Raindrops ricochet off my umbrella, sounding like muffled applause; Mother Nature is clapping, amused by the fact that people are hiding from her marvelous creation.

**~~a.s.f.

• because I was questioned for calling Beyoncé a god
• because I was told Beyoncé is overrated
• because some white lady I don’t know touched my hair before she               learned my name at my place of work
• because one of my white friends made a joke about crack houses when we were watching fake anime and eating fried dough…in addition to making that joke, he made me uncomfortable
• because a white friend of mine agreed with someone who said cis white men are the most oppressed group on my campus
• because people still tell me “ALL Lives Matter” and ask me “why isn’t there a WHITE History Month”
• because “I don’t see color” is a “less racist” way of saying “that isn’t my problem, so I don’t have to get involved”
• because girls “like me” are fetishized
• because girls “like me” are seen as the **** of jokes or just the ****
• because I’m the only non-white passing person of color in my dominant friend group
• because #Lightskinned is still a way to humiliate someone for being fairer skinned and having feelings
• because #Darkskinned is still a way to demean someone who is darker than you and painting them as “*****”
• because colorism exists in every racial group, but no one wants to talk about it
• because someone argued why a white person should be able to wear dreads and black people are kicked out of institutions for wearing the exact same hairstyle
• because black on black crime is still used as some sort of crevice you try to shimmy yourself through
• because somewhere, a white girl is teaching tutorials on how anyone can have an afro, and no one is stopping her
• because Facebook exploded when I expressed that I want to be respected
• because everybody wanna be a *****, but no one wanna be a *****
• because I didn’t know what to say until I couldn’t stop speaking
• because we are twenty days into February and Black History Month hasn’t been mentioned by ONE of my professors
• because of ******* course I’m the angry black woman
• because I’m essentially the backbone, which means that it’s easy for me to break, right?
• because this **** happens to me every **** day of my life and it will continue to happen to me every **** day of my life
• because you made it that way
• this poem does not have an ending
• this poem is the abyss
• why do I make it about race?
• because this poem can go on and on and on forever
• and I’ll still be talking about the same thing


**~~a.s.f.

What are we doing here?
Why are we driving around this place, in the emulating sunlight, radiating heat through my jeans?
What are we looking for?
I stick my arm out the window to expose it to the breeze and the sun.
Cemeteries, cemeteries.
The trees are beautiful here; ironically alive.
They look like they have secrets to tell.
Tell me a secret.
Enlighten my heart and my mind.

Can we stop driving around and go home?
I have to write all of this down before it escapes my mind like when the fresh scent of a flower leaves my nostrils or when I try to remember something that isn't there....


**~~a.s.f.

1) (insert dessert name for skin here)
2) mysterious hair goddesses
3) the back wall of a hip hop video
4) temptresses of your own design
5) the entire land ruled by drama queens
6) your lowkey fantasy
7) your direct blame
8) the subset of a subset of a stereotype
9) the loud and proud
10) the celestial bodies walking through your neighborhoods
11) the only magic act you can see again and again and still not know how it works
12) not the Madea or the Precious, but somehow still the Madea and the Precious
13) trees banding together for the sake of their own leaves AND to sustain the forest

**~~a.s.f.

DOESN'T ANYONE NOTICE THE BEES FLOATING ABOVE THEIR HEADS? DOESN'T ANYONE SEE THE ROUND YELLOW BODIES FLYING THROUGH THE AIR?
They make no buzzing sounds in this building.
Some of them are found dead, lifeless on the floor.
What are they trying to pollinate? What flowers are there here for them to reproduce? Where's the wildlife?
SOME OF THEM ARE FOUND DEAD, LIFELESS ON THE FLOOR.
They're worker bees. They're busy FREAKIN' bees.
There isn't enough time to pollinate all the flowers.
THERE ISN'T ENOUGH TIME TO POLLINATE ALL THE FLOWERS.
Some of them are found dead, lifeless on the floor.
Who's the queen bee, then?
Who is it?
Poor little bees are worked to the bone. Too bad they get none of the honey. Some of them are found dead, lifeless on the floor.
WORKED TO THE BONE. Are other bugs working this hard?
They're trapped in this building, cemented, with no choice but to work, work, work.
SOME OF THEM ARE FOUND DEAD, LIFELESS ON THE FLOOR.
The flowers they are trying to pollinate sound like, "WOW, YOU GO TO CLASSICAL. THAT'S A COLLEGE PREP HIGH SCHOOL. HOW IMPRESSIVE!" "HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT COLLEGE?"
This worker bee isn't trying to hear all that ****.
"YOU SHOULD TAKE THE SATs. COLLEGES REALLY LOOK AT THEM."
SOME OF THEM ARE FOUND DEAD, LIFELESS ON THE FLOOR.
"TAKE ADVANCED CLASSES. THEY'RE IMPORTANT."
SOME OF THEM ARE FOUND DEAD, LIFELESS ON THE FLOOR.


I'm tired of feeling like a dead bee.
Let me fly.

~~**a.s.f.

after the body has decomposed and decayed and is done being with being a body, the insects feast on the flesh, desperate for nourishment.

           1.  after: the close of
               decompose: to separate into parts
                decay: to decompose; to separate into parts; to rot
                 done: to be finished
                 feast: any abundant meal
                  flesh: the sweet, outer coating of a body
                   desperate: having an urgent need for nourishment: something that is necessary for life

First came the blowflies, then the maggots. They attacked you while you were breathing. They thought you were done: to be finished. They crawled in and out of your nostrils, through your gaping mouth, down your throat. Your body took the phrase "being eaten alive" too far.
          
             2. maggots: legless larvae of flies
                     attack: to set upon in a hostile or violent way
                        nostrils: holes in a face that helps a body: the physical structure of a material substance breathe
                        down: on or to the ground
                          throat: the part where insects run through and burrow and live in the not living

You're imprinted into the ground now, your ribs a perch for vultures to peck upon your carcass. Your skull is laced with sand and other sedimentary rock as a nice garnish. Bodies are strewn here, peppered with dynasties of dust, ancestry of asphalt.

           3. ribs: curved bones shaped like armor to protect the heart and other vital organs
                carcass: a human devoid of being
                   skull: the bony framework of a head
                      laced: the lightly draping of a thing
                       garnish: the supply with; to decorate; to lace: lightly drape a thing
                            ancestry: generations and generations of sediment forming into people forming into lives forming into experience forming into decay: to separate into parts


**~~a.s.f.

White skies are canvases of the Earth.
Black birds jolt out of the trees, leaving footprints on the wind.
Pink, blue, and purple blotches stretch out onto the sky as night approaches.
The cold wind sings a lullaby as the streetlights flicker on and a cop car wails in the distance.
Everything is still.
Quick. Memorize this moment before it VANISHES.

**~~a.s.f.

We all just wanna be tended to; us
women of the foliage want to be gushed over, not just because
we're pretty and smell nice--
no, we want stone-cold attention.
Us Foliage Women NEED fresh air
and sunshine; we don't need no
shade, no, no, no.
We come back year after year. You
don't want those fake flowers
you can buy at Micheal's.

We are all quietly pulsating with
life, our leaves rustling in the wind.
We smile sweetly at the sun because
we know it's our only sense of life.
Gardeners aren't that reliable,
you see. They think you're really
pretty at first, with your colorful
petals and such, but then the
gardeners realize that they have
to get their hands *****; they have
to uproot the past to move you
to a sunnier spot.

But, no. The gardeners forget to
water the Foliage Women; they forget to
let the Foliage Women into the sunlight.

Then they wonder...they wonder why the
women of foliage are completely wilted,
shriveled, gasping for air.
They relied completely on the gardeners.

The Women of the Foliage can stand
tall, alone, yet together.
We can tend to each other.
Gardeners are unnecessary, anyway.
We'll bend in the breeze,
and whisper in the wind,
together.

**~~a.s.f.

Is anyone out there?
Did you know that I'm a little embarrassed?
Even just one human being...

Of course,
you add all kinds of delightful things.
But me, I just taste pure; sweet; simple:
The way I have been known when no one is looking.

You need extra convincing.
I
hate
to
be
a
downer, and over the course of 5 days, Ocean.
don't let you be a hero and rescue.
EXTRA: I have worked so hard.  Thanks.
Who make it possible?
You.


**~~a.s.f.

What's wrong with the adults of this generation?
The children are supposed to know everything and if they don't, they're bad kids.
Was I supposed to know in advance how to open a locker?
I should have, but I didn't.
Were we, as a class, supposed to know that freshmen have to keep a low profile, or else?
No, but we don't anyways.
Was I supposed to know that you weren't interested in me?
Somehow, I always knew.
But, that didn't stop me.

**~~a.s.f.

milky white face. ****.
I latch onto your boy hips.
I'm catching butterflies again.


**~~a.s.f.

I'M SORRY THAT I'M WRITING YOUR NAME ON MY FOLDER AND I'M SORRY THAT I GRIN LIKE AN IDIOT WHENEVER YOU TALK TO ME AND I APOLOGIZE FOR MY HEART THAT THUMPS LIKE THE WINGS OF GIANT MOTHS WHENEVER YOU'RE AROUND ME AND I'M SORRY THIS IS ONE WHOLE RUN-ON SENTENCE.
I'M SORRY I SAY "WOW" WHENEVER I SEE IS YOUR FACE, BUT IT'S JUST SO FANTASTIC. YOUR FACE HOLDS GRAVEL AND BUBBLES OF LAUGHTER AND INTELLIGENT THINGS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SAY. YOUR HIPS ARE THIN, BUT THEY'RE PRESENT ENOUGH FOR ME TO GRAB THEM. OH, DID I MENTION YOUR EYES? GREEN AND GRAY, LIKE CAVES. I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT YOUR CAVES HOLD IN THEM.

I'M SORRY THAT I'VE NEVER SAID THIS TO YOU, BUT THIS COUNTS FOR SOMETHING, RIGHT?

~~a.s.f.

Wave at me from your safe point outside the window.
Inconspicuous; hiding, but not from me, obviously.
You're my non-guilty guilty pleasure.

I am constantly reminded that you are alive.
You're just not up to society's standards of being you.
Well, I think you're dandy; wonderful.

Being not fully alive of happy just means that you're on your way to bigger and better things.
Just think of that.


**~~a.s.f.

Name of the world: to provide a lifetime of possibilities.
Established in sort, we reinforce our comfort.
Off full living, we all, unify, travel to new comfort in the familiar; bring you the most of today.
time you need.

The sort of peace; the view at center.
Plants sort or west rest?
Chance: We also have rough states.



But, we are more.
Cats strive to cat.
Share loved ones and future eras, memos and cats
will last a life.


**~~a.s.f.

Buzz. Buzz. Do you hear it? Buzz.
It's right before, before the excitement, the pre-jubilation; pre-togetherness.

We were standing over there, the three of us, before everything occurred. Hugs were sprinkled like soft dew at morning.
And then they said it, the thing that made oceans collide, mountains crumble, and volcanoes erupt:
"You know their eyebrows are green in the light, right?"
Everything   stops. Eyes    widen. Mouths   gape   open.
Their eyebrows were IN FACT green in the light. They were like little lines of moss stapled to her forehead; like blades of grass stitched above their eyes. And that ****** expression: strangely malicious.
II. "Max, your sweater is an ocean. Look at it." Eyes are glued, almost magnetically, to their chest. I saw little boats floating around on the soft texture of your sweater, Max. They said something about doing the backstroke in the ocean that you wear.
I imagine hugging you, then drowning in your Sweater Ocean, Max.

We smiled at these tiny wonders that Little Ol' I had discovered. We were pretty happy with ourselves, and the show hadn't even started yet.

**~~a.s.f.

I am sad, Dad. EMPTY.
ELEPHANTS don't forget, Dad.
I'm an avalanche, a hurricane, a natural disaster; I crumble.
Hold the magnifying glass over my new car and watch it BURN.
YOU DON'T GET IT!
I traveled to another country all by myself!
Brick by boring brick, dad.
I feel a hailstorm coming and it's named after your daughter.
I feel like I'm blowing up like dynamite.
Understand, dad, stars aren't supposed to feel like empty sweaters.
Feelin' like a sculpture right about now...fancy, but not enough to be alive.
Dear ol' dad:

How lucky are your
pants. They get to hug you when
you sashay around.


Wow. That last haiku
was super creepy, even
for a creep like me.


I don't want this right
now; this feeling isn't ideal.
I don't want a crush.


But, then again, your
hands are really soft and your
sweaters wrap me in.


Oh, what the ****, man.
I never meant for this to
happen. Why to me?


**~~a.s.f.

They don't tell you that it feels like fire--that it feels hot, like magma, like smoke and fire alarm and get me out of here. It feels like I Need To Get Out of This Room, but you're the room and you're also not the room. They don’t tell you that everything is melting--including you. There are holes burning in you, and it's not in a trendy way to make you look vintage; you need to be stomped the **** out. It's becoming more and more difficult to hold on to things, since your fingers flammable, ready to strike a match. Everything is so excruciatingly hot and it seems like folks will use your flames to make s'mores, or worse, to light their cigarettes. You can't step outside for air because even fire thrives with oxygen. You're a building, crumbling to the ground in your fiery demise,  almost in slow motion, and it’s okay, because you weren't up to code anyway.


They don’t tell you how underwater it is, how slow moving and in space it is. They forget to mention how it feels like you're drowning all the **** time while everyone is above water. Your head submerged, everything is in slow motion, frozen. Everything needs to be stared at or it will float away and disintegrate. They don’t tell you that everything is blurry to you and only you--no one knows what you're talking about. You're not watercolor--you're a watery, diluted, goopy mess. You sit there, in a puddle of your own demise, sad and soaking wet of your tears. Don’t even try to mop yourself up because the bucket is already overflowing.

What they don't tell you about anxiety disorder is that it is a silent killer. No one wants to help you--they don't want to sit next to you. You make everything sticky with your insecurities and the unknown and you're a mess. You may as well write panic across your forehead because it is emanating from you regardless.


**~~a.s.f.

inspiration hits.
Ideas fly at me head-on.
Get me some paper.


Your jawline; my God.
your smile when you know you
have said something right...


"You were really good."
Yeah, right. My poem could have
been a bit longer.


Substance is the thing
that we, as humans, live for.
We need that depth to thrive.


**~~a.s.f.

Your mouth holds secrets that hide between people's legs, in the crooks of their elbows, in their napes of their necks
You, hide keys under your tongue that I may unlock
You are so used to
Harboring cold
Even though you are cold
Open
Your legs
So I can stay inside
So I can come inside
So I can *** inside
We will stay warm together
We will stay in heat together
In this house
In this body
In this husk
Twitch
Twitch
Switch positions
Move yourself into me
Move yourself around in me
Why are you shivering
You're too cold for all this warm
You're too quiet for all this loud
Hold your lip in place or it will fall off your face
Exploding all over the room won't save you now
Splatter paint only helps when there has been no prior activity
Stand back and watch me flutter all on my own
Stand back and watch as the tremors ripple through my body

Smile, and hold it for me
Right there
Over the ****
*****.
Stick your ****
Stick here
Stay here


**~~a.s.f.

Tiptoeing was an acquired skill, when the floor shouted your secrets with every step.
Keeping quiet was some sort of talent, when the police cars outside, or the refrigerator downstairs had conversations that they begged you to join.

                           *
There's a baby crying next door.
It's so perfectly placed.
The sound of her soft cries through these walls couldn't belong anywhere else.


**~~a.s.f.

so tempted to tell
someone: hesitation builds.
not that serious.


**~~a.s.f.

He kissed me like the cure for diseases was down my throat; like there is a drought and the only water supply is between my lips.
I felt the ocean and the moon and the sun working together. I felt hurricanes. It was somehow calming, but maddeningly chaotic.
He looked at me the way he looks at someone spitting mad bars. Luckily, he looked excited and intreged watching hip hop.
He once told me that my mouth is a black hole, swallowing the dark matter that is his tongue. But, what I really think he meant was that things are always drawn to it, getting lost inside.
Helpless yelps of both agony and relief escaped his body. They became small echoes hitting the back of my throat.

I feel disoriented after I'm away from him.
I'm on auto-pilot. No thought involved. Just walking. In a daze. Not exactly thinking things through. Just movement.
He wanted to rip my back open like all of my secrets lived there. And I let his fingers graze the curvature of my back. It was a marvelous experience. I let myself go. I allowed him to let go in my embrace.

**~~a.s.f.

All I has: tight.
My life.
Hard times,
rip.
Are ****** up.
If us, he, we; be light.
ok - are ill i?
"*****, we gon' be alright."
"Na, we gone."
Ego light.
Hear me, eel? Web right.
uh?
feel me?
Hand
recognize you. look in at me. or he.
Bind my side. We look in at you; from the ace. Own
11 with the ***. Own
mind, you, my life.
On me in the light.
What? ***** and jamin' is the highlight.
Well, I love herb. is what I like.
Or now, 20 of i, he.
Tall to come and get. In everything I sow, my arm.
Heave; no -- hear.
So my cord and my mother, king, can stand in silence
for the record.
the world I know is too late.
A girl think? Cray.
A fight, my vice. Day
Won't you please lie when I say?
Now, been hurt, been ow.
Pride? low, look in at he, world. "here we go."
Ate, ill, us in the street.
Mat each door.
Knee get weak; gum blow; we gon' be light.
What you want?
40 acres and i?
Hinge my name. Mad?
Other, you can live all
the evil, I can tell it. I know. It's ill.
Don't think about it, deposit. very hero.
Kin of my partner, the candy. paint it. he regal.
Dig my pocket, profit. Big enough? to you.
day, my logic. Get another doll just to keep you
In the presence. Your chic.
Id, talk about it. Be it. I see cool.
I got it then, now. Reach.
Shut the back.
I'm black, on track and rest assured.
My rights. I write. I'm right.
My head high,
eat and hope.
In me is complicated.
Afraid.
light and you: favorites.
Remember? You was conflicted.
Using you sometimes. I did the same.
Sing my power.
Sent me into a deep depression.
Found myself. Scream in the room.
I wanna self destruct. Evils was all around.
So I went runnin'.

**~~a.s.f.

It'll be alright, darling. You'll find the spaces in between and curl up, and you'll finally be comfortable. Honestly, it will be okay. Stop pulling your hair out; she loves you too much.
It'll be nice, okay? Find the sun and other planets, put them in your back pockets like marbles, and be on your merrily way. Look in front of you. Your beloved it already with you. Stop looking around the room. Your neck is a small stick, what with that lollipop head of yours. It will all work out, yes. You took to the skies on a big mechanical hummingbird and went to another world. This is something you can handle. Revive your body; GHOSTS

The way your lips look after we've been kissing for too long.
No, no. The color of her favorite flannel.
No, the way angry cartoons look.

Let's talk about b l o o d.
                                  oozing, flowing, going...
Let's talk about roses. Shiny, sweet, beautiful.
                                     Their thorns invading my skin
                                     when they ***** *****
                                                                    picking the berries
                                                                    sweet juice, ooze your
                                                                    way onto my body,
                                                                    s t i c k y...
                                                                    stick me, stick a needle
                                                                    in me, it's supposed to help,
                                                      NOTHING is helping.

Tell me my heart is bright cranberries,
                                 an oozing scab;
                                 not a rose,
                                 not some kind of victory
                                 to be celebrated.

Yes, an oozing scab, festering with dirt and
dilemma and dead
                       and dead
                                      and
                                             d e a d.


**~~a.s.f.

I've given up on you. I have.
Even though I've fought for, trying to hold on, I can't anymore.
Hanging on, the thread begins to wane.

I'm floating. I'm drifting away on a cloud; softly.


**~~a.s.f.

I want you to take a second, and I want you to reach;
reach into the back, the way way back. back into the dusty bookshelves of your mind, and check out that book, that book that you've heard so much about, but have never really read for yourself.

Then I want you to breathe. To inhale all of the yellow-pigmented roses and the delicious pieces of life and the cups of coffee. To exhale the disgusting, black clouds of smog that pollute the place you occupy; the hate, and the regret, and the gross, and all of the everything that makes you less than what you are: rid it of you.

finally, it would be nice of you to just be; to just occupy that space, to read that book that your friends have been raving about, to breathe in and out deeply, and often, and to just....live.

Live.


**~~a.s.f.

I want you to take a second, and I want you to reach;
reach into the back, the way way back,
back into the dusty bookshelves of your
mind, and check out that book, that book that you've heard so much about, but you have never really read for yourself.

Then I want you to breathe. To inhale all of the yellow-pigmented roses and the delicious pieces of life and the cups of coffee. To exhale the disgusting, black clouds of smog that pollute the place you occupy; the hate, and the regret, and the gross, and all of the everything that makes you less than what you are: rid it of you.

finally, it would be nice of you to just be; to just occupy that space, to read that book that your friends have been raving about, to breathe in and out deeply, and often, and to just...live.

Live.

**~~a.s.f.

A Letter From Glasses to Girl:

****, girl. You keep me so *****. Don't you care about me at all? The things I have been through are not what normal glasses go through. Do you not want to wash the memories away? Some of them need to be discarded and forgotten and washed away. The crust on me is a constant reminder of how late you stay up to study night after night. Take me off and let us both have a rest.


Letter From Hair to Girl:

****, girl. You keep me so *****. Don't you care about me? Aren't you worried about how I look? I'm pretty sure there are bats or cacti or stars in me. He's into the unkempt, ***** look, right? I am ocean. People get lost in my wrath. Lookin' like some kind of natural disaster, tornado, hurricane, I am. Fix me the **** up, or don't, and get out of bed.


Letter From Body to Girl:

****, girl. You keep me so *****. Don't you care about me at all? You need to understand that I am trying to keep us together. I don't hate you; I hate what we've turned into. Stretch marks shaped like hands are reaching up from the bottom of your stomach, begging to be let out. I am a hollowed version of you. Understand that I am a skeleton without you. Give me life.


Letter From Hand to Girl:*

Yeah, I get it. I'm small. I'm dainty and fragile, but I can flip people faster than anyone. Don't let the lines fool you; I will ******* up. Listen, I have galaxies, and cosmos, and planets, and his back under these fingernails. I am so powerful. We are so powerful, you have no idea. Harness that energy and we can move mountains.


Letter From Girl to World:

I AM...afraid. Of you. I am afraid of myself. I have the potential to move mountains, though. I am a mountain, though. Humans are mountains. You know what? We are pulsating, living, breathing, alive. I can take you on, world. I can devour you, world. You taste of smile and pollution and gross and...flowers.

*~~a.s.f.

In approximately five minutes, absolute strangers will be walking around my home, seeing if they can make it their home.
These are people I do not even know, and they will be stepping all over the sickly green carpet that I've rolled around on.
I just feel so vulnerable and I can't do anything about it because I won't be there.
They're going to be in my room. Do you know what those walls are going to tell them?
"She's a loser. She cried when she took posters off of me. I may have holes in me, but at least I'm not the girl who lived in this room. She's too emotional. She liked that I was pink, and then covered it up. She cries too much and makes no sense. Buy this house so she can get even worse."
Well, I'm far away now, and people should be arriving now. People will have no idea what they are walking into. Tip-toeing after late parties, late night movies, arguments: all in this Potential that they want to raise their families in.
There's already a family living there.
It's mine.

**~~a.s.f.

The rain hit the windows like wet
                                                            b
                                                             u
                                                                l
                                                                  l
                                                                    e
                                                                       t
                                                                         s,
trying ever so hard to break through the glass.


**~~a.s.f.