that’s why my favorite picture of myself
is a mystery
straight-backs in ball shorts in a body
that day I got to choose
assignment was assumption
I make my beauty…
the best thing about worlds is that they are built
can be over again
timelines archived and old days spent in favor of new
i’ve got new days and new…
dripping wet
i am a soup of myself when you hold me
searching for resting place where the living is easy
where the aches in me are hushed by your fingers in my righteous places please find them all
you hush with a sustenance that contorts to fit me tracing my body: a seasoned tailor
a reprieve of safety dare I say I like when you turn me into forest or a church?: choose either holy place and sing me prostrate
you named me sweetness
i burrow into your neck to soak in the moment making sure we are both in on this memory under the…
be responsible for your embrace
of me
i want to make it easy
there is enough tough to go around
here i am
folding for you
do you see it?
…
you are not afraid
to be seen living
and not that regular living shit
the farce that makes puppets of human flesh
you don’t fool anyone about what it takes…
a “good morning”
to my plants and a walk
to cry on the yoga mat
a practice, yes
lately a praise
an ode
a wet awe
to this body that…
are you aching with
lonely
in your ribs
are you full of joy
at yourself
both
and always
I interned at the Schomburg Center for a summer as a senior in college. I walked to the center every day. Every day a group of Black men was sitting close to each other. I could tell they were kin. They weren’t touching but they did seem bound up together. Apart but one on top of the other all the same. Mangled together beautifully. Not sure of top from bottom.
My friends would speak to them. I let the others’ salutations handle my own. The mangled men noticed.
I think a lot about how we are all bound up together as humans. Even strangers who don’t know who you are or who you would be can stick out a finger and find a tender spot in a very obscure way. …
how have we not fallen into each other
aloud revolutions of earth
you seem a wonderous revelation
a towering of life
in a valley of death
an upright unabashed lily
…
did I do right by you?
by loving myself?
too absolutely too loudly
my throat a trumpet a dungeon-shaking mechanism
and I had more love shored up
heavy genius love…
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