maybe

we are the parts of the story
our mother’s never wanted us to tell each other.

maybe we’re the cliff-
hangers
if we read close enough
and if we put seashell up to our own echo
maybe we’d realize how pleasant we sound too-
how tide pool, how deep sea
wouldn’t need necessarily
to longingly listen to other,
to ocean,
for answer.
maybe we’ve spent too much of our time
whispering where we should have been singing,
lessening where we could’ve been loving ourselves
and now our own pitcher sits on the spare bedroom side table.
we never stopped to notice
just how full it was
just how full we are.
maybe
when we go to kiss each other good morning
we wish we could put our lips through the laundry first-
we deem ourselves dirty or damaged because we’ve been diminishing
our own everything for decades.

I feel like I am finally foraging for my own forgiveness
through the fistfuls of fog and frustration,
knitting knee pads so I can stop tearing
the tender out of myself
every time I trip on my trauma
and feel stupid for crying.
been associating my feelings with fuck ups
but I think I’m finally here to feel unapologetically
‘cause I’m not sorry for myself.
I finished the story on my self-sabotage and today
I choose me

and my mascara running down my face.
me and my busy hands
that have been so preoccupied with the happiness of others
they are relearning what it means to be attached to my skeleton.
me and my helium heart waiting to be popped on every fence post it can find
I’m here to hold it higher.
I’m here to hold it all
higher.

when your skin looks too much like oppression

too much like hatred
too much like grim reaper
like death personified
on you
it is your obligation to speak-
even though you know your hands
hold not strangle
your lips kiss
not cut-
you
are still part of the problem
if you don’t use them to speak up against the problem.
this is the problem
and we are the problem and:
yes, lynching is “illegal”
yes, slavery is “illegal”
but lynching still exists
and slavery still exists
and silence isn’t neutral
and there is no neutral
there is no neutral.
i am not neutral.
if alton was a white man
and if philando was a white man
they wouldn’t have a hashtag
they wouldn’t have a coffin
and we wouldn’t be doing this all over
again.

when I read that the average life expectancy for someone
living in the neighborhood I work is 68,
I sobbed for the circles my students will likely not circle around the sun.
I cried in the middle of grad class
then realized what a damn privilege it is to be crying
in the middle of grad class.
68 is 6 years less than the average Syrian or Iraqi lives to be
and yet we have the nerve to call them not free
while we steal freedom from our people
like Trump steals the favor of malleable minds
we call them uncivilized,
while we refuse to look after the welfare of our own citizens-
blame welfare
blame our own citizens
so that structure doesn’t have to hold itself hostage
for a handcrafted hell
and we don’t have to call ourselves culprit either
for playing capitalism like cards against humanities
capitalism /is/ the card against humanity
and we use cash to keep some quelched, quarantined
caged, cornered and corroding.
until the pure act of existing becomes so exhausting
your body’s like ‘f it I’m out’.
I imagine a morbid love letter to one of my kids like,
I’m sorry sweetheart but
science says I’ll live twenty years longer than you and therefore will likely be at your funeral instead of the other way around.
science say ‘the cortisol is already cracking your small organs apart.’
science says,
‘that’s what the stress does.’
science says,
‘that shit will kill you.’
science self-corrects,
‘poverty, I mean.’
I take science’s word for it because that is not my lived experience.
but in one of Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods,
I know I can’t be a shield for every kid soldier in my building and I know they’re mostly braver than I am anyways.
On this day, my mind keeps diverting to Delaware
keeps bouncing to bathroom blood baths over boys
I write in honor of Amy
a life lost to senseless violence-
the kind I see where I work everyday,
the kind born of stress &
born of stuck.

the kind I get the option to drive away from after work everyday
the kind my students simply don’t get to drive away from after school everyday
because on this day, I broke up fight after fight in an incessant brawl that broke out in the main office building of my school
it was an eruption of fuck you’s and student fists and punches from parents
that felt too much like bathroom
too much like warzone
too much like what shouldn’t happen in a space created for shelter in storm.
but this is a community so hell-bent on surviving that if they feel the need to digress to a dark Darwinism to see tomorrow, they’ll do it-
and how can we blame them?
when denied proper supports what are they supposed to do?

so back to my love letter-
if I could dice up my decades and distribute them equally among all of you I would be your grocery store,
your socio-emotional and physical health services,
your fairly funded fully funded schools,
your bullet proof vest
and everything in between.

questions for my students and no these will not be on the test but they are so very much more important-

do you know about Einstein?
and is it E=MC2 or
the fact that he didn’t speak until he was 9,
thought to be slow,
was expelled from high school?

do you know about Dr. Seuss?
and is it all 1 fish 2 fish or
is it the 27 rejected publishing attempts
before his first success?

do you know about me?
and is it the ability I have to speak in front of crowds and seem cool or
the fact that I used to hide behind my parents legs,
embarrassed to be breathing, just apologetically being?

most importantly, do you know about you?
and is it your genuine nature and the way you play or
just your poor standardized test score?
your so called defiance
and the fact that you’re “just one of those kids” who aren’t compliant-

this is for you,
first of all hello.
second of all I am sorry I have not written a proper piece for you
in the 15 months we have spent together
out of fear I could never do you justice.
out of fear I’d have to be the one to tell you that this world was not built
for you to succeed in it.

Einstein did not have to walk through a war-zone every morning to get an unequal education.
Dr. Seuss did not have to worry about resume bias,
I, I didn’t have to worry about anything
and all of us still found a way to have a hard time.
but now, I spend most everyday in a building of human stories that may very well end up like Aiyana jones’s or Tamir rice’s
but our society wants me to pretend there’s not a crisis
on my hands or in my heart
breaks every time another kid asks me if i’m buying him a christmas present.
”no, i’m not buying you a christmas present- i’m poor.”
i said accidentally to a poor kid,
then I wrote this poem on a 2,000 Macbook.
I have it so god damn easy and I’m always going to
based on the dumb luck lottery I won by being born
white and middle class.

I know you cannot gift wrap whiteness or its accompanying privilege,
and you cannot express mail a middle class upbringing.
I am here because there is nothing left to do, then, but hand microphones to those whose voices are underrepresented
and tools to those who deserve to build.
hey you kid, you deserve to build even in a world where the structure does not always support you.

I did not want to write this poem-
another white writer throws in her one too many senses on our race relations
which are less like relations and more like sick complications.

I did not want to write this poem-
but then my black fifth graders told me MLK defeated all the racists.
and I felt like I needed to say,
I wish with every inch of my love for you that you were right
and I mourn the moment that untruth is unfairly unraveled onto you.

I did not want to write this poem-
but then a black eighth grader told me there are
more smart white people than smart black people
and I felt like I needed to say, no
get that internalized racism out of your mouth or you will never have room
to tell the world how it is hurting you,
to tell the world you deserve better than to grow up believing that
to tell the world you’re a force to be reckoned with.
Never confuse your absence in the North American narrative with your lack of importance in it.
I want you to know that this game is rigged
but you can beat it.
that we measure intelligence in ways that are not always intelligent
but you are intelligent.
that we tell you give it your all
then we give you mere fractions.
but you are so whole.
our society has come a long way
but we have acres of ground left to cover
yes, we have acres of ground left to cover.
I am here, on your side.

in this world you are up against so much,
I cannot fight this for you.
but I am here.
I am here.
I am.

Here is every mental illness I’ve ever been diagnosed with, as a house.

because some people build homes
out of their mental illnesses
and I think I used to do that too.
Homes are stable.
Homes are steady.
Homes are seemingly swell reasons not to go outside.
This poem is a plea-
Hey,
no matter how comfortable your house is,
please go outside. 

BIPOLAR is a house with so many walls you get lost in it
every damn day.
it’s a house with two realities, see,
a home with two floors, see,
sometimes you are in the basement and you know there’s a party
right above you with your favorite everything
but those stairs seem so daunting
you can’t even fathom climbing them
so you stay in the dust and the damp
you stay in the mold,
dreaming about your favorite everything.
other days you’re in that party,
you are so in that party in the kitchen
and the attic
and the spare bedroom
and the regular bedroom
you are all over the place and you are so up
but the party ends eventually
and then the basement seems worse than ever.

DEPRESSION is the most comfortable house i have ever been in
it’s so comfortable it makes you uncomfortable
for not being comfortable within it.
It has jacuzzi hot tubs, memory foam mattress toppers and cupboards stocked with the absolute best kind of snacks.
see it never wants you to leave
and if you aren’t careful, you won’t.

Hormonal depression is a rolling residence a thing with limbs
that wakes worried and walks woeful
I could call it a house straight up bc I’m supposed to right now but what kinda house
rolls in after half a months absence 
then melts me millimeter by millimeter to my mattress to make sure I know
just how flat I am.
I guess it’s a semi truck I didn’t know I was sleeping in. Is this my house now?
Can I go to sleep now?
 I tried to pull over and flipped it once
or twice
This house
Truck
House
Fuck shit 
tried to get me to stay home today
Tried to put my mouth on mute today
Said this poem is bullshit, anyway.
Made meal of me:
dissolved dignity
grinded my greatness into gristle
and expected a thank you. 

ADD is a house isn’t a house or was a house
what a fucking word ‘house’
it’s like home but less intimate
intimacy used to scare the shit of me
sometimes it still does
houses
we’re talking about houses
ADD might have been a house but it’s definitely kind of functioning as though it were a house, or at least it should according to this poem because that is theme and sticking with the theme is totally vital it is absolutely crucial like kindness also crucial and this- this feels kind of crucial- where were we?

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
is the blueprints of a house in the suburbs,
it wants more
it doesn’t know what more means
but this definitely isn’t enough
and that over there should be changed.
erase that
add that
it craves neighbors-
there should be more neighbors.
there should be more something-
I should be more something
or less
or less.

ANOREXIA is the house before it is a house
or just a really drafty house,
windows unsealed,
foundation shaky,
it is trying but not in the way you know it needs to.
maybe there are termites,
maybe there are rodents,
we don’t know.
all we know is the absence and damn,
it is haunting.

OCD is the distant relatives’ house
that you know just how to play the rules in,
warnings painstakingly placed in every space
they read, “Please don’t touch.”
they read, “Please do touch.”
they read, “Please touch exactly three times.”
they are set against marble and bone china and other fine things.
you wish that you, too, were a fine thing.

but you are a fine thing
we build our homes because we live in them.

but I know you, like me, need some fresh air.

Look, I packed the picnic
Just open the door.

for all the honey

I have poured out of half-enjoyed human stories
in chipped porcelain China cups
held haphazardly in the hands of my history-
I am writing a to-do list addressing my limitations.
I am seeking to sip longer,
to be self-loving,
to be good,
to be just
to just
be.
to unlearn my fear of kissing flickering light
most especially when that flickering light is myself.
to write my narrative in permanent marker.
to look straight at my mistakes in the eyes
(even when they’re ugly.
especially when they’re ugly.)
to own up to my bullshit.
to forget anything but brutal authenticity is possible.
to tell my wild to read about my quiet.
to tell my quiet to read about my wild.
to tell my self doubt that it is so last season,
so on vacation,
so rude to show up to a fancy dinner party uninvited,
so self doubt has left the building.
to realize there are parts of me that I wish I could turn off.
to realize that is not how this works.
to try and turn down the volume on them instead.
to be my biggest advocate
and my own good luck charm.
to recognize that my demons
have not fully been diminished,
demolished,
and that I remain unfinished
and unpolished.
to realize that upon realizing this
it is what i do next that counts the most.
so I am learning to be in wonder,
it is like love alone.
I am tirelessly translating my truth song-
separating shadow from sure thing.
to be able to write poems about myself.
(for once)
to love like everything doesn’t disappear.
to comprehend that I can’t investigate my ghosts if I’m afraid to see them.
to finally feel like fear is only an important gas station to stop in
on my way out
but not somewhere I can stay
‘cause I have places to go.

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of misery, for thee i sing.

I pledge my grievance to the flag of the Divided States of America
& To the ignorance for which it stands
One nation
Under wealth,
Divisible,
With liberty and justice for some.

Dear America, I think we should start seeing other people.
Dear America, I think you should start seeing other people within yourself.
Dear America, it’s not just me, it’s all of us.
It is the plaque on the bottom of the statue of liberty reading,

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
So we can choke them on camera and still get no indictment.
It is your purchase of body cams
when what you really need is empathy
but you can’t buy that shit on eBay.

It is your ability to breathe free
while suffocating others.
It is your full lungs.
It is their tired hearts.
It is your arrogant pride.

It is Gray’s broken spine.
It is their mourning mothers
It is
My inability to fit every victim of institutional inequality into this poem (because I only have 3 minutes to make my point).
and there will never be enough moments to lament
the lack of remorse we have for our wrongdoings.
You have bigoted beginnings
built brutally on the backs of those
Who look different than you
(Refusing to recognize that).
You, wide eyed- confused, mouthing,
Here you go, here’s  “Black History Month”
Don’t say we never got you anything.

It is your incessant notion that you’ve gotten everyone something
Just ‘cause they were born here.
Our illiteracy of your own history
Is dumbfounding
(and I wish I was still surprised).

You say, “One nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
While you are “One nation under I’m not sure who the fuck would let us get to this point.”
‘Cause “liberty and justice for all”
Only works if you use the term “all” really liberally
& We’re not all thinking liberally.
Sometimes I don’t think we’re thinking at all.
So America, while I appreciate the opportunities you afford to some
I’m not blind enough to think that “some” here is the total.

‘Cause you talk a big game,
Freedom – Opportunity – Fame
but I’m worried about the unspoken,
the unheard,
and the unasked, “for who?”
Just as energy cannot be created or destroyed-
You aren’t profiting off of nothing.
You are profiting off of humans.
Like
You, the grade-school mother scared to let her son shake the hand of a cop.
You, everyone reading the news headline, “Tamir Rice’s mom still in shock” as if that’s supposed to be a story.
You, the forced migration of entire groups of people every time a new part of Philly is branded “up and coming”.
You, an entire community’s belief in a higher power because they haven’t felt like anyone in this world gives a shit about them.
You, a cruise ship of privilege speeding smoothly atop
Those underserved,
Under-resourced
Underpaid and over-worked
By you.

And I think it’s about damn time you see that.

If my voice were a gun

I wouldn’t exactly call it trigger-happy.
(See, I know just how often I misfire.)
Some days I forget what I sound like entirely.
When I start to speak,
my voice shakes like an old washing machine.

Last winter I swore there were cobwebs growing on my vocal chords.
When I introduced myself to you,
my spiders lost their home
& They were terrified.
(But I bet they were not
half as scared as I was.)

Sometimes I am full of silence, still.
Quiet, the way God has been to me,
(when everyone else swears they hear him.)
Other times I cannot shut up.
I spout off stanzas as if I had the feeling that someone was about to rob me
of my ability to make sound.
Words pour out the way fifth graders do
from class at 3:30 every Monday through Friday.
(If my gushing only happened five days a week, though,
that would be better-
yes, that would be good.)
I bark blundering babble 365 days of the year
(actually a little more than that
because a year is actually a little more than that
which is why we have leap years but anyways,)
i’m glad i finally realized my voice shoots at all
glad i finally stepped into it,
ascended twenty-five flights of marble stairs
one for each year
i have circled the sun.

the first few were somewhat stagnant-
they say slow and steady
i was slow.
i was not steady.
i lost my confidence before i built it.
thought i never had it,
i found it hiding
in the pantry amongst the honey-stuck slabs of oak
and the coffee grounds.
i forgot it existed,
never knew it existed
’til it showed me it existed-
’til i showed me i existed.
i urged it out,
i said ‘come here,
i need you’
it was slow at first
so slow at first you wouldn’t even realize it was happening
at first
it was kind of like the world spinning
you didn’t even think about it how it made the seasons change and then it was spring one day when you opened the window.
yeah it was spring one day when i opened my mouth.
All I want to do is communicate like a thunderstorm.
Nature’s got it just right.
‘Cause miles above everything I know,
a love story prologue is being penned perfectly.
A cloud collects courage-
Growing more confident with each accumulated piece of moisture
until finally,
and with great intensity,
the sky opens up & each drop of precipitation falls with a purpose-
to relay a long-awaited message to the ground below.

I wish my words came to me when I called for them,
I just wish I were little more cohesive.
I wish my self doubt went on vacation.
Wish I were that cloud, ever so patient,
Ever so sure that when I relayed my message to you,
it would be purposeful
and not shaky
and definitely not a misfire.

I’ve been a proud wordsmith
for quite a large chunk of time now
and I’m happy to say I’m finally making the leap
into being
just
proud.

he thinks he knows.

thinks poems, like money, get you what you want
think humans, like equations
can be simply solved.

when we first met he was visibly angry
at his not being able to understand me.
sat across the table, furrow-browed
and as a fellow over-analyzer, i get it-
but i know people are complex intersections
of everywhere they have ever been and every place they never ever have been.
i know that they aren’t to be read like textbooks,
(just appreciated,
like poetry)
i know that the whole thing is a process and it takes time.
but he, he is impatient
and he, he reads a lot of books
and so he was mad that his method of analysis didn’t work on me.

he thinks he’s sure.
thinks poets, like pictures, desire to be looked at
thinks writers, like water
want to be purchased in convenience stores and drank
but I don’t want to be bought and i only care to be swallowed
for the purposes of hydration and refreshment
we sat in my car as he talked in comparatives,
he said, of my words, “you’re not that much better than me.”
i said, “what’s this better shit?
i thought you were a writer-
you missed the whole point.”
i said i am not doing this for praise,
i am doing this for sanity,
doing this for survival
and to somehow help others’ survival.
if you’re doing it for other reasons, kindly quit the game.