Sweetheart, shut up for two seconds so I can kiss you.
Let those words that mean so much wait a **** second or two,

See if they can stand the pain of waiting to come across your lips.
I feel like I’ve been waiting much too long for exactly this.

The ache in my core is much too hard to stand anymore.

Sweetheart, just shut the hell up for a moment so I can kiss you.
Leave the singing to the birds, love, let me do what I came here to.

I’d love to be the ink beneath your skin, just because I’d love to know
What it feels like to make you complete, to be a part of you.

There is a pain in my stomach from not being with you.

Sweetheart, please just shut up for a minute and let me kiss you.
Let those rants and raves take a little break and live my dreams with me.

So, God permit, if I shut up for two seconds will you kiss me?
Hold me closer and make me forget that this is reality?

I want to wake up from this lonely dream and find you next to me,
And I will shut up for a minute so you can kiss me.

The ache in my core will turn to clouds and I will soar.

A swift crack to the head and suddenly I'm off my feet again.
A bit of paranoia settling in.
A lingering sense of regret over things unsaid.
Things I might want to give to friends just in case I never see them again.

A quick jab to the ribs and suddenly I'm taking it all in.
Seeing the importance of it.
The implications of knowing where to begin.
Beginning again after everything else has come to an end.

A clenched jaw with fingernails digging in.
A slip of the tongue that should've been bitten off.
A song sung while lying in a field thirty yards from the bar.
A poster hung from the walls of the place where we used to live.
A bit of bone sticking out from a sawed-off limb.

A fist hits me in the stomach and suddenly I can stomach anything.
The twists and turns and cigarette burns and the lessons twice learned but never accepted.

This is how it starts.

Young enough to know
that what they’ll have me
believe of this world
is a shadowy truth at best.
The lesson
in each dancing darkness
on my wall is love, &
we’re nothing but silhouettes
until the lights come on.

So I can’t trust the Times, Fox News, or the Post.
Too left or too right, just parasites hungry for hosts.
From you, fellow tax-paying citizen, I take note.
I listen to you — that angry defense of your vote.
Are you going to tell me what I am able to trust?
Before this land of the free is left to ruins and rust?
Silence speaks volumes,
like the encyclopedia I loved, circa ‘94—
devoured for hours on my living floor.
(Sidenote: That encyclopedia included several pages on
the Holocaust. But then, I suppose,
the Encyclopedia Britannica shouldn’t be trusted either?)
So what must I trust if I can’t share the news
without being challenged because of my views?
You say I can’t trust the posted or printed, so instead,
I'll trust something much louder in my heart and my head.  
I'll trust that empowered white supremacy in a place
where "all men are created equal," is something I refuse to embrace.
I'll trust that our freedom of speech is not our freedom to hate.
Black, brown, yellow, white— that’s not up for debate.
I'll trust that hope will swallow such hate in the blink of an eye—
choke the breath from its lungs and drop a beat to its cry.

And then I'll trust that history will one day forget
that we've failed to keep its pages from repeating just yet.

You and I
Temporary

This house we sit in
Temporary

The love we share
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

All the skyscrapers in the world
Temporary

The streets and the sidewalks
Temporary

Every law, speech, and right
Temporary

Every person you pass on the street
Temporary

The piles of bills and gold hidden away behind massive vault doors
Temporary

The pain of a particularly bad day
Temporary

Every mistake and every triumph
Temporary

Your inclinations, opinions, and habits
Temporary

The ghost and the shell
Temporary

The printed words of men long since dead
And long since correct
Temporary

Every thick, coppery, snaking trail of blood
Every minuscule globule of spittle
Every boiling, salty tear
Temporary

The hatred of every person in every place in the entire world
Combined into one stinking stream
(As strong as it is)
Temporary

The soil that has run through your hands
The sand through the hourglass before it is flipped again
The rain that falls on humid August days
The whistling of the wind through broken windows panes
The sneaking of weeds tendrils through cracks in asphalt
Temporary

All
Forever
Temporary

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I wasn't mixed; my parents are just different
shades of the same color but she doesn't believe me,
and the man behind the counter silently agrees.

the old white lady that always takes the 5 train
stares at me curiously, her eyes say they don't trust me
and I don't understand why. I never thought I had to
explain myself to strangers or that my race was the most
interesting thing about me but that's always the
first question everybody asks.

my aunt told me the other day that I was jabao,
in other words, nobody knows what to do with me.
I am unidentifiable. my skin screams the sun and
stars too small to recognize; it says I am the product
of a collision between the blackest sea and the whitest sand.
some parts of my body sing a ballad so dark only certain
people would ever want to listen to. maybe these are the
parts that the old white lady on the five train is scared to
listen to. maybe the curls I tried so hard to straighten are
what terrifies her, maybe the black in my kneecaps keeps
her up at night, maybe the sound of boisterous music in a
language she could never understand makes her skin jump,
sends shivers down her spine makes her think twice
about who I am.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I was jabao, a mix of summer glow and
muted winter skin. but she doesn't believe me; says
she has never met a Dominican like me, that in some ways
I must be a mixed breed. and the man behind the counter
silently agrees.

(h.l.)