a classmate said he had a cat.
she had birthed a litter.
If that person who isn’t me but houses my memories like children’s marbles,
judges, feels and tastes. Why won’t she swallow?
A girl from the hood where we live at... (though headline says 14 year old woman)
Long gold braided hoops
Hanging from her ears
Sand Dune skin, sundae eyes
Police altercation whiplashed her dead.
With the tracks in the stars, the train travels to Money, Mississippi
While these moonwalks of youthful strolls, get tainted by hillbilly hickory,
Sly Till, Sly Till,
Is that temptation in your eyes?
Is this love?
The frustration, stress, and anticipation
Of a quarrel ended by kisses.
How lucky am I
That my birthday
Is the anniversary of when we met.
In between spoonfuls of his wife’s
homemade rice and pork, Humberto talks about a distant cousin,
a young woman whose father was my grandfather’s third
cousin—
a myriad of colors shine through my window
like a preschoolers sticky fingered collage
of multicolored construction paper.
Santos in my life have taken the form of Hector Lavoe, flowing out of the speakers two blocks down, rolling across the chewed-up-and-spit-out-gum polka-dotted concrete
How do I tell my mother
that she made me so strong—
Your love feels like sunlight
All I’ve ever known was monsoons of mistreatment
You told me that my honesty was poetic
And that my body…
So smooth and so soft…
Felt nearly prophetic
first gen
your name
the first thing you will lose
their tongues are not made to roll the r
you and I,
we were born from the same stars
"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
And we’re just getting started.
there are spiders in the bathroom
sometimes even lizards
the small things are more afraid of you than you are of them, ammoos said...
You smell like outside.
My mom used to say this when I would come home after long days of running around, kicking dirt, and scraping knees.
the harbor is burdened land, tampered
waters – a ripple in the
sea halts it’s viability.
I’m across the street black. vintageas suede boots — satin sheets and sneers of French kisses. slumber awakens and a harvest of holy hymns proceeds
Sandalwood skins lay side by side,
staring at the stars and I mention