Necessary Trouble
She sat chain smoking out the window. Looking down on the street her hands shook as she said "We can't do this anymore". I leaned back against the wall, the thin mattress underneath me, suddenly feeling the nakedness of my skin under her translucent sheet. Sinking but unsurprised, I had no protection from this storm.
"This is good for no one" her voice wavered, and of course she was right. Continuing would be foolish. For me. For her. For her unknowing man.
Realizing my pain, her hands found mine like they had so many times before, although this time her long fingers felt like nothing. Her ghost hands, already gone, were no comfort to me.
I wanted to leave then. Leave her apartment. Leave Bushwick. Leave Brooklyn. Leave the whole damned city. I could take the next train. Calmly I got up, saying I was heading out. Not ready, she grabbed my hand again and asked me to stay.
So I did.
Later as I watched her suck the juice from a dominican mango I remembered the feeling of her lips and tongue working on me, not unlike the fruit she held. Three nights of passion. Three mornings of "This can't happen again". Hours of phone conversation and writing to each other all ended in burning me alive and making me undone, just like I knew it would.
We were necessary trouble for each other.
She walked me to the subway in unsteady silence. Nothing left to say she hugged me goodbye and I climbed the stairs, not looking back.
The time for lingering was over.
Armand
Its been 7 years since i've seen you last
balding with wisps of long brown hair
the red pleather Nascar jacket and
your nervous breath
drawn quickly in between words.
You know, I hardly knew you but i loved you.
I think I still do.
Grandma told me a story of when I was a child
I was so excited
I said "Daddy is going to come and take me to the fair and he's going to put me on his shoulders!"
and when she looked at my mother to see if it was true
mom just looked sad and shook her head.
I've always had an overactive imagination.
Blood
Elegant droplets swirling in water
how could anyone hate you?
You're art dripping from the body
a beautiful farewell to life almost created.
Also thank fucking God.
I bleed out the bodily reminders
of men I didn't love,
of kinky nights and awkward mornings
Each politely hastening to the door.
I bleed out
the phone calls that never came.
and the texts each
more sporadic than the last.
I bleed out the fear
that i would have to get an abortion alone.
Tears of relief and thankfulness
some people will never know.
13, a deadly age
He was a boy.
not a criminal
not a monster
but a boy.
Tyre King.
A boy shot down
a black "suspect"
who didn't deserve life
or so the whites say.
She was a girl
(it seems so long ago now).
Not a slut
Not a woman
but a girl.
Maryann Measles.
A girl raped and wrapped in chains
dumped like litter
into a river
who didn't deserve life
or so the rich say.
They'll always make an excuse
defend their own "respectable" people
who terrorize.
Content
while the rest of us
scream in showers
and grow up without sisters.
There’s a Freedom in Letting Go
I envy your articulated sadness.
All i know how to speak
anymore
is light.
a defense.
A child in a room
watching
her mother scream to God
the girl invisible
lost in the waves
of pain
she couldn't see.
a witness.
And here you are
your sea green eyes
freely swimming in the depths
your hands flowing out
over strings
bleeding into the music
such
tortured beauty
but beauty still.
My hand reaches out to you
a painting I'm afraid to touch
in the museum
my life has become.
I stand a crumbling column
observer, sentinel
with a painters eye
and a fearful heart.
a witness.
You, though, refuse it
and for the first time
the very first time
I am seen.
Your brown-flecked eyes
gently stare into my soul
imploring me to just exist
to let someone else
bear witness for once.
Your fingers caress my neck
reminding me
I am a woman
all softness
and flesh
and love.