I will place sunflowers on your grave
When I feel that you are gone
They will come from
A condensation-laden bucket
At a florist’s stand in a grocery store

I wish I could say that I worked hard
Trying to pick the bouquet that best
Fit who you were, who you are and
Who you could’ve been but all is lost in time

I will sit with my back on the headstone
Wishing for any feeling besides cold granite
Hot anger and a lukewarm apathy that sticks
Like tapioca pudding to every movement of my frame

I think I lost you the first moment that I saw
Mist pass in front of your eyes
I said nothing as the blindness took you
Changing the magenta hues of a sunrise
Into the indigo wool of a sunset

These sunflowers are my last plea
To a god pulling reins in my chariot brain
I can’t place this burden down until my race ends
No victors, no losers, only foam-flecked steeds
Dying in agony on unforgiving sand

Just because all my friends are white
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Just because I am mistaken for Hispanic or Samoan
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Just because I’ve never seen Friday or Living Single
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Just because I feel incredibly uncomfortable saying any variation of the n-word
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Just because they said that I don’t see you that way like they were apologizing
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Just because I don’t fit a stereotype that I built in my head of what it means to be black
Doesn’t mean that
I’m not black

Look to the person on your right
Look to the person on your left
One of you will never use your degrees
The time you wasted will soak into your brain
Like vinegar into ultra absorbent paper towels
Until they swell, bursting with sour-sweet stench
The regrets will trace your steps, placing shadows
Along every burnt-edged footprint that you make
Your mistakes etching a daguerreotype into the
Trampled vegetation as you try to make your own path
Burn your credentials for warmth because we are all alone

I know I ignored
The caution sign
Outside this AMC
But the marquee said
That it was playing
Madagascar 3

I had only seen
The first one before
How does the story end
Oh the animals
All go to space to
Fight a ice dragon

Well that’s a weird turn
For the series to take
But what can a writer do
To heighten the plot
Tell a new story
And keep them out of the zoo

I would like to watch
The movie now and
Fall asleep in this chair
I know this theater
Has been condemned but
Frankly I don’t care

Just give me a hour
Maybe two so I can see
What happens next
The charges will blow
And I’ll still be here
The theater will be a wreck

At least I will die
My life’s goal complete
I’ll know how the story ends
In the afterlife
I’ll be met by Gloria
King Julien and other Madagascar friends

How do I release my shame
Wash myself in the river
Ink leaks from my skin
Paints my fingers black

Instead I feel my shame
Warp with every movement
Every step driving shards
Into my spiderweb skeleton

The spikes pierce through
My loved ones as they are
Impaled in a radius and
Left in the sun to rot

I didn’t used to feel like this
Like I am constantly pushing
A world away, Atlas in reverse,
No support, only failed effort

I see my shame as another being
One who is both of me and not
A burnt-black gremlin who sneers
Waiting for scraps

I try to ignore the tendrils that stream
From the base of my spine, binding me,
Feeding me, sustaining me, the hatchet
In my hand is dull, unworn and in stasis

I stare at the pebble-flecked ceiling
Wishing it would peel back and pick me up
Drywall-caked lips peeling back
Ready to receive my mistakes, my lies, my regrets

I want to forgive myself

Just once

Fear is in my bones
In my step
Waiting for me in
Every gaze

I smell fear on the air
A mist that leaves
Dew on my skin
The drip is real

Escape from fear
Is unrealistic and
Unimaginable

A sorcerer’s spell
But magic is dead

The only truth is progress

Yet I regress as I fall
Further into myself

Dull-grey sword
Charlatan magician
Demon-possessed thief

I am all of these things
I feel them raging against
Sandstone walls in my chest
Demanding to be unloosed

Burst out through my fingers
Burn out my throat
Infect my eyes
Shred my eardrums
Splinter my spine

My inertia stills the fear
But it does not disappear

“Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than live with the fear of it.”

Joe Abercrombie

The last thing I see before I go to sleep is the shadow of myself
It waits for me with splintered fists to remind me of who I am
A spinning figure trapped in between shades of the past and whispers of things yet to be
So don’t sleep, arise, the world does not stop. Neither should you
I’d rather wear my shade as a blanket and pull it around my shivering body and let it hold me when I sleep.

In the center of the storm sits the empty man
His movements placid and unhurried
An apathetic calm settles across his bone-white irises
The future is gossamer, shredded by the slightest breeze
The past is stone, obdurate and suffocating
He raises his bed-sore covered arms
Knowing that he can break this eternal inertia
With nothing more than a solitary clap
It is too late for the empty man
His skin, loose and unblemished, wears him now
It is tangled with the stitchings of his broken throne
The past is prologue. The future is prologue.
The empty man sits in the same moment
Unchanging, Unmoving, Unraveling

The shape of the world mirrors my spine
Warped and cracked from many lonely nights
I look inside to find the lie that I see in others’ eyes
The void tickles my peripheral vision
An alien seduction drawing me in
Stroking me at the dinner table as my family goes placid
My eyelids close so no one can see
The disgust and pleasure I give into

We are cruel and chaotic and finite
There is no meaning but there is an ending
You will not dream because you can not hope
Feel my weight atop you, the relentless pull of the deep
Your bonds disintegrate, your love curdles

Why do you sleep so much
It is the appetizer for death
A taste of what you wait for
The only infinite there is

I pass over the sunken field
The swamp makes me hungry
My march, implacable and unforgiving

In my center is peace but it is fleeting
I see the ground below, it seems of another realm
Not one of air and ozone, of storm and rage

I caress the zephyrs that swirl in my being
They receive them with purrs and giggles
My misty pets unafraid of the rain

I can’t hear the curses and pleas
The screams are sucked into my wind
They become a part of me and who I am

I drift further over the land
My march slows, my rage abates
Until I fade back into the air that birthed me