Category: Poetry

i am from a long line of oppressors who built this countrywith bricks and glass carved (but not by themselves)from the mountains and the seasides of a stolen land i am from a suffocating fear of god not from fire and brimstonebut from the quiet and righteous disdain of “we’re better than you are” i…

i painted your portraitin words on paper,in measured beatsdrawn taut acrossa bland white canvas it didn’t look like you:you cannot be held so easilyin words;the flesh of treesdenies your complexity and so, resigned,i colored in the edgesi connected the lettersi scratched away the details and when i leaned back and squintedi realized the face i…

you didn’t care when i was merely sad you only cared when i was holding the gun and you didn’t know who i was planning to shoot Clio 09.21.21

speak words of kindness to yourselfyour heart will hear youyour heart will heal you the child inside your mindhas been hidingfrom the shouting and the shaming they don’t want to be scaredthey don’t want to be scarredthey want to feel the warmth of love they’re the one you’re scoldingwhen you’re scolding yourselfand they burrow in…

coffee smells likemy father’s church:stale and detached andemotionally out of reach coffee burns my nostrilswith the memory of abandonmentof another late nightat workbecause he can’t stand her eitherhe can’t be around her eithershe crushes his souland reminds him that he failed as a partneras a parentas a protectoras a provider so he hides at workwhere…

on the coffee table in my grandmother’s house in a depression era green glass bowl on a doily that was handcrafted by my great great aunt: there was a mass of unwrapped peppermints the pillowy kind half crunchy half chewy which had been there long enough that they had grown together inseparable covered with a…

lentement, doucement, comme un papillon contre le vent you reminded me to breathe because i’d forgotten i’d inhaled once then held it inside to bound around and pollute my soul i didn’t want to exhale because i was afraid the toxins would strangle the world my father had told me to keep the demons deep…

the king cat on thirteen eight three nine has been prancing towards the old appliance store for so long it feels like he’s always been there his mouth is upside down now but somehow his paint is still as fresh as the twinkle in his eyes before he appeared to strut down woodward in the…

I’ve worn this war paint for so long I don’t know how to take it off I don’t know what I look like without it I don’t know who I am underneath Or even if there is a me beneath it This is my calloused skin Layered thick with “boys don’t cry” And “what’s wrong…