All the things I’ve accumulated
Sitting listless and unnumbered
A red towel soaked from suds fleeing from the sink
You have to use your nails to get clean
Wash cloths aren’t enough
Some people don’t use them
I can’t stop to talk to you
Clean clean splash nothing is clean
“Miss 1 pink pill in week 1 of your pack take the first as soon as you remember
The second at your regular time”
Awake with dread in a blue room wishing to
Close my eyes knowing that with every passing
Moment my mind, quenching tears creates time tombs.
Who knew that sorrow could cure happy living
Water is healing when thinking how, or who
Gets to be, gets sleep, gets to keep succeeding.
Loneliness feels best when striving for greatness
I wonder how I’ll sleep when there’s nothing less.
Make my bones like papier-mâché
So that I may be whole while hollow
Create my mouth like calculator
So that my speech may be accurate while calm
Humble my ears like honey
So that I only see what is sweet
Stomach full too soon
The sky has mooned
And you turned into much more than I assumed
There’s an owl under my lamp shade
Above the sticky phone screen I’m desperately trying to rub clean
It flies at about 6 millimeters taller than patience
A chicken uncooped in my mothers house
Shot in her bed by police
Her heart fizzled out from loving too much
Many times before going to bed I’ve seen her forgetting my name
I see someone else screening my calls
Answering with one-word messages before I finally find out the inevitable
I’m in the shower and she’s drowning
From her own blood, in a lake
My father is screaming, my sister is crying, and I’m making funeral arrangements
Trying to remember what the six primary seasonings were,
where the red beans and rice recipe was whether or not pattern goes with pattern
I want to record our conversations so I have messages to scroll through but I keep thinking about when I get to the end of them
When no one agrees with me
Or sees my side of things
When she finally picks up I remember
I have to stop practicing for my mother’s death
Daija just died yesterday
Danielle can’t see her face in all the paint
My mother and I don’t know what to say
Each day it’s harder to wake
While Tabs, papers, and links fill my desk
The sun is the only one who fills me in the warring
Generations of expectations and no money to shop
With your tasks there is no time for mourning
All I want is to water my plants now
When scrolling I know I would rather my pain
In all that I’ve heard I just don’t know how
To live knowing some are worth just a word
The sky turns grey but there is no change
Answers may come with age
This is where my voice is
Socotra coffee house is a sea of color
And when I order my small adeni chai I feel at home in a language I don’t understand
My heels hanging on to a metal seat frame
Typing busy bees, the meaning of indeterminancy, and complaints of capitalism
“And when you cross this divide, you’ll get what we’ve all been denied”
I call my mother because I’ve finally found the right line
Note from the poet:
This is the first poem in the new Written in red series, which are poems focusing on the personal, creative, and political
