the words i can see behind this screen

with men
query and
reinvention and
victims,
and masculinity,
and bullying and
psychology of
psychology
condom
modeling
2017, racial
intimate partner
weekly
implications for
masculinity

after a good date with no kissing

is when i feel like a lonely trash
boy on a limb
in a car
just wanting an endless reason
waking up lucky

what i like about good dates
is how afterwards you are giddy with vision
you have seen the best future and cannot contemplate that it will melt

futures always begin with kisses

i don't know who told me this

anyway,
he had rainbow gloves
soft hands
wiry hair
kind lips
and they brushed up against mine

but not long enough to sow a prophecy

after congress adjourns on december first

this is just to say
that i have given up on utopia
far too late, i know
they held a midnight party
and i wasn't invited

you shouldn't forgive me.

of course we will be sharing bread
from bread lines
living in cramped spaces
sharing bed-bugs, too
working death hours together
of course we will keep each other warm
if it comes to that
but you shouldn't forgive me.

good white people
are the vanguard of cruelty

everything is inverted
it always has been
and when i thought i was striving
i was climbing lower and lower

now i know why they write poetry about you

i will try to do this like you
stuffed mouth of oatmeal, homemade sourdough
same teeth brushed in the same way
with the same paste
at the same time
isolation
i will try to do this like you
turn down the volume on shoulder-devil
just repeat: i am fine
i am fine
i am fine
i will try to do this like you
and it will come out sideways
and my limbs will fall off
and my sex will dry up
and my mouth will smell
and at night, next to the air conditioner
i will remember talking at you like the shoulder-devil
will fall asleep drowning, wake up mouth full
of the usual suspects
oatmeal, sourdough, toothpaste, isolation

augury

this means trouble, this day
this means death
and there is nothing to poeticize about it
except that the burden in my heart
is to wish it away
to care for the earth as a motherbird

cannot, nobody can

and this is the work: to keep on working
even in this sickness of knowing
that nothing is enough, not even close

waking up
feels like dying

remind me why we did this again?

sixteen hours

without you
the puddles never dry
they don't even try to evaporate
it doesn't matter, they think
everything is wrong and heavy
what sense is there in running back to the sea