Without close

I want you to say something

Say something

Say something 

That’s going to make it all better

I want you to write again

Text me again and tell me

Something 

Something that’s going to make it all better

I want you to say something

Say something that’s going to fix something that

I don’t know how to 

I tell you I want to talk

You tell me I’m not talking 

You’re talking and I don’t know what to say

9/21

I will not write a race poem

So I’ll liken the trees to brown sleeves

With leaves tracing a pattern reaching 

Toward hearts

 

I will not write a love poem 

So I’ll imagine backpacks 

pushing back against lower backs 

Aching for a release 

 

I will not write a disorder poem

So I’ll write about food 

Itching to be eaten 

To enter a full stomach 

I’ll write about the mind 

Cautiously telling a cautionary tale

About candy and obesity and health 

While also singing songs and admonitions about body positivity Fighting and unlearning the things taught by tv screens I’ll write about life and regret and wonder why Why we just have to keep trying and keep fighting and 

Think of that as fun. In writing to the mind I’ll again and again call attention to how it’s all about your mindset and yet somehow I can never quite get my mind to set. I’ll remember that hunger means you need to drink more water and hunger means you want something so you need to keep going but hunger is never satisfied. In race, I’ll remember that every day is a race against time against each other against my own That there is this pressure to be the first the first the first when white people just get to live

I’ll… 

I…

Love

 

If you could write me 

You’d write wrong 

Right before you 

Say something I’ve said 

 

How could you 

Could you know-how 

You could wait 

Wait till you can 

 

But then 

You’d be too early 

 

Early morning 

I see you sleeping 

Slowly breathing 

A smile slipped 

Across your face 

 

But who could talk

While tangled 

 

Into the void

 

 One night

 I dreamt of a void 

When touched, dark blue ripples 

ricocheted outward 

pulsating on my fingertips. 

Flat, alive, and just wide enough

For me to step through. 

 

Opaque ground 

Sprawled out 

Blanketed 

A Blue forest. 

I stepped 

Around ocotillos 

Weaved through 

Joshua Trees 

And listened 

To the buzzing of bees.

 

Forest fades 

And buzzes turn into voices 

Singing of freedom 

From fear 

Their hope 

Echoing and elaborating 

In variations 

The cries of their loved ones

Dead 

Sounds a monody. 

 

In the void 

I find myself 

In a battle royale with my thoughts 

Wondering 

When it would be best 

To emerge

 

 

My t-shirt is the train 

Dripping with cold sweat under a winter coat

 

My laptop is the train

Ticking, lifeless, from sticky fingers 

 

My scarf is the train

Saving the seat next to me from butt sweat 

 

My suitcase is the train 

Searching for closure in a jostled enclosure 

 

My hair is the train 

Musty against my face to keep me warm

 

The train, such a stain to bring me home