But you don't hear me though

Yooo! I wanna scream,
Shatter glass
Shoot shards like a pool cue
And bank dat shit
In the pocket
No chalk
Extra spin
But you ain't know
That pool halls are cooler
When they are 100 ft fm your front door
And hustling
Helped make my dream come true.
Nah.
What you see
Is opportunity
Petite
Pretty enough
To almost love
Ravage instead of revere
Fulfill your half steppin
Promises
So that rape is as okay
As disbelief
Dismissal
Demand
Defiance.
I ain't even real to you
Just some
One you don't need to know
Generic cereal on the bottom shelf
Ain't taking her home to momma
Girl Friday
Tuesday morning
Thursday after work
Because you value you
And I ain't worth more
Than the violence
You created
The tornadoed lies
Swirling up dust
Choking me
Into believing
I can save my own breath
Giving it you
Draining my freedom
Until I am shackled
Endebted
Without signature or handshake
Crying.
And you ain't wiping away my tears,
Standing there
Wasted condom
Expecting my voice
To respond to nuanced demands
Dancing around
Like the ring I'll never see
Or public I'm not worthy of.
See,
Rape
Reveals the ugly
Leaves the wrapper on the floor
Runs through every relationship
Until you expect
Disadvantage
In exchange for like
Intimacy
Broken bridges crossed
Again and again
Looking for the rope burn
The knot to hang on to;
It ain't there
Like my trust
It swings skeptically
Skipping over
The sadness
Sitting next to you
Laces tied
Hamstrings stretched
Waiting to pick up
The baton and run
Run
Run
Furiously far away
Fm you
Pretending to cheer me on
Divesting my attention
Driving me to devalue
When all I want is
What you ain't wanna give.
Rape doesn't begin
At no
Pressed between
Strength and stupidity
Society and self
It's pissing on the sacred
Dissipating
Drowning
Daring to tear truth
Rather than wait to experience her;
Domestic terrorism
Is a learned behavior
And I'm hoarse
Hands crusted and cut up
Chalk board full
Handouts at the back door.
Class dismissed. 

Ghosting

Ghosts 

slip into humanity

and leech souls

We are left with the shells of people

we are supposed to love

We kiss them

inhaling empty ugliness

let it expand how we breathe

until we collapse

exhaling

dreams 

shredded

as they climb the shards of lies

embedded in esophagus 

bleeding their way out

Ghosts hunt

feigningly

they become the fallacy

we need

to fear less

and touch more

they melt with ambivilence

a smile

desperation

misplaced desired

is easy to wear 

when it's attractive

It's prettier that way

Then we forget

they are ghosts.

 

NEW SHOW (((EAT PRETTY ON A BUDGET!))) EGG PLANT PARMESAN!

Girls Night out

Whisky and starlight
doesn't celebrate women
quite the same
when 2 of us are black and seated
like oreos

the sandwich cookies
closing in on the double stuffed booth
sweet with denial
crunchy
tasteless

pane glass segregation
reserved to watch back door exits in
March rain
arriving late
centering herself

swallows 3 glasses
of discomfort
contorting narratives that lie to each other
in between polite bites
of food she never intended to eat

or listen
She drove for the echo
Her ego took the chance
but there was change in this chamber
Grace

is the bullet
grazing through
her Bullshit
as I go deeper into myself
looking for the grip of human extension

her hand is limp
she's a long drive away
from gathering her scattered wisdom
and ever seeing me
again.

Friends

To who it may concern
I haven't the skills of relationship
that soft interpretation of the unsaids
got lost when I wasn't allowed
to be a friend

I was confined to surmount circumstances
make up for choices
define another before I knew
who I was
or if I liked her

I had imagination
friends who listened with creativity
walked boldly into my dreams
held my hand
and waited for my smile

Nobody saw them but me
They escaped
left me to fight the words of high school boys
disfiguring my frame
on a daily

Friend became this telephone distant
only defendable
when it's not punitive
failing
fallacy

I cried for acceptance
but was given awards
trophies collect dust
and are painful
to hug

If you choose me,
I own my imperfectly human
desire to stay starry eyed
to find more than disappointment
in being a friend.

Guerrillas

Silverbacks dance free
high up in the hills
clutching to clean mountain air
shrouded and lush
sophistication

I peer
dew drenched
like an akward student
between observation and actual study
hesitant

death tastes like defense
instinct and bloody canines
the rustle
the wrestle
the resistance

domain detracts
the delicacy of living
shrinks symbiosis
makes our diet of grapes
a handful of raisins

My society says you are
more me
than I am to myself
easily
existing

I crave more than your exotic
closer than the distance
of otherness;
Your fur is soft and warm
if I trust

Friday

I was
elected
evolved out of Irish Pubs
Concrete
and a flirty spirit

I sat at the corner
of barstool conversations
and art
nursing them
like craft beers

both conduit and messenger
a mediocre conjure
bubbled before our eyes
and sat in the center
of us 6

between laughter and connection
we built bridges
out of a lexicon
left the world
different

smolders of understanding
hidden in the rafters
and hugged us
like eternity was
holding our hands

Or at least
watching
from the top of the stairs
framed
smiling

Black women give birth to Art

Leniency looks like
she's ready to tie him up
rug burn ready
leaving nothing but desire
and fantasy
dripping

opaque silks
ambiguity
building trust
somewhere around 3 am
a mouth full of effervescence

a free and forbidden
Fuck
stanking syllables
grace
beyond mistakes

She is ravenous
gentle
He sucks her life
and inhales
her tears

Tropical Mic

He storms
festering quickly
zero to 100 in a blink
blank and brooding
seated

between what we used to be
and what we are
angry that he's only
enjoying the breezes
He has needs

His necessary
travels
rage through states
in screaming escapades
deceiving and destroying

everything he touches
grappling with his mistakes
like he dropped a mic
before the set ended
and he's standing embarrassed

looking for me
collateral damage
thrift store treasure
discarded comforts
the salvation in his army

That's when I touch him
stand in his disappointment
use my fingertip to write
a new direction
and point to his heart

cover my lips
watch him defuse
wait for him to melt
and catch his wax
 between my fingers

The corner of Zaire and Epiphany

I am sunken
almost swallowed by your embrace
and you laugh
as if my wholeness
can be consumed

used or kissed away
erased
crumbled, crayoned
a craving for
completion

but you compete with me
arm your ego
with self grandeur
to cast shadows
My shine isn't an option

Steel conducts heat
and it doesn't shield you from
who I am
no matter how skilled
a warrior you may be

I fight with stakes
tasty sharpness
driven through your heart
from under my breast
through your chest cavity

demolishing proximity
reducing intimacy
to the death
it really
is

Vampires in the Midst

Dawn makes us watch exhausted
from rain and reconciliation
we see each other
opaque and tacit
sharing spaces

The bed becomes a bath
a place to drown
drench
drain each other
of the secrets

that we lie within
deny
cringe at their burning light
seek shelter
in each other

gingerly grazing upon necks
tasting eternity
between our teeth
desperate for incisor bites
to deliver us

from ourselves
suckle on this life
the irony of our existence
until resurrection isn't a goal
or an icon

We are that which we become
timeless
suspended beyond death
not a duality
just doing

My Middle name Florence

Hurricanes and hurraches
are poor planning
We thought we'd prepared well
parked close enough
packed light

Winds don't whisper
they wail
whipping water from the sky
and thrashing it
sideways

We run
gathering wet memories
and laughter
up the corner
up the steps

and watch from the balcony
how pretty panic can be
when it's all shades of melanin
that vibrancy
running from the storm

"You can call me Flo"
I am fierce
dripping and sharp
I swell. I flood
and won't apologize

for the weights of my grandmother
her whole first name
separates what my mother saw in me
and my father's crest
I move with all 3

I understand balance
between the devil and the dance
I am the movement
the mourning
Miss me with anything less

I chose what I am called
Even Charisma listens
9 times outta ten
and smiles
in agreement

Mankind is an Oxymoron

We are parked
manicured green and curated just so
we don't hear the rumbling bones
beneath us
weep

exasperated with erasure
poured out in libations
our ancestors are the door
not the gatekeepers
or the opening ceremony

But my protest is swallowed
and spit out of six foot speakers
diluted like overpriced lemonade
that we have to drink
because water

is lead out of fountains
contaminated
through century old construction
never meant to water
these souls

these 2 sets of lips
gingerly declaring a kiss
in public
is the blackest thing
we can do

Gawdis here
with Black Charisma
we are all that
oxymoron and
mankind

Black Charisma

He saunders
strolls between rough and regal
seersuckered but not a sucker
unless his lips are
behind my ear

speaking something like conscious objection
and poetry
multisyllables of masculine magnitude
not married to the game
just thinking

about why marriage has merit
and why I melt
into his cadence
his misogynoir
his ironic

pursuits of politics and polygamy
having me hold his place
folded over my arm
fresh pressed
placid, and paid for

with a bite of sleeping beauty's apple
Blaming Eve, me
for GMO seed, systemic injustice
and front lining my body
for us

gathering in open spaces
parading past each other
like distant cousins
at the family reunion
and call it community

Other Side of the Moon

Galvanized and gathered
Parks become platforms
people and purpose converge
and color is no longer monolithic
it's who we are

in between the history and hustle
I didn't sit. I stood
signed ancestors names in chalk
unmistakeable mohawk
parlaying

proving my existence adjacent to
and contextually black
but I am hellish red
burnt umber
tasting tongues behind the bathroom

laughing up pineapple spit
we shared
before the storm decided
I was way too hot
to stay

and touch that earth
with little more than poetry
Nigerian remixes
and a hunger too great for black
dollars

Black August in a Park

Heat sits
legs spread wide open
inhaling what little cool comes in August
lawn chairs, old blankets, and hats
layered between the sun and this skin of mine.

Comfort is the context right now
close enough to earth to smell
far enough not to feel 
the assumptive is support somewhere
between gravity and a good time

Wrinkled light,
yellow layers kiss my thighs
fall between my breasts
dripping like the sweat
it absorbs

breathable
cotton 
dressing me 
beyond function
beyond construction

Buildings become shadows
casting memories and demanding my presence
in new places, old spaces
where I used to almost thrive
my foundations were here but I wasn't living.