i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that if the phrase “adding insult to injury” had a feeling,
that would be it.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it sounds like “hands up, don’t shoot,” like “i can’t breathe,”
like blood hitting a pavement that seems as though it was built
to catch those droplets.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it tastes like skittles and arizona tea,
four years old but still carrying the fresh sting of a wound just opened.
i imagine that it tastes 
like history repeating itself,
like seeing your son or daughter recycled each week
on every news report, on every tv station.
each time it is a different body, 
but it is always the same hand pulling the trigger,
the same black blood being spilled,
the same cries left unheard;
we shout “black lives matter”
and yet, still,
they cut them too short.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it looks like a web of lies too thick to cut through — 
every strand another weapon that he did or did not have,
another order that he did or did not follow,
another sin that he did or did not commit;
the only black they care about
is the color of the ink they use
to draw your angel-headed boy
a set of horns.
i imagine that it looks like evidence hidden,
like sparknotes-type skim-throughs labeled “thorough investigations,”
like another unindicted officer walking freely atop the cries of those 
who charged into a battle they knew they would, but hoped they would not, lose.
a battle they have fought too many times before.
i imagine that it looks
like an empty chair at the dinner table,
like cold-blooded ****** disguised as justice
with the help of a blue hat and a badge.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but if you listen closely enough,
you can hear it
in every cautious goodbye she says to her children whenever they leave the house,
or in the silence that those goodbyes used to fill.

can you hear it?
you will have to push past the shouts
of the big bold letters that they want you to believe.

somewhere,
somewhere in there,
a black mother’s heart is crying.
it is a gentle, hushed cry 
that the world does not want to hear.

but the tears are still just as wet.

(a.m.)

Stolid glances repress my intended advances
But August's brush paints an illustrious lust to hold with you my mighty touch
I dreamt an million dreams to be with only you unseen
No more cars or bumps created by dump trucks only winds whipping my back to throw me on track to seal the forbidden facts
You pried it out from under my pursed lips or should I say fingertips
Away we chatted until it became a habit
We cherished it dearly yet distance made us weary
Time unfolded the unintended, yet the inevitable became unprecedented
Even though we drift apart I will always hold you in my heart

Again the train makes
a standard stop at what
the **** am I doing

So I get off.

Dinshaw argues that
the text is feminine and
the writer masculine but what
does that have to do with anything?

Good lord, the frilly words make
crochet lace and the others
make the rest-- now doesn't
that make sense: a scent
of cents means money!

The sign of the signified says: Why
the **** is this happening? You read
into me and translate accordingly but
can't seem to interpret a bit of it like the
first poem in Zong, but I'm not sure if you'll
remember what that quite looks like

You reading rather feminine lace
together an image of Mulcahy from
the Coombe that's not a bit like the
man! With a laugh who could
blame a drunken thought?

All the stupid girly **** gets dealt
with in a familiar manner stripped
bare teeth tearing the cloth in the process
of progressing to **** it like the little
**** it is: exactly how it deserves

Your moon princess turns
into folklore where nothing
is left but an ancient language
written in a mother tongue
in languish whilst unspoken.

You read languidly like
sparknotes slow speed reading
some well known notion readily

Of me standing stark naked
--out of clothes-- at a
random station

There is a violence in translation.

It’s 3:30am and I’m finally laying down to sleep,
After tucking in all of the words I’ve been saving up for you,
They’re pretty restless, and I am too,
But don’t worry, I have a night light plugged in for them, they’re scared of the dark just like you were,
It’s a shame that you won’t be here to hear them in the morning,
They’d probably go well with sunlight through the windows and scrambled eggs,
And nothing would beat them rolling out of my mouth through the steam of the coffee I’d brew for you, for us

And don’t you wish we were still as beautiful as we were when we were born wrapped in stars and bathed in sunlight?

Before the smoke got to us and the mirrors became cracked,
Way back before our mothers and fathers were worried about us,
Before we’d spend too much time trying to read between the lines of each other’s books,
Now we hardly have time to read the sparknotes

And don’t you miss it? When we were able to fall asleep every night without pills,
And waking up every morning without missing someone was easy

What kind of monsters we have become to deny ourselves

I know you will never be around again to hear any of this, and

I’ve written this poem a hundred times over but there is still no one around to tell me that it won’t help me, so I’ll keep writing it

Sleep Study

Do I have to buy the book? The SparkNotes?
Will this material be testable?
But all I have to do is go to sleep
In a lovely bed in a lovely room

To sleep, adorned with little EKG pads
And little wires a-running here and there
Like the wiring harness of a Packard
In need of a tuneup since ‘48

I cast aside a novel about spies
And in a bit begin to study sleep

          Number Six: "How did I sleep?"

          Number Two: "Sound as a bell. Have a nice day."

                                       -*The Prisoner

if the ouroboros is two snakes eating each other’s tails, does it matter which snake bit first?

i’m a newborn foal, brought into the world already walking,
i stumble with my shaky, bony legs,
and i run with my unrefined instincts,
i chomp at the bit.

at the skate park,
i lie on my back and bask in the sun.
my friends are testing their luck on the halfpipe
and i’m dozing off,
watching little boys on razor scooters race each other up ramps.
when i was little, my best friend said i rode a scooter goofy style
(she told me it was a skateboarding term)
because i pushed with my non-dominant foot.
when my roommate teaches me to skateboard,
on a drizzly evening than i spend falling ******* brick roads,
i push with my left as i struggle up the hill.

i always wonder.
i know i’ve seen a foal,
sticking close to its mother,
but i can’t remember where, or when.
i know i’ve watched a snake swallow a mouse whole,
i know i’ve experienced the cruel, cold snap of the mouse trap,
but i don’t remember these things.
i know of the mouse trap but i can’t tell you whether i got to eat the peanut butter before i died,
and i know of being eaten,
but when the snake sinks its fangs into me,
i can’t feel them going in.

i’m hanging out the car window at 1am,
the ice cream is freezing my teeth.
when i got my wisdom teeth out,
they were gone before i could finish counting down from ten.
the worst part wasn’t the foreign discomfort of the iv in my arm,
it was afterwards,
when i knew something had been taken from me
and i hadn’t been present to witness it.

i am a single-snake coiled around itself,
i am a failure of an ouroboros.
i’d rip off my own tail before i bite someone else’s,
and now i bite down on the ragged stump desperately,
as if my will alone can stop the blood.

i have forgotten to witness something. maybe i just wasn’t paying attention.
i read the sparknotes after the fact.
i’ve been given the facts of their life,
this person whose shedded skin i slipped into,
but none of the most visceral, intimate details.
i know to be disgusted but no one ever told me why.
i know to accept the slimy warmth of my own blood in my mouth,
but i don’t know why i’m bleeding.

i would stop another snake’s bleeding,
if they would stop mine.
they can eat me whole for all i care,
i’ll be their mouse.