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.