this mausoleum is big enough for the both of us.

Don’t look strange men in the face unless you want them to look back. You can’t carry your body around like it’s covered in sequins, or worth shit  without making everyone uncomfortable, Sam. Don’t blame the world for how it wants to get its hands around your throat – you’re the one who showed up with a throat to begin with.

I don’t write poetry anymore and nothing can hurt me. I don’t write poetry anymore and every river is bleeding towards a home. All I really want is a man to put his hands in my mouth. All I really want is two stones or a sleeping dog or a dead horse. I take long walks from one street corner to another. There are so many little things that make up a life. I look my strangers in the eyes. I am almost always imagining some kind of violence. I cheated this Ramadan. I’ve cheated every Ramadan. I don’t write poetry anymore so I don’t have to think about my mother. I haven’t kissed anyone in months. I’m not as good as I hoped I’d be. Yesterday I noticed my front tooth is rotting.

Everything I write lately is bloated with sadness. When you try to love the world but she’s all fists, all gut, all blood. I don't know what to do with all of my black girl grief– maybe auction it off, maybe bottle it, maybe just let it sit in the sun and heat up and cool down again. Let it congeal against the sides of the bowl  and scrape it off to start over again the next day. I get off the bus ten stops early so that I can make the long walk home, feel the ground hard and sure beneath my aching feet. I smell like flour, dough, rosemary, the oven that cooks the pizzas. I like how everyone looks at night: warm and drunk and happy, even the trees. I take off my lonely like a bodysuit and put it where I keep my sweaters. I gargle with salt. I moisturize with honey.  I remember the bodies that came before mine, the bodies that made it possible for my body to be here now. My friends and I are so pleased with these parties we throw for ourselves. We toast to them at our next awful brunch.