civilisation ruined  yellow grass
even weeds choke  on concrete air
december light
  29 days  too bright
for a cage  in the zoo of pay gaps

i ate tradition
blind  honey-drenched
we called it sweet
we called it choice
but it was  silence
silence  we’ll torch

it was only 27 minutes
after i saw you
you said
kitchen’s your place

power for you
was a kink  dressed as culture
prejudiced not me
just fluent in the syllabus
of being dismissed

je viens d’un milieu instruit
say it again
it tastes better  than your name

whatever was fertile
you called us  hole
the rest of us
just holes for power
****-coded
nescient
background noise

you left-clicked
then ran

priest  priest
i saw you in the mirror
when i lip-serviced truth
truth-teller  from bone
no father  in my tongue

your patri-architect face
brief in my heel’s reflection
divine glitch

hey sir  mansplains-a-lot
aphrodite wept

you fear
kittens  museums
and anything that stays
from your father’s echo

god became a sermon
about control

you keep licking the wrapping
never opening the gift
you call independence
a flu

but even yellow grass
cracks cages
when wild enough
to breathe

Hands fall on paper,
Ink makes love to the nib,
A swooping curl of grace,
The calm charisma of calligraphy.

A letter of love,
Sealed by sweet, soft kisses,
Signed with wishes and dreams,
Left unopened for at least two decades.

Wet tears on parchment,
Words bleed love on paper,
Forced to run long ago,
The brutal callous of calligraphy.

Do you ever
reread your words
and think,
"****,
what is wrong
with me?"

bandaids on bullet holes
they clearly don’t work
but you try anyway
all the time
try and try and try again
it’s like you forget everytime  
so you add another, and another
you’ve added so many,
you can no longer see the original wound
so you believe it’s fine for a while
then it started becomes infected
it stings and you wonder why
well, the bullet is still under your skin
you never removed it
its still there, burrowing itself even further into your skin
you keep trying to push it out of your mind
but hiding it made it worse
you think about it all the time
and when someone reminds you of it
it stings
every
single
time

Mannequin-like people
Fake friends—
fake family.

Imitating my friends and families’ actions—
displaying them in a kiosk.

Indestructibility all because of their plastic bodies.
Still, their emotions and thoughts grabbed at whatever they wanted.

Sacrificing so much…
They are unwilling to accept what I have to offer.

Comforting myself in the sheets that they unraveled—

I cannot tell if they take me for granted or whether or not I should leave.

Addicted to you, yet you made the meaning salty.
Excuses — your cliques of words, spewed nothing but gunk.

Yet I respect your figure of speech.
As still as your mannequin-like body.

Can you respect me in the same way?
Not a command but a question.

In the meantime, time will tell.

By the end of the day, you are a part of the residual I left behind — a mannequin.

Fake friends—
Fake family.

Sometimes
Poetry comes
Like a slap
Across my face.

It keeps bothering me,
Begging to be written.

And I go,
“Ok… here we go.”
I’m channeling now.