maybe it's because i am not satisfied with who i am
maybe it's because i've fallen so from where i use to be
maybe it's because i let myself fall in love
maybe it's because i learned friendship, and trust, and hope and
with learning all these things, there was a consequence
a consequence that wasn't mine to serve
it's because after knowing what these concepts were,
it was impossible but to not notice their absence
i am not sad because of my unresolved trauma, i am sad because my coping skills were people and people leave
and sadness is present
sadness does not pause for you
sadness does not let you prepare
sadness rips into your chest and makes its home there
i'm sad because i'm not my own reason to live
i'm sad because i want to stay sad
because it's safe
because it's the only constant in my life

Whatever has torn up the room
has sat on your mother's
back breaking her

but you look the other way
too painful to see
what's already in your face
a lynching here a shooting there

It's not me you say
and shrug it all away
I didn't steal anybody you said
but tortured bodies wailed
underneath the crack
of your ancestor's whip
and still you reap from
the ghosts of yesterday

don't you hear them
the black lipped rage
that keeps yelling at you

but still you look the other way
and sip your latte
with a deafening smirk upon
your face as if you are not
one of us

human

This is not a plea for reparations
yet it would be a wise gesture
nor a begging for a hand out
yet it would serve you to be kinder

It may be futile to you
to look a black person in the eye
with the truth on your tongue
but if we can't save you
then maybe underneath it all
nobody could

Impress no one for this is the hour of authenticity
It is the hour to wake up to the fact that you are a slave
and your mentality is a slave spitting slave rhetoric
and it's a tragic narrative if you die in this mortal state

So don't make your holidays pointless make them mean
something and let the cold blood of the rationale
leave your delicate veins from the still-life that was
into something renewed and eternal...

Sometimes,

I think of taking my hands
And ripping - splitting - cracking,
My ribcage in two.
                                                            ­            
The breastbone splintering apart,
My torso opening like a rotten tree.
The inside hollowed,
Like a lake that has been emptied
 
I've convinced myself that
Fragrant flowers
Would grow there.

That they would grow feverishly
In the gnawing gap
I had created.

And that time would preserve
What I had done.

If it was up to me, I'd forget you
I need to let you go
After that painstaking hello in the bookstore
After our awkward stares
My first real love
My first real heartbreak
I thought I couldn't live without you
Turns out I couldn't live with you
Perfectly flawed, you are
But I can't say that to you
Because we don't talk anymore
One-sided love is never enough
Certainly not for us
I have a folder of your love letters
I can't bear to throw them away
We once kissed underwater
I'll always remember that
I don't resent or regret our relationship
I learned a lot
We loved a lot
Being together is almost always
Better than being alone
I'm home alone with you
If it was up to me, I'd forget you