You tell me that the streets cannot talk.

Does not the silence of stained concrete scream volumes?

Bodies lying, cut down on street corners,
bags over heads over dirt over breath,
and you change your path,

walk where the marble beams cleaner.

I tell her my eyes are small wrinkles.
Mom tells me, no, my eyes are beautiful.

But I look into the curves of her crease,
A lid that runs so smoothly like almond milk,
it cuts deep into her folds,
a measured centimeter down into her bones,

Mine are almost admirable,
the stubborn skin that refuses to curve.

I tell her my eyes are small wrinkles.
Mom tells me, no, my eyes are beautiful.

And I wonder why they cannot be both.

And Ivan says,

It is easy to claim, harder to practice.
It is easy to love thy neighbor as thyself.
It is harder to love he who rests his head next door.

And Ivan says, "I think that if the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness."

And Ivan says, 

God created man with Euclidean geometry, 

created man with limitations, rationality, 

as parallel lines that can only clutch divine in infinity, 

in the non-existence of the mind. 

And I wonder, 

if man created the devil the way God created man, 

mathematically, 

with science, 

with an exactness permeating atoms above air, 

Did man add its wretchedness into the reaction to act as a catalyst, 

And is this the conclusion, 

the explanation for the beast hidden under molecules of skin, 

stomach pumping for pleasure, 

for evil, for the release of dopamine under the scent of iron, 

And is this biology holy?

And is this biology the conclusion for oppression,

for murder, for torture without meaning?

Because then I demand a conclusion 

for why the arithmetic in human nature is flawed. 

You cannot create rain and wish the world dry, 

you cannot create sin and wish the world good.  

The symphony plays tragedy

I am afraid of what will happen to you,

One foot in the grave, the other across the country

Will I be there when the news hits, 

Will the sound of that word that has been built up inside of me swallow me when I finally hear it, 

.

Abrupt like the end of an orchestra. 

When a word has the power to silence a whole audience, 

she clings on to the music, 

she builds distance, 

measures uncertainty in the octaves of short breaths in between their laughter. 

Life is different 

when it is
fleeting,
like rain running down car windows, 

evaporating. 

When it is

Stay.

daddy likes to dance with the devil

On July 7th you purged yourself in clean air,

promised me a new tomorrow—tomorrow, you will save

yourself.

That night I prayed in the name amen. I used to

paint you godly—or

whatever a young girl’s metaphor for a dad was.

Used to paint you righteous,

but nicotine has a way of craving for sin,

has a way of creating angels out of fathers.

Your job was to put food on the table, but long nights called for bad habits, for

famine in your lungs, starving for the seductive taste of fire,

for the burnt barbecued pieces.

On July 8, I watched you light your pack like candles,

like you were lost without her light. Her sensation ignited

you, burnt your

body up into flames,

slowly,

symphonically,

wrapping

you around her arms,

you hold her,

romantically,

because she wants to grow old with you,

wants to steal you from your lover,

your family,

and dance with you

under street lights that radiate like

multi­colored malignancies.

She refuses to let you leave her,

will always come back for you,

promises eternity.

You cannot live without her.

You will die together.

Nicotine wants to show you Hell,

make it feel a lot like Heaven.

If you could, you would crucify yourself,

bleed out all your sickled sinful yesterdays.

let your body become a church again—

holy.

Reincarnate into a man worthy of forgiveness.

Daddy, I forgive you.

I do not know what it is like to worship your own killer,

do not know what is like to have a gun cocked into your mouth,

Please Daddy,

she is not your savior.

The gun is in your own hands.

Do not pull the trigger.

Girl is glory

What did Kanye West mean?

she wonders

Seasons, she says,
Static, curves of predictability flickering, erratic,
cold like heat, like drops of drought,
like my grandmothers smile when I laugh at her jokes
Her jokes, alien and distant
I cannot translate back its meaning, I simply detect its being
with the curve of her lips
It is a signal that I should laugh
out of politeness,
my tongue
reaches for meaning,
wraps itself around nothingness
The silence screams endlessly-
until it is too tired to speak anymore,
until it too is broken,
like pieces of bottled glass,
like my curses and crushed cries,
like the smell I know too much like home
the scent of breathe drowned in ash and heat,
and its predictability, its permanence
it builds distance
like shame on a Sunday afternoon,
dry with thirst for an answered prayer,
a rebirth of color-
an end to the wrecked winter.
But the cold slits the strongest branches with his crown
and I too begin to bow at his feet.

And she wonders what season God presents itself as.
And she wonders if this world is just wind and passing seasons.

What did Kanye West Mean- a poem in the form of questions?

Why does summer time air reek of iron
Roses blooming on dark soil.
On dark bodies.
Why does he claim that God planted the seed, marked his body with this time ticking alarm.
Is this not a violation of nature, of law.
What did Kanye West Mean when he claimed that we are "in a war with racism."
Does this war need a declaration when it seeems long written into God's world.
What did he mean when he claimed that we are "in a war with ourselves."
Can we declare war on an entity so powerful it carved its way into bloodstreams,
rests its remains under the surface of skin meet bones.
Did he mean we could defeat the hatred, quench the ache from hungry stomachs,
feel victory with our hands, touch it, write it in story, and frame it in legislative.
And out of victory, will we be reborn without color, evolve until the atoms that combine into melanin mean nothing for our survival.
Will we practice justice the way we claim it — Blind
Will we teach children to pick their friends the way they pick their crayons, eyes closed without judgement.
Will we teach beauty without milk pigments, without almond eyes that reflect summertime lakes.
Will we begin to accept this world of God, one full of color, color that is not a curse, not a fortune's fool.
Color that does not signify a marked, shortlived path,
in which dark-skin does not signify a dark life,
in which skin is not a funeral outfit.
Color that does not send children to a war on a homefront.
And what end would that be.
What peace would that be.
Will we sing love "L-O-V-E," the characters found on skin, skin without an already given definition, no already destined fate.

And when the boy with the dark skin puts his hands up, will he, the man behind the badge, too, lay down his arms.

On Sunday

On Sunday,

I bought a gumball out of his favorite machine.
put my faith into the rusted attic

And I wrote him into poetry,

into forgiveness,

took away his pain,

made it worth nothing more than the words I dug up to describe it.

I bled him pretty.

Like the black rose that bloomed in the center of his shirt

Thud.

The silence screamed volumes.

Rang like the toll of church bells.

His heart — spilling poetically,

His spine — crumbling down like a palace of cards.

I reincarnated him into a man worthy of forgiveness,

I gave him a home in the cramped alley of my skull,

labeled it Heaven,

Heaven, a gift to the living,

performed autopsies on all nights he did not leave.

The nights where I prayed in the name amen,

I dreamt him walking towards an alley

a gun cocked in his mouth.

The nights where I used to write him godly

I chose words such as righteous, Daddy.

But nicotine has a way of craving sin,

has a way of creating angels out of fathers.

I watched him light his pack like candles before bedtime,

like he was lost without her nightlight,

Her sensation ignited him,

burnt his body up into flames,

Slowly—

Symphonically—

Wrapping him around her arms —He held her,

Romantically,

because she wanted to grow old with him,

Stole him from his lover, his family—

me.

Danced with him under street lights that radiated like

Multicolored malignancies.

He refused to leave her,

Could not live without worshipping her.

She gave him a heaven.

And I gave him hell.

Chose, spit and cursed the kind of words I had to love someone hard enough to learn how to use.

I dreamt you walking towards the alley,

A gun cocked in your own hands.

A rose, blooming in the center of your shift.

Thud.

I dreamt you walking out of your own funeral,

laughing,

I dreamt you here.

If you could, you said,

you would crucify yourself.

Bleed out your sickened self.

Let your body become a church again —

Holy.

Reincarnate into a man worthy of my forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the sweater I can finally fit into.

On Sunday,

I bought a gumball out of your favorite machine.

I stuffed it into my pocket, my mouth, the bottom of your bed.

Its sweetness danced on the tippee toes of my tongue,

cheated hopscotch with two feet,

just the way you taught me how.

It tasted like a gift from you.

Not today

Tomorrow,

There is something fearful about the promise of tomorrow, 

Tomorrow, 

I will re-open my faith I've once buried next to the shelf where I stored my pride, 

I will put out this house fire of a home, 

I will buy my mother flowers,
real flowers,
I will watch her mouth curve its way into the type of beauty only sunrise offers, 

I will learn to hold this stubborn tongue, 

carve thank yous in the place of insults, 

I will leave my broken yesterdays, 

stop performing autopsies on unwelcomed disappointment, 

stop recreating what I should have done, 

I will give myself a tomorrow, 

but not today, 

not today. 

Half of the Sky by Emily Mao

And we wrote her into poetry,

Took away her pain, her story,

Made it worth nothing more than the words we dug up to describe it.

We bled her pretty,

Like a hummingbird,  

We bled her gentle,

Like the rose that bloomed across the center of her shirt,

The familiar figure of her shadow traced —

On bed sheets, buses, rivers, across streets in Nepal,

By men who picked her to play their Eden,

Spread her body into a paper angel,

We watched

And we told her to cry,

But cry beautifully,

Cry silently.

We never killed the bird,

But we silenced her song,

Seeked comfort more than we desired to carry her up —  to change a world,

So we left her heart — spilling poetically,

We left her body — crumbling down like a palace of cards,

We closed our eyes  — as half of the sky fell out.

If poetry was my mother

.

I used to color portraits of you, 

in yellow, 

marigolds blossoming after winter, 

you brought me to life. 

I used to cling towards your warmth, 

red, 

flicked

the pit in my stomach, hungry, 

I fed off your ink that spilled, 

like cool cool water in my heat

drowned myself in your coolness,
your coolness, 

catharsis, 

I am always heat. Heat.

I am red, shot temperated, shot steam, 

you took care of me. 

But Mother theres a famine in my mind, 

It is hot. It is hot. 

You can no longer quench it.