Poetry

We lie inches apart,
faces turned from one another,
like two commas in the same sentence
that never connect.

Your back faces mine,
like a locked screen
close enough to touch,
impossible to enter.

And I looked, and there was this ugly brown girl asking for some less brownness, perhaps.

We were birdsong
We were giant redwood trees
We were bones bleached by desert sun
We were metaphors and similes
We were poems and poets
We were wildfire
We were ebbing in and out
We were waves in the blue atlantic

The walls utter gossip at night.
They watch new women pass,
different steps, new perfumes,
claiming corners they'll never own.

I've seen a penguin in a trench coat 

Questioning the tide.

I've seen a pigeon on the couch 

Licking chip salt from its wings. 

We are told this is a free country...

But that's until someone speaks their mind

That's until someone points out someone's differences 

I dread going to school every single day.

I hate it,

I hate being trapped there.

But I love being greeted by my best friend

who could make hell

feel as freezing as

these February Maryland mornings.

every once in a while,

the sky gets tired

and hides its face behind

hands of light gray clouds.

it sighs in quiet thunder,

and lets tears of blue

slip loose, trailing softly down

Sometimes I dream of never meeting you. I dream of the dates I would’ve never experienced, the love thrown in the void.

Would I even know what love is without you? Would I still believe in fate, or true love?

The chemicals

They fill 

Blackening lungs

Cameras out

They capture

loud shots

Man down

Gas thrown 

Child gone

And while

people fall

Home is mom’s Shepard pie and ginger snaps. 

Home is the one scent you can never quite place, it appears out of nowhere to return you to age 6 on the swings yelling ‘higher grandpa, higher’ it yearns to be bottles and relived. 

Clouds fill cities

The evil has spread

Like a virus 

Infiltrating your soul

Corrupting your poor mind

Don’t let them fool you