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.”