8-Bit Poetry

I still use your name to test my new pens.

I buy the crackers I know you can eat. 

There's a single dish in my sink. I swear that I keep washing it and yet - a glass stained at the rim with lipstick. It's been so long now I'm unsure if it's yours but I just know. I don't know that I believe in ghosts but I definitely believe in confirmation bias. 

I still think of you. 

When I was 9 years old, I grabbed a notebook and wouldn't let it go. We got out of the store with it before my mother realized what I'd done. She told me to be mindful, to put it down, and that I probably shouldn't steal things. I've been learning to let go ever since. 

Remembering your laugh helps the ache in my bones. 

 To think - I used to wish for quiet days. 

I cannot forgive myself for everything I did not become. 

When I forget the word “beautiful”, I open my wallet, find your picture, and read the note, each letter still perfect. Those pens are still my favorite. Your name is still pristine in the frame.

I'm tired, but I'm dancing. After all, it's almost Friday, and they're playing our song.

My father tricked a woman into loving me. To this day, I can hear conversations through solid-wood doors and know, through the door, when the light-skinned men in my family are lying. I have never seen anything more radiant than my mother when she has enough money for all the bills plus groceries plus a GamePro magazine. 

The black women I have known have always turned nothing into enough.

Every black person you know can name at least 5 churches. The black people that made me took me to cookouts and county fairs, dragged me to church after church after church, made miracles and blamed God. They taught me how to electric slide. My sister still doesn’t know how. The men taught me to talk shit.

I haven’t stopped since.

Sister Glenna never used the word autism. She said that boy touched. And I rattled off all of the original pokemon, in pokedex order, and somewhere between Poliwrath and Victreebell, my mom stopped caring. She told me so. My family discovered ignoring autism is the cure. My father taught all of us what is possible when you lie. My aunt Missy made the best chicken salad at thanksgiving and snuck cash into the church pants she bought me.

Every Black man you know owns a pair of church pants. Church sold separately. I call my mother once a week. She is close to outliving my grandmother, and this is the only thing I pray for. She moved cities and started over. She still teaches so much. How it is never too late to be what you could have been, that forgive the us we didn’t become by becoming it with the permission to go home again if need be.

And with all that said, I knew when those seven bullets filled him like a tent revival, I was Black. I wore my church pants and donated to every church I knew. All 5 of them. We did the electric slide after the service. Some of us were off step. 

Sometimes, being the same is all we can do when someone wants to make news of our bodies.

I can't promise you anything -

especially not

home.

A home can be on a map one day

and a ruin the next,

a muscle that is past tense

and locking up. It's funny.

There used to be so much glass

and birdsong, until one day,

my feet stopped aching

and I thought I'd gone deaf. Chirping

is a maddening love. The wrens singing

"Happy birthday" or "Free Fallin" or "Kiss from a Rose"

and now, the cigarette smoke comes from American Spirit

instead of Newport

and it's not different. We don't have dirt roads

anymore,

just asphalt and clean that taints the petrichor.

The snakes fled the creek

and the city stopped dreaming of me

when I took that last bus across town,

cried for my grandmother,

and moved on. Too many things have died.

The city she lived in isn't even there anymore,

and it pipes in birdsong at the garden.

They sing

Write the epilogue to your story.

Pick a time in the future, and make it into a poem.

For this, I have chosen the reversible. It's a poem style that can be read forward or backward starting with either the first or last line. The best way to build these is to mirror each line, and write it twice. That way you can see how it looks from the bottom or the top. I made mine a style of reversible called the reflection, with a single midline that flips it.

Yours might look like:

The game is the game

after all.

Everybody dies

I guess.

You hurt my mother and I haven't forgiven it.

It's too soon.

I've watched you rot from the inside out and

honestly, it's been fun -

a ray of sunshine you'll never see again.

an empty can,

a scribbled phone number

you'd never call until you need something.

I summoned you here with these things.

You, too, are victim of the crimes of the father.

You were so young

and yet,

now

my heart is more blast chiller.

I would like to think I'm a better man but

empathy has a way of making us ugly, too.

Dear God: I believe in you less than forgiveness. Forgive me still, for the scars I carry.

Empathy has a way of making us ugly, too

I would like to think I'm a better man but

my heart is more blast chiller

now

and yet,

you were so young

You, too are victim of the crimes of the father.

I summoned you here with these things.

you'd never call until you need something.

a scribbled phone number

an empty can,

a ray of sunshine you'll never see again.

Honestly, it's been fun -

I've watched you rot from the inside out and

it's too soon.

You hurt my mother and I haven't forgiven it.

I guess

everybody dies.

after all,

the game is the game.

118/365 9/11 Contra for "Run This Town"

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Lots of things make us who we are. For me, music has been a defining factor in my life. Unbelievable as it would be to anyone who grew up with me, hip-hop was one of the biggest influences on my life.

For today's recipe, we will combine two different forms and ideas into one: ekphrastic and contrapuntal.

Good news everyone! You will only have to write half a poem today.

News everyone! You will need to elevate a piece of writing into your own using the contrapuntal format. Finish the thoughts. Make new ones. Make a piece of writing one-third of a new piece of writing. Make it say something new. Make it say something dangerous.

You'll need:

a piece of writing (this can be easiest with a song, but it can be literally ANY piece of writing - a monologue, a foreword from your favorite book, a Tweet?)

a historical event that you wager will be in a history book one day (I got off easy here - what works for you?)

a moral to the story (why are you writing this? For poetry, people often just write off the vibes™️, which is fair, but what happens if you lock in on a goal here?)

From here, use at least 10 lines from the original work and write a side-by-side contrapuntal; when you write it, make sure that your added works can be a second, sensible column to your work, and that when read as a conglomerate, the piece also makes sense. What does each part say? What doesn't it say?

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Today's prompt: define "after".

Yours may look like:

A small needful fact

of tragedy - things falling down -

is that nothing ever all falls down.

Today, a building will be reduced to nothing,

and still someone will wake up tomorrow.

I pray I am someone.

I hope for a whole gang of tomorrows,

rolling deep on the prayers from my mother

and my grandmother

and Sojourner

and Harriet

and Coretta

and Sheila

and J35

and a thousand queens who have shared this air

but one day, I won’t share that air.

I hope to be someone’s tragedy,

which isn’t to say that I want to break someone’s heart

so much as it is to say 

that I hope there is heart left to be broken

when I go. I hope the memory of me

will live in someone’s world, someone I’ve spoken

comfort into, someone who saw the same glass in me

that I see in this world.

It can be

Anything,

I’ll tell them.

If you can be it, so can the world.

But, for today, I’d like to keep drinking fresh water

and making.

I pray I am someone tomorrow.

I pray I am someone’s yesterday,

even when I am a forlorn spirit made of iron.

The world will be here after the collapse.

It will turn to a trillion smaller worlds

in the rising Sun, and the east will still carry your name.

I am the calm after the storm.

I am the rubble,

afterbirth of stone.

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One of my favorite reads is a book on history called How We Got to Now. I love tracing butterfly effects and hummingbird effects - butterfly effects being the random moments that somehow lead to things down the line, and hummingbird effects being that but in a much more logically traceable way. For example, ketchup, in its modern form, comes directly from WW2, and WW2 is why some places in the world have banana ketchup! (It's a long story).

Today's recipe is our long story:

start at a story from your life.

end with a major event in history or our social climate.

in between, connect them. The personal is the political, so start personal and make it bigger. What little moment is a direct reflection of the time in which it exists? For example, I suffered a traumatic injury in elementary school right after the ESRB was founded (they relate).

Yours might look like:

I don't recall now

how I got there,

but once I was sat on an active lightbulb

and didn't sit again for a week. My sister still rolls her eyes

when I say she pushed me - though we both know she did -

but we both remember: my father brought me

an adult sized meal from McDonald's

for the first time, along with Mortal Kombat 3 on the Sega Genesis.

Sometimes, growing up is a choice.

And sometimes, it is a process. A thing is placed in our hand

and we can choose to eat it or starve. The blood ran the TV screen

like a point guard, and the mothers were furious at the meals

other mothers allowed their children.

My mother worked and trusted me

and what other choice does a Black woman have in America?

In this place where every expectation is placed in her hands

and she eats or starves,

Either way, still get pointed at before anyone else when a gun

appears within 100 miles of a Black boy's body.

An officer would rather explain a dead Jamal

than a living Dashaun. Faster than a speeding bullet,

a boy in Superman pajamas can be a t-shirt of his own.

And the TikTok still says

These hood proms are the closest these fast girls get

to mattering.

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We are approaching the end of NPS 2026. I hope you have found good in the series of both prompts and works.

Today is a short prompt for a long poem: Write a 20-part ekphrastic poem, in response to either one work or to multiple works. Mine is a comic.

Yours might look like:

1.

In the story,

the man dreams he is a butterfly.

He wakes up confused, wondering if he was actually a butterfly

and dreaming of being a man.

2.

She kisses me hard

and it tastes like fire

and I don’t care -

I want this.

I’m bred to want this.

I’m supposed to want this.

And no one else wants me so that means

I must want this from her.

She kisses me so hard.

3.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

The therapist asks

What can you do to love yourself after this?

4. 

You are a MAN,

right?

You always want this.

You’re made to want this.

Who wouldn’t want this?

Are you mentally ill?

Are you an idiot loser?

She kisses me

hard 

and I do not stop her.

5.

I read this comic

where the hero comes home after 

a long, long battle. He has no family,

his pregnant fiancee no longer wants to be with him,

and he is jumped by an alien,

who wants to do so much more than fight him.

6.

I want to do so much more than fight you.

She kisses me

hard. 

Pins me

hard

Makes me

hard 

Makes me

take it

Makes me

watch 

Makes me

7.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

You want this.

You’re bred to want this.

You always want this.

8.

Rape.

9. 

Again.

10.

The curse of the poet

is the expectation that everything that happens to you

is in 2 parts - 

things that are stanzas, and things that will be.

My body is an embarrassed millionaire,

a fallow field,

rain beating against a rusty rooftop

I have yet to make poetry of.

11.

I stayed with my abuser for 2 years after it happened. I don’t remember a whole lot - every once in a while, I get a glimpse of a pasta dish or a hole in the wall or an empty pack of american spirits. She kissed me hard, tried to drown me in her blood. Every once in a while, my belly fills with sulfur gas and for days I cannot eat or sleep. I have tried to write a dozen books and cannot start any of them. The medication works until it doesn’t. She kissed me hard. The comic sits, uncreased, until it is destroyed by rain.

12.

One half of a conversation with the first therapist.

Yes, I could have stopped her.

Yes, I was strong enough to push her off me.

Yes, I chose to stay still.

Yes, I got hard.

Yes, I ejaculated.

Yes

Yes 

Yes 

13.

Can I come out of the chrysalis yet?

14.

I am a man some days and a butterfly others.

I am never invincible,

no matter how much I say

It is what it is.

15.

Rape.

16.

You’re not supposed to talk about these things. You’re just not. You let it roll off you, take the bowl and listen when your boys say isn’t that what you wanted? You write the poem, you let them laugh.

17.

One half of a phonecall with another therapist.

No, I didn’t consent.

No, I didn’t want to make her angry.

No, I wasn’t sure how to move without hurting her.

No, I didn’t grab the protection.

No, I didn’t stay in the room after.

No

No 

No

No

No

18.

Yesterday I realized I survived.

I made a new notebook out of my skin.

I have not gone yet,

no matter how much I wanted to.

19.

I wrote a suicide note and all it said was

I am not a ghost.

20.

I am not invincible,

but I am not a ghost. I am not invincible,

but someone, somewhere will know I’m not a ghost.

I’m not invincible,

but for today, alive is enough.

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When I was 12 years old, I was in the 7th grade, and was sitting in my math class when the Twin Towers fell. I remember the moment like it just happened. I think I always will - where I was in the classroom, what my best friend was doing next to me, the look on my teacher's face, the click at the TV powered on and degaussed itself like the old CRTs did.

I have always believed a ghost is simply a memory you can still sense. What ghosts live within you?

Today, I want you to pick:

an event that will live with you forever. You could say it. . .haunts you. (I'll see myself out)

a phrase you want to hide in plain sight

Today, we will cook an acrostic. This is a relatively simple form where the first letters of each line combine to make, normally, a word. Today, your acrostic is your hidden phrase. Think of it as your "true" final stanza. It can be as short or long as you want; however, it WILL dictate your number of lines so keep that in mind.

It may look like:

Yo-yo swings in the mug of morning as I settle into pre-algrebra,

one minute early and locker bursting at the seams, always

under the weight of all my homework and expectations, a monument to middle-school hubris.

"Can you get me

a bunch? I mean, like 4!" Ms. Soloway says over our

noise. We are trying her, and she wants principal visits instead of blood. Bryan is asleep.

That kid would sleep through the end times if you let him,

going all night playing N64 and reading Roger Zelazny and -

"Oh my God." Weird, The teachers never talk about about God - we believe but

here, they're not allowed to, but Ms. Muirhead has just whispered a new religion

onto the forehead of the room as the TV fumbles to life

moments after the first pillar of smoke has baptized a nation.

Elbow finds ribs as Bryan comes to, annoyed and confused but by my side.

Another steel bird breaches the horizon as gore fills West and Liberty like a

greying ocean, planet spinning ten times faster in our stillness, a world, a dizzy bat.

An acrostic poem from language arts crumples from my binder to the floor,

initial attempt at making metaphor fit into a backbone. "Dream", "era. . ."

"No one needs a poet now," my father would say. "We need a solider."

A song title

a news story

a routine in your life

Put together the pieces in any way you see fit.

The result is:

Good guy doesn't hit

his wife or his mother or

the comment button -

sees injustice every day,

but his comfort is stronger.

Because children die every day./Because children die every day and the culprit isn't always/the father. Because everybody lies./Because not all men./Because some women./Because equal rights and equal lefts./Because what was she wearing?/Because he was soft./Because it's hard./Because it's hard./Because it's hard.

Because I was a boy I wasn't sure I'd be strong enough to stop him. I didn't fully understand and the pastor said a child's place was silent. Some men never grow up. Some men say "boys will be boys" until they are in a box. Some boys will see a box before a cap and gown. Some boys will be victim before statistic in the cycle. 8 children died and I used #feminism and smiled in the mirror. 62 million started an argument and missed the point. Until it is 0 it is 8 children dead. Until it is 0 it is 62 million. No lives matter until all lives matter. Clearing the bar isn't clearing the bar. Clearing the bar is raising the bar. An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

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I finish the cereal at an empty table.

In the living room, maelstrom of men

stand before my grandma, waiting for a

verdict and a swift hand

and hell, least I ain't getting the whooping

this time. My father says nothing. This is not normal.

Uncles, too, constant cascade of shit talk over cards,

beers and blunts and bullshitting

after LaborWorld's latest job spit them back out.

Derrick's hardhat isn't even off and Anthony's still in his fatigues

and my father is silent. This is not normal. My auntie

has been in and out the house with the white girl.

My father has eyed her. This is so normal

I won't realize it is not normal

until I have girls of my own.

My sister is silent. This is for sure not normal

so I take my narrow behind outside.

A few minutes later, with my skates

still halfway falling off my shoes,

my father nearly treads on me,

a tank of regret down Munroe Drive and Leslie follows after him

if you ever come back here I'll kill your sorry ass

hot on his heels, my grandmother chasing him like a tornado

chasing the last memories of dust.

I only asked for a Capri Sun.

Was that too much?

EPILOGUE

I am writing a love poem,

which is a hard thing to do at any time,

but especially so

when all you want is to have something

and especially when all you have to give

is worth nothing to the

American gods that are never satisfied.

Even then, I refuse a tomorrow that doesn't see

you and I in her palms, eating fruit and

getting enough sleep. Beloved,

I have been so scared we'd never rest again,

with the sand of this place ripping us limb-from-limb,

with the dirty of men under both of our fingernails.

You do not need to prove yourself enough.

I do not need you or poetry to tell me I am not the sins

I was born from. I do not need permission

to stop loving people for the simple fact of our bones.

I cannot keep rolling the boulder of another's mistakes up

our hills but I can promise not to break another rock

off the cliff. I can let the worse angels, their ghosts and statues,

fall into the sea.

For the sake of our children, I will be better.

For the sake of us all, I can love like a treaty

instead of a battlefield.