a white poet once told me that no one cares
about my politics or experiences.
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we all start writing too early. we should only be roving eyeballs,
our writing stilted on cones & rods. no teeth. all lips
to the ass of the canon.
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'just see and you must never be seen.'
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so i consider all this sand & wonder if it makes me seen or unseen.
probably depends on the gaze. i consider the deep bruise
stretched over the sky.
 Â
i see armageddon taking a nap. peach pits scattered
from when weâve dared but dared too late. piled so high
they blot out the sun. now, a useless reservoir
of cyanide.
 Â
here we are: the world a trashfire illuminating
the floors of silent seas,their silences an aftermath
of miscalculation
 Â
now, this negative space where once there were two roaches
trapped under a glass & the whole world watched.
and no one asks about them anymore      Â
theyâre out of sight, biding
their time & nutrients      Â
 Â
so we made memes     we leaned into the nuclear apocalypse      Â
we coped
 Â
this just in: tonightâs debate comes at you LIVE from the
inflamed taste bud like a thunderdome on the collective tongue
of the republic, breath held, face turned skyward
the clouds all shaped like drones.
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and not to get political but the brown kids pulled out of the rubble
in your newsfeed are complex beings with lives & memories
that arenât yet or soon will be their bodies, but they look like my cousins after a beach day, their skin covered in the haze of glass
that woke up sand     their blood rising to their cheeks
but not breaking skin
so you see, thatâs where the resemblance ends,
until of course they open their mouths, say something
right to left about wanting to go home
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i canât rightfully call it home but last time i went to beirutâs coastline,
i slipped on rocks still covered in oil from a rig
israeli jets burst like a cyst on the cityâs jawline,
i fell into a shadow thrown from an echo under the waves
i fell into a silence by the sea       i was a tongue sliding over
the gum of a toothless mouth             of which we have successfully ripped out the tracking devices
& Â Â Â the teeth they lived inside of
but now everything all at once is screaming even when its not screaming even when its breath held, its head turned skyward
there are things i canât unfeel
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
dededos
blakekathryn
stormborns
pixelskylines
