We get our voices from the ghosts of spirituals
Our feeling from their deaths
Will they think
About how our nights were filled with
Blue eyes
Blond hair
Long and silky
Wind tousled
How the slight tinge of brown or black was easily
Passed by
Begged for the chance to be seen but the wish was never answered
I wonder who would honor my wish
See me in the pictures
And select me on the screen
As they try to do in real life
After sanitized hands
Cleanse mouths from the aftertaste
Will they come back?
Sometimes I’m nervous walking in
Sometimes I’m nervous walking out
Sometimes I should be walking in
Sometimes I should be walking out
Sometimes I walk in when I should walk out
Sometimes I walk out when I should walk in
Sometimes I stop walking
Sometimes I stop feeling when I need to heal
Sometimes I stop healing when I need to feel
Sometimes I regret allowing myself to eat
Sometimes I regret allowing myself to speak
Sometimes I hate when days evaporate
Sometimes I wait for days to fade
Sometimes I hate myself
Sometimes I love myself
Sometimes I can’t tell what I am to myself
Sometimes I don’t know how to speak
Sometimes I wish I was meek
Sometimes I wish I was weak
Sometimes I wish I was strong
Sometimes I wonder how long this can go on
Sometimes I’m smart and I know
Sometimes I’m dumb and it shows
Sometimes I’m right when I’m wrong
Sometimes I write wrong when I’m right
Sometimes this all feels surreal
And Sometimes I don’t know what to feel
I think about how you’re a vision of my past
Ever so semi-permanent
I’m walking down the street
And I see a parchment-colored bullfrog
Skin wilted thin
A parchment-colored snail
Shocking passersby till dead from its stillness
It’s a brown napkin
