I Dont Know

Because it’s a job nobody else seemed willing to do

And like a stupid, loyal dog I can only ever do jobs nobody else wants to do

Because deep inside somebody has to love the bleeding, weeping kid in me

But that’s what every 20-something thinks

But I’m really scared of it

I think I’m great but I can’t really be that great if my dad didn’t want me.

I’m so scared of being alone and unheard

And I think I’m even more scared of how angry I get when I feel scared and unheard

The same anger I know was in my father when he kicked me out.

And he’ll remain buried thousands of miles

Away from the home where his mother first witnessed his steps

Thousands of miles away from

Centuries of lived history.

Centuries of being surrounded by familiar faces

Centuries of struggles shared with cousins, uncles

One day I’ll join my father

Thousands of miles away from the people I was supposed to know all my life.

God, why didn’t I love her?

Why couldn’t I make it happen

She was good, and she saw me

She spoke to me and said nice things to me that I can never forget

I couldn’t rip those things she said to me out of my heart if I tried

We would pass in hallways and glance at eachother

And I couldn’t bring the strength to say hi

I recently thought,

“I can’t wait for this to be over”

I don’t particularly desire It

But imagine the release

Knowing that regardless of your efforts,

Regardless of the aches,

The journey ends here

Some men don’t really kill themselves

Some men die regardless

They destroy themselves, along with whatever made them weak enough to bend

And they remake themselves into a harder, rigid thing

There is no kindness in this act

Like a butcher pulling silver skin off meat that still bleeds

Every time they remake it, they lose something in there

You see it in their eyes

I don’t dance anymore

It was beaten out of me

Sometimes violence is so quiet

Violence is seen in your father watching you dance and be free,

But he watches with eyes that tell you,

At one point,

Dancing was beaten out of him.

On the understanding that anything could be taken from me.

So I spent my time learning what couldn’t

I focused on the small freedoms,

The palace that exists within the self.

The niceties everyone else takes for granted.

The luxury of leisure and isolation.

I learned, eventually, that the time had long since passed where people wanted to take.

Of my self love

Are the greatest acts of betrayal I can give myself

There are moments I forget the beauty of the world

A white-passing writer answers my question of how to find solace through poetry

in this political climate

with absent and middling words

you’ve been asking those people that question your whole life Nathan,

What do you keep expecting?

To be a writer in this world,

I want someone to want me

And I want to want someone

I wanna bathe in their skin and lap up their viscera

chewing on the memory of a person

Dense, red, and juicy.

Their thoughts, passion, and hobbies drench me

I don’t want a high, I don’t want

To look cool or mysterious

I want to breathe in the smoke that can only harm me

It’s my greatest shame in the current age I’m in,

Right next to the memories of my mother crying over money that wasn’t hers