Confession:

I’ve been thinking about

being a body

again.

About seeing and being seen.

I’m not sure when

the last time ended

or this time began

or if I’ve ever really

stopped

but I do know

I’ve burnt myself out 

on this so many times

that I’ve nicknamed

my teeth

cinders

my voice less a spark

and more

embers

soot lining my lungs

I cough up clouds of words

trying to form the dust into

something more tangible

than my hands,

a reality or

a truth that

all the kerosene in the world

couldn’t shake.

The politics of not being

is a two party system

split your body into caucuses

passing votes on a gaze

like an entryway

that I keep holding onto

the threshold of;

wearing through the mat

thinning out the welcomes

the liminality of

being between visibility

and disappearing

dropping opacity

to ether thinness

like pretenses.

The nihilism in this

is a quaint conversation

to have with yourself

when all you’ve ever had

is quaint conversations

with yourself

standing waiting on

a bus platform

but not making a connection

keeping yourself at bay

/at a distance

holding yourself with

kids gloves,

your body worn like

mittens pinned

to your winter jacket

yarn threaded through 

the arms 

behind your back

that you can’t tug

to try to hug

your own form,

the wet wool of your own skin

chafing against your hand 

inside of you

but still reaching

searching

for something

to hold onto

and in the desperation finding

that maybe all of this debating

these parliamentary rows

that I keep having

really aren’t worth having 

at all.

So maybe I’ll call

my body a misnomer

maybe I’ll call

my heart a heathen

for beating inside of it,

a punch drunk lover

of a pulse pounding

in the flower garden

of my chest

hard bone like fists

booming; blooming

black and blue

across my ventricles

the thunderous roar

of a ribcage rattled

the subtle click

of a doors locked picked

like a middle name

of nothing taken,

a leaf off the branch

of a family tree

falling

away

this battle I seem

to love to fight

is never without

casualty

this nation of

a self

caught in between

the lines

this body

politic 

the machine

that always forwards

the war.

Queer love is
taking all of
the wishes
that were written
out for you
in baby books,
on birth certificates,
sewn into the
pink and blue
of baby blankets
and pulling the string
to watch them come

a   p   a   r  t,

and trying to catch
whatever threads
fall into your hands
to knit a pocket
to keep your heart
inside.

Queer love is
held in palms,
prayers slipping
between church pews
staring down the eyes
of Jesus on the cross
wishing not to be
the shape that
his father
made you into
that his priests
call damned just so
they can ignore
holiness that he
instilled.

Queer love is
learning how to
keep a secret,
how to be a secret,
how scratches in paint
in bathroom stalls
and confessionals
inside of bedroom walls
are rushed with
fingers pressed to
lips begging to caress,
seething to speak
no longer to the
ear of the night but
fearing the face of
the sun and the way
that its rays
would bleach you
to your bones.

Queer love is
coming out like
a torch to a pyre;
like a Viking funeral
marching precession
to setting yourself
ablaze,
pushing yourself
off a coastline
burning through
the hull of your
heaving chest
waiting to capsize
and be swallowed
and doused
and be whole
in the ocean.

Queer love is
not having to
explain the
overlapping scars
between your lover’s
pressed body,
not needing
drag out history
and trace these
lines like maps
on your skin
to draw the hands
that formed them
because you’re both
covered in the same
fingerprints.

Queer love is
knowing
and having been known,
a truth so indelible
that your mouth
is a permanent marker
and it only redacts
the lies you’ve told
to keep yourself
still written in the
classified pages
of your own
double agent
life.

Queer love is
in how she holds me.
It’s in the gaps
she’s found in
my lines,
in my past,
in the ocean.

Queer love is
the light of day,
it’s a pinkie promise
and an answer to
a prayer.

It’s the pocket
I keep my
heart inside
that makes me born
again.

Let me sleep a little longer.
Oh alarm clock please
don’t sing to me
a sweet familiar song
to rouse me from this.
I’m trying hard to
sleepwalk my way through
the haze of these days
longing throughout for
the respite of soft night
to bed me down
and run her fingers
through the straw
of my dry hair,
spinning it like
I am Sleeping Beauty
throwing herself onto
the point of her
wheel’s spindle.

Let me dream a little longer
because the backs of my eyes
aren’t made up of wishes
I fear my lovers have sewn
into cracks of my skin,
wishes that I’ve threaded
between my clasped palms
like the eyes of needles,
like the beads on a rosary,
wishes that have
flowed out of me like
water from prayer fountains
in Vatican City that
God has never listened to
or even had the care
to wash me with.

Let me dream a little longer
because there strangers
can’t bend my body
into a question mark;
my breath isn’t taken
a statement of action
and the nightmares
that other people
have of me
and have for me
can’t touch me because
sweet dreams are made
of not having to
look under your bed
or over your shoulder
or into the eyes
of someone claiming
you are the monster
for stepping out
of their closet.

So please,
let me sleep a little longer.
Hold back the dawn
and push down the sun,
because as bright at is it
and as warm as it feels
and however it tries
to hold my body tender
between the fingers
of its rays
it can never,
in all of its
burning passion,
ever,
match up to
my dreams.

Check out the latest essay on Kay Ulanday Barrett’s WHEN THE CHANT COMES:
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2016/10/when-the-chant-comes/

Daffodil Sonnet

The woman at the bus stop didn’t know,

Yet she handed me a blooming flower,

Six petal’d daffodil of bright yellow.

Plant snipped in its most exquisite hour.

Why did she have it? Why give it to me?

She lifted up her hand without a word,

Offering the flower, staring blankly.

My “thanks” very quiet, maybe unheard.

Oh bus stop woman, I’m merely a bud.

Nineteen years old, yet a man only two.

More testosterone now runs through my blood.

My first shot was twenty minutes ago.

I thank you kindly, oh bus stop woman.

A blooming flower for a budding man.