don’t know that hope feels like death
That thoughts of you need to be closely filtered,
monitored, redirected and pushed away
Lest I start crying and not stop until
my body has lost all of its water in tears

My dreams are where I remember
you played on my body like a jungle gym
Where every kiss seared my soul

The big dream has yet to be told
that no one is coming to the party
and it is still building the venue

The dreams are where
memory, fantasy and hopes grow
in fertile soil without knowing
there is no sun to feed them
and the water is running dry

Time is returning to me
And you’re gone

#grief #grieving #queer #lovepoem #breakup #breakups #heartbreak #dreams #qpoc

Sav May 2019

Betrayal

Its strange that people
are capable
of storing memories

about you
that you have since forgotten.

I have this one friend who tells me things about myself that I never knew.

Be it a story I told or a joke I pulled.

I was quite the jester.

It weirds me out that there are people who hold memories of me
be it fond be it
friendly.

I made an impact,
somewhere.

At some point in time.

I think he remembers so much about me because we were best friends once.

I feel like I have betrayed a lot of people.

Today has been rough.

#queer #qpoc #memories #friendship #endings #past #nostalgia

Elliott Jun 2017

Old Theories

Black and white movies
play behind us
As I make you question
The whole **** world.

Mind ****
Is what you call my theories,
My stories,
My questions,
My answers.
“Is that bad?”
I ask you. You
tell me I never could tell
when you were interested
or were telling me it was bad.

I suppose you’re right.

Babe,
you ask later,
as I read,
and you watch the movie,
what is the quadratic formula?

I don’t look up
but I can feel
that **** near perfect smile.
You always do this,
ask me random questions
that aren’t useful anymore
at not least to us.

So I recite it.
And you laugh.
And I laugh.
And we continue being together
Doing different.

You ask me several more
Over the course of the movies and books.
What is flash fiction?
What is life?
What is **** made from?
Do you know that Mark Twain novel—?
Yes, I love your questions.
I love you.

Babe,
you say,
What is love?
I don’t respond.
I want to say another
dictionary definition
but it doesn’t come out.

“Mind ****,” I say.

#love #liking #adoration #smitten #queer #poc #qpoc

Elliott Jun 2017

Minority of a Minority

I’m
a black,
queer,
atheist,
woman (***),
???? (gender).

Life is going to be so hard.

Oh Trumps

#lgbt #minority #poc #qpoc

Elliott Jun 2017

Another Love Sick Love Poem

I wish I was her world
Her everything.

I wish I was that coffee cup
That get the pleasure of touching her lips
every morning

I wish
She was mine.
Like the movies in my cabinet,
Except I would watch her
even when I’m not sad.

Another
movie plays.
The boy
kisses the girl,
I imagine myself as the boy,
I imagine her as the girl.
I imagine her
As mine.

Is it possible for her to love me?

Another one I guess

#love #lgbtq #qpoc #unrequited #smitten #lovesick #fear #adoration