You

 ***

you

are the question

still left unanswered

"a whole lot of everything"

the bartender said

and i

googling my future partner

like shaking a magic eight-ball

'yes,' 

'maybe,' 

'reply hazy'

'try again'

i've spent so much time manifesting

that it's getting hard to think

they told me to make a list

of all the qualities

you would have

and so i tried

and gave up

around item 279

you see

you are not a list

nor a memory

not a dream

or a fantasy

you are flesh and bone and

not mine to define

not mine to refine

not even

mine

***

You said the moon was a tease

 

***

but was that only once she gave you ease?

for those of us who grew up

in calamities

it's easy to see missing pieces

where peace is

***

You are the cutest Rubik's cube I've ever seen

 

but i would never try to solve you

or other beautiful things

people say we should fix

before trying

to see

have you noticed that?

how colorful a Rubik's cube is

before conformity? or

that most things we call cute

are just things tinier than

they're supposed to be? or 

that most fortune cookies are now

actually advice cookies, and

that's a tragedy?

Love yourself

 ***

I want you to know

That dating me

will never be easy

but it will

feel like ease

you see

I am like the ocean

that beats against

the shore,

ever pressing

not to be

ignored

lifting you up

then setting you down

softly, again,

I will hold your grains

in my hand, and

let them go 

so that you

can stand,  you

told me that fame

was the price, we pay

for making change,

so let me in,

let us be

exchanged.

***

All dogs go to heaven

 —

Do dogs

wonder where the time went?

it seems like just yesterday

that my brother showed up, 

with MJ in tow, and abandoned her

with my dad, who took her for

a decade, naming her

Mary Jane, 

after his favorite past time,

carrying her

from love shacks and crackhouses

to tiny homes and shipwrecks,

from puppy love to greying whiskers, 

god, it’s been a decade, 

that’s 70 years,

in dog years,

does MJ wonder

where the time went,

does she wonder where,

he, went?

—- 

Morning sickness

 ***

the sun keeps revealing

all my dusty windowpanes

the smudges i have yet

to clean off, cluttering

my vision 

and making me feel

like i am not enough.

***

K

***

it was the saddest thing to me,

watching them scrape off

the old graffiti

across Ponce City Market,

everything colorful

must go, 

And the last bit left

of the original message,

“Now missing you, Already,” 

Damn, the tragedy,

Damn, the conformity,

Don’t you see, we all start out

as twins and triplets,

originality ain’t the soul’s culprit

my girl, she said she was autistic

but I just heard artistic

Saw all her beauty

beneath that black lipstick

Dyed hair to hide the trauma

Never got all the drama, 

too logical to understand

the emotional displays

I gave, like the time 

we lost the baby 

and she said “K,” 

and I told her that I thought

She’d remember the days, “K”

Of me rubbing her back, all night,

just to keep her demons away, “K”

When I thought that she’d remember

that I chose to stay, “K”

when I told her that I thought

that might matter some day, “K”

that shit was artistic, originality, 

perpetually ingrained, real spirituality, 

when I found out she was right,

that everything, with time, 

is just, “K.”

Waffle House

***

I didn't expect to find love

in a Waffle House

But there she was, with

eyes that smiled, all

covered in grease

as beautiful and bold

as the coffee she pored

into the open mug

... of the man three booths down

from me,

damn, if only

I had sat there

then she would be asking me

how I wanted it.

you know how I want it?

I want it scattered, yet

somehow whole,

Honey, I want it smothered, 

and covered, topped and chunked,

sticky with syrup just

pour it all on,

give me that sugar,

don't hold back,

i am your neighbor.

Baby, I want it 

smacked—I mean, capped,

give it to me

peppered and diced, 

everything nice,

which is just to say

That I want. it. all.

Damn, if only I had sat there.

Instead, I told all this to Harold.

***

This poem isn't about you.

I want you to know

That I am not trying to make love to you

I get why you might assume that

When I recite these poems

About making. And loving.

But each day, they bleed out of me, these

poems, caught between the rafters

of a single sunbeam in my cracking attic,

poetry, made of dishwashing and 

warm, soapy hands, and the way she held

my hips against the sink basin, poetry, 

the leaning tree I used to climb

every day, even though

my mother told me not to,

It had already been struck by lightning

twice, and was starting to be charred,

Inside, but I still climbed it

poetry, that makes magic out of the mundane,

Can’t you see? I write this poetry

so I can get struck by lightning again,

and sifting through the ashes,

 finally, discover, 

not how to make love to you, 

but how to love myself

like I did, back then.

What we hold on to

I threw out the rest of your stuff

When you never replied to my last text

About returning them, its been months and

I didn't think you cared about them anymore,

Or anything else you left behind.

I threw out the rest of your stuff,

except for your books, which you

Had carried with you all the way from

New York, and so I carried them, too,

From my house that we shared, 

back when there were three of us,

To the apartment I moved into,

Once there was just one.

I threw out the rest of your stuff, 

except for your books, 

“Amari” by BB Alston, and

“Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell, and 

“Imagine Me,” and

“Defy Me,”and

“Unravel me,”

All three by Tahereh Mafi,

Oh, and the crochet bumblebee

that I had hoped

would remind you

of me.

I threw out the rest of your stuff, 

Except for all your books, which I notice now

Almost all have purple and blue covers

Your favorite colors

Sometimes I thought you bought your books

Because of the covers, 

Like the ones you used to hide under,

reading them 

while your mom raged

like my dad once did

I guess we all buy books

Because of their covers

I threw out the rest of your stuff,

Except for all your books, 

They still sit on my shelf,

In case someday you decide 

you actually do need me

to get them.

College Park

 ***

i once wrote a book of poetry

called city speak

and only now realize

i've never let

my own home city

speak, at least,

not in poetry,

at least, not,

to me.

i actually grew up in Cumming

which means in my Catholic household

i could never Google my own address

because the internet filter would call it

pornography, which is to say

that searching for home 

is something 

i've always been

shamed for.

but now i'm in Atlanta, well

in College Park, home to

the red dogs, the rap cats, 

the robbin' crew, 

home to the player, the 'Lacs, 

and the motherfuckin' Outkast, 

and the Black dad I met in La Fiesta, 

who I watched tell his son

that Santa Claus wasn't real

and we laughed

and we laughed

because some things 

are just too good

to be true.

I'm in College Park, home to 

the Skyhawks, and all the weird looks 

from my old white classmates, 

but is it safe?

I'm in College Park, home to 

my new black neighbors

who watched over my broken window

all weekend long 

after the wind knocked it down

and when I got home

told me they walked past every day

to make sure it was okay

because this ain't one of those neighborhoods

no matter what

the news might say.

College Park, where Outkast sang

the pimps do play, and

the kids do too, 

outside my window, each day, 

after school, on

the tennis courts, and

softball fields, and

the cookout

sings, like

harmony.

College Park, home to

the highest violent crime rate

in Georgia 

and my blind dad 

who used to walk

naked and unafraid to 

the corner store

with his dog, "Mary Jane," 

named after his favorite past time,

before he, too, passed. time.

College Park, once home to Big Boi and

Xscape, once home to my dad, and my

grandpa, and to Jermaine Dupri, 

and now, home, to me.

------ 

Alchemy

Alchemy

I don’t want you despite your pain

I want you with it

pain that turns water to wine, 

fool’s gold into

something fine, see,

in another life,

you asked for strength

And so here are stones

to make you strong

you asked for faith

And so here are clouds

to make you search

"don’t you know her?"

pain. the great motivator

to trade the life you had

for the love you asked for 

but never deserved

in another life,

you asked for a love 

that transforms

And so you got mine

all tested, and tattered,

battered, and torn,

such alchemy divine

take my water, take

my wine.

***

After decades, answering (for shenanigans)

 *** 

fears are just

hopes yearning to be heard

Nicky knocking

at the door

begging for love

once more

answer me,

baby, please

answer me

and feelings that are

just feelings, they

aren't me, as

serious as

the butterflies, and

tumbleweeds, the 

gigglepots, and

bumblebees, the

ctrl-z, and

cranking kiss,

and other, silly,

sacred things.

***

Presence

 You’re not living in the past.

The past is living in you.

Amor

 ***

Back when I thought I knew sadness

even heartbreak

used to be romantic, I would

Think of the moon and 

The sun, all that cosmic dance of

Dualities, and

other lovely things,

analogies, that made 

what passed for pain

full of meaning.

Now, heartbreak is

as empty as the crib in my mind

And what I could have done

To fill it. 

***