melting random access memory

i am on my way
to have the saddest, almost sex
on a sex therapist’s couch
in a swamp apartment
with a boy too poor to afford new dress shoes

he sleeps on the kitchen floor & dreams of marrying me
gifts me a promise ring made of the clipped binding of a spiral notebook

i held his live haggis
asking if it felt good

i was a fat girl
with a new wig
& a taste for misconduct

i wanted him to slurp me down like a plump, meaty insect
burst in his mouth

but i am no vixen witch, just wanted to be wanted

in the end, his body transforms itself into infinite, humming leeches
hovering over me, asking                      why do you love me?

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seat 013: black & brown & free all over

i propose
blackness
in any
space

if
you don’t
understand me

this
not
for
you

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a queer exorcism in 20 lines

you have to be okay with shrinking your world down to a black dot
starving yourself barren
knowing your worth & your hell & greeting your loneliness bound on a stretcher
hangman has you figured out to: LOVE BEFORE WHY EXCEPT AFTER DIE.
grinding your teeth to a powder, adding it to hot water
all that is given to you is the ability to shade & change
hello earth,
i want to write a pregnancy poem
be considered an amazon where men get lost
slap everyone that doesn’t understand ‘warming’ before ‘socializing’
i want to wait in line for an emotional rollercoaster
i want to risk my life
please,
read my palm shooting daggers of commitment.
i once spent $3,000 in six months to sleep in the arms of a womxn twice a week
you must hate me now…i’ve exposed the source of my convulsions
trapped my growls in a bell jar to watch float like dust in an old room.
this is the dinner party i’ve planned,
the table i’ve set,
the place in which i will feast.

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deadness & other things akin to blackness

who comes into the world a Big Bang & leaves a whisper? ans: black womxn.

this girl i used to know was parenthetical & lavender-smelling // a golden microphone broadcasting
traumas // i recognized her in my coffee // the way the air shifted // she had a name, but everyone
preferred to call her by the things she wore: pocketbook girl; shoe lady // she oftentimes found
herself on blood-stained sheets in some fat truck driver’s whore penthouse // one day, in a harsh
winter, her BMW got trapped in the driveway, & because girls like her never became wives, just
liabilities // just something to soak in when you had the time // she shoveled it out herself & broke
her hip // so started the story of the dying star dripping her cosmic wonder through every opening
on her body that could shit something through // she’d turned into nothing but a bullet in the brain //
that girl… // had her spine stolen from her // & while everyone’s eyes were awash with tears, i
thought to myself: the body is just some odd undercarriage needing constant protection

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solange & i are sisters in a parallel universe of posers

& so / it came to me / in the nude / colored / realization / of my blackness / that i must / emerge /
from the red sand / & leave my
footprints / down / by the river / where my mother almost drowned / slipping from a hanging tree
stump…

open your eyes, child / please / she said
you have / a black story / to tell

it comes / from your scalp
it is / in your eyes
it manifests / when you are rubbed together / like two rocks / & set to scorch / the earth

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seat 021: chosen

(blackout poem; source: “Closing: The Chosen Ones” by Solange feat. Master P from ‘A Seat at
the Table’)

done / paved they way. / great-great-grandfathers / grandmothers / came here /    found some

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a silhouette of december

my grandmother braided clove // into her hair // to ward off // bad juju // she always believed //
courage could be found // in mango seeds // & she was the first person // to know the peace // of a
room of one’s own

when i think of her // i imagine a pair of black lungs // breeding carnations // i think of someone
occupying // the corner of a room // & a whole heart // simultaneously

protection spells // were cast & housed // in the pages // of her bible // where she blacked out //
occurrences of // ‘man’

a stiff // diabetic foot // washed & wrapped around my neck // for good luck

she’d walk into rooms // stealing the bones of oxtail // hiding them in her house dress //
to oil later // next to rosaries // praying for a life // of needle-less belly prodding // & to not be known
// by the way // her breasts // hung

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How Do You Tell Your Mother She Gave Birth to Something Like a Boy?

i.

Dear Mother,
i sit in the bathtub,
no water running

where
my brown body lacks breasts,
& can leave its uterus
behind
like socks at a laundromat.

i was afraid to shave my head, once,
but        oh god
when i did…
i finally saw Father in myself

in this land, i do not mirror the curves & dips
found in nature

(rather than being the peach) i want to eat it.
to be the force that pierces its way through
the        divine feminine

crack me open
see the light s  e  e  p
at the sight of a body
flattened to it’s essentials

ii.

iii.

clean me out so i can stop vomiting my truth
alone

a figment

for something like respect

this is something you can’t comb through.
nappy wishes —

Mother,
i need to beat my chest
& howl…pop off like the gunshot i am
i creep on men & smell them,
thinking
what a wonder.

it feels so strange to hear my voice leave my body
not quite (woman)/(man)
more like the hum of a generator/the clearing of a
sore throat

i long for this life
that will erase me when it’s unclear where to place
me

a circle drawn over      & over      & over

Mother,

i want a wife
to find me in that bathtub
& ask me if i’m coming back to bed
soon.

seething cocks crow in me,
though
they’re made of imaginary clay

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i want to talk to my brother about things

i.
it is 3:25 a.m. & for some reason i envision my brother as a nesting doll filled with gummy bears. i
want to know how he feels about this…that his sister is remembering him, bloated, with ground pig
hooves.

it wasn’t always this way.

sometimes, we are six again, & building prodigious forts in the basement. other times, we’re skiing
down a flight of steps on a five-foot-book. these days, a ‘hello’ is afraid to leave my chest, & so it
sits / televisions blasting CNN blips are what i cradle in the night.

no peeping up & over cribs to watch this thing, like a writhing jellybean, stare back at me. no . i’m
sure now that he’d like to bound my feet & toss me over a hill — watch me dangle, but not ‘kill’ me.
it is always ‘the edge,’ with him, or a peak . no in-between.

ii.
for once, i’d like to meet one good black boy: knees pristine; soul afloat; nothing to prove to
anyone but himself, & if so, the dream is to be competent & loving.

these major, monsoon men spitting warnings & bossing me into boxes…burning my arms off
before i even have a chance to figure out how to hug them…i assume, i guess , that he cares
anything about my methods to love him into an existence where he doesn’t have to tap on tables
fives times, slam refrigerator doors shut, leave every room with the scent of lemongrass, for
attention.

iii.
i wonder if he knows he’s the portrait of a c-section scar; a language of loudness trapped in a fist;
grief occupying a leather jacket.

the problem here, is that i want to talk to my brother about things, & i can, because his body is on
a couch & i see him, i’m sure i do, but he’s dead, you know?

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seat 003: glory

i ask my white friends where they peace at
& they show me an idle ampersand
fake pink jasper from a flea market in their pockets

acting united

but when i ask my black friends
where they peace at they say you is

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