20

The wind under the last consonant

The silence after you speak the name

Except for your name which ends in an “i”

So it could ring out long after you

With enough breath

the hallways scream side by side

too many black men in the long hallways

two of the tallest men I know

Or used to know

Or used

to be men

Sobbing in the hallways as the cops come

When E started crying we all said “we should go”

Why did we decide the place could not contain them?

We were there to mourn with

Privately

Our friend is at the front of the room

Our friends dead body is at the front of the room

I was 20 once

I was 20 and my friend was at the front of the room

And I was looking at him and he didn’t look back at me

He had a hair cut for a job interview

It was a beautiful day

I was 20

E is in the hallway

E is in the hallway with the cops

E is in the hallway with the cops and it’s 9:30 in the morning

I know why they’re here

They’re here because the boys want to die and they’re the ones

to kill them

We are in the narrow hallway

I assess the narrowness of the hallway

I am wearing my “defend black womanhood” hoodie

they woke two niggers up this morning

“it’s too crowded in here” I think

Too crowded to kill us come back tomorrow

if you must

Writing is what is keeping me alive

So it makes sense I haven’t been writing about

This

Orange Moon

Orange moon

I found out that you passed in my human development class

We were learning about how babies need the people who bore them to hold them close in order To learn how to be loved.

To learn how to fall and be caught.

Your big brother tells the world through my screen that you decided to leave.

No body no more.

Orange tree

Six octobers later and i am driving to the funeral of a baby girl

Only a year older than I was when we lost you

The road is lined with firey bursts

You were older than all of us

would stand in the corner, stoic and enraged. Wrestling our hands off of each other, and protecting us from false friends

I think I see you and almost wrap my car around the trunk

Orange light

Burning holes into the water where you swam around and found a rock for each of us

When we only knew how to fight with each other

you were bright enough that we were forced to remember each of our humanity

You saved your anger for when it mattered

Bright orange

Friend, are you up there? Do you send fire down to the branches that crack open the earth?

You cut your locs off the week before you died so you could get a job

Has it grown back on this long trip?

Do you still fall in love with everyone you see? Do you still speak strong and stutter

Orange leaves

Covered the ground in the autumn that we all met

Our first and last with you

Get home safe

Walk slowly

And keep making all this noise please

——————————-

The day of the funeral was unreasonably bright, and the burrito I got from Taco Bell was perfectly wrapped

An orange tree. The evidence of fall coming despite the smoke and the sun

Charley says “Brace yourself” and there is a body on the table

My season of sitting on floors as passed

Send fire down and crack open the earth

Orange and yellow fire lit the way for us to see you

The only sunny day so far that October

In an air conditioned church they kept you cool

Keep Me Here

In whatever way you must

In the whispers of my lungs

In the days that sleep wrestles away

Keep me in the sun

Even if I neglect its blessings. Let me

Lay in the shadows of those I love

Even if the darkness overcomes me

Keep me in the world of uncertainty

Marked by numbers that my doctors

Crave, and make up to be my deciders.

Even when they’re wrong

Keep me down here

Even when I am on my own

Even when I live in the lack

Where no friend or mother has known

What I’ve been forced to

Please keep me here

Alone in the knowing

Even if it gets worse

Keep me here and let it unfold in every color

January 23 | Slotted Sun Reflection

Purple seeds rippling

From the dark

And casting out what fractures they took

When they survived that stiff, scraping submersion into the earth

Something so well kept slowly grows against the walls of what it thought was its home

And treks in all directions looking for light

My body catatonic, placed firmly in the corner where the back and the seat of our broken living room futon meet

Takes just a few more jagged breaths

Shaking and heaving out shame filled tears

Before I was ready to plant my feet on the ground

In the way of a slotted sun beam coming through the window

Which passes quickly but still dances behind the skin of my eyes

Through the window