bruised

what kind of world is this, where the color of our skin is a larger threat than the bullets that put it at risk, where the ones meant to protect us are also the ones who inflict the most harm? they look at us from the corner of their eyes with unwarranted contempt and suspicion. even when we have done nothing wrong, we are made to feel guilt for who we are, what we are. but we will not be stricken down by injustice and fear. we will overcome this through solidarity and the creation of a community that stands together.

My counselor asked if I’d fallen for you, and I asked why I was his patient when apparently he was the one who’d lost his damn mind; I want to talk about misery and rage and existential crises and inexplicable mood swings, not love. Anyway, for you I didn’t fall the most I ever did was loosen my grip, let my heart beat a little faster, indulge in the slight adrenaline rush and feel soft and safe and fragile for just a few secret moments before I tightened up again. And after all was said and done, and even after that, when we continued saying and doing, I never let go. Not really. My grip is boa constrictor winding round a rabbit tight compression of carbon, atoms squeezed together for thousands of years into a cold hard diamond tight that feeling in your chest when you realize your obsession with maintaining control isn’t something you can control tight And sometimes I want to cut off my own hands just to know what letting go feels like.

I am a garden of black and red agonies. I drink them, / Hating myself, hating and fearing. / I lose life after life.

hung brittle i bend

let me tell you something: no one is going to look at you, broken and shattered and think - damn, you are beautiful. no one is going to come pick up your broken pieces off the floor and assemble them into a beautiful whole. hell, you won’t even look at yourself and think - I made broken look beautiful. you know why? because all those writers lied to you. yes, all those with their poems of scraped knuckles and blood dripping down chins, pomegranate songs and loves that ripped through you like hurricanes. liars. so you and i, we are going to make a plan. you are not going to romanticize days when your brain tells you to smash that mirror, you are not going to romanticize the lover who doesn’t understand you but still writes about you. here is what you are going to romanticize instead: you are going to romanticize the first day of spring, its gentle hands all over your body, lifting you up until you are as light as a feather. you are going to romanticize the tea and honey kind of love, no hurricanes, but sunshine that builds you up from within, that helps you make it through the worst days. you are going to romanticize gentle hands of a friend in yours, telling you that it is going to be okay. because it is. and don’t trust poets, we’re no good, we love pretending that our jagged edges tantamount to a beautiful disaster, but in reality - there ain’t nothing beautiful about shaky hands holding a cigarette and empty eyes staring at the cracks in the walls. you know what is beautiful, instead? the days when you can look at yourself in the mirror and smile, scars and all. music that makes your soul flow like a river, books that offer comfort, families flocking together like overgrown birds to keep you safe and warm, friends that give you strength when you can find none, lovers who make you laugh through tears. baby, from now on you are going to romanticize healing; honey dripping down your fingertips, August nights that stick to your skin, the day you find your purpose, long car rides and singing so loud that no one can shut you up now. bad news: no one is coming to save you. good news: you can save yourself.

You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. So many books that she doesn’t have any clothes. She doesn’t own any dishes and eats her ramen off of vintage Hemingway novels. Date a girl who literally spends all her money on books and doesn’t live in a house and builds her house out of John Green novels and then uses her book’s shredded pages to brew tea because girls who drink tea are vastly superior to girls who do not. Date a girl who loves books. Date a girl that masturbates with book spines, whose high school yearbook quote was ‘And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.’ Date a girl who reads.

Someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. They can love you in a way you have never been loved and still not join you on the bridge. And whatever their reasons you must leave. Because you never ever have to inspire anyone to meet you on the bridge. You never ever have to convince someone to do the work to be ready. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen, out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready.

I Decide to go floral and Find a flower online then take a picture of it to the tattoo shop in town I ask for a violet to commemorate violence And also victory, because every day that I am still alive, I have won But the artists fucks up and makes it blue instead Which is fine. Because it’s not a color, it’s not a tattoo, it’s proof That my pain is valid and A permanent reminder that I have power, and that I belong to no one but myself.

These bones don’t want out of this skin. I do not wish to unlock my ribcage, say, Look – I made this. I do not bleed.

But to betray […] the world and History, which are betrayal itself, as Man-in-person does–is this still a betrayal?

Love is like playing checkers. You have to know which man to move. - Moms Mabley This young man wants me to entertain men and women like I’m some young hot thing. I like that.  I ain’t been young since before the depression. He offers me the chance to be pressed onto black vinyl. This club on Chicago’s lake front is gilt and I’m ready to beguile. When I enter the Apollo I bring in the sun through thunderous applause. Here these folks don’t know me yet.  Hugh knows I got what it takes to bring the house to its knees. It’s August 1961, Chicago is hot I’m an old cool grandma making Jim Crow look like the fool he is.  The bunnies serve drinks. Mr. Hefner’s place services desires. I offer mirrors then smash our images of ourselves. It’s good to see that we can be something better than when we entered this house. Men and women of high brows, long money and reputations as big tippers. No one is allowed to touch a tail, thigh, just tip. These folks laugh and I know the record will sound good because nothing’s sadder than the sound of half laughs and no claps. I know this is going to be a good night when Hef has his own hand on his chest his buttons pulsating with his own joy.