Uncomfortable

Are you still going to wait for another revolutionary to be murdered by the state, only for the words of these martyrs to once again be bastardized by white liberals who fear losing their privilege?  

We must find different words to describe this feeling in the air I was awoken to in 1999,
and for others, in 2020, 2025 or never.
I beg for us to leave the fallacy of the term “unprecedented”,
when the ink that signed this empire into existence was only signed in black
because it overpowered the maroon it was first formed from.  

Our origin story has simply been repeated throughout time,
with no sign of the record player that plays these imperialist tunes halting
because we’ve engaged in capital murder towards those who desire to hear a new key. 

The solution has always been right in front of us.
A better life absolutely can exist for us all,
but we must be comfortable with the consequences of revealing these so called
“uncomfortable truths.” 

I have no more patience for poet laureates and scientists alike,
who publish manuscripts that continues to require publishers to issue “sincere apologies”
for releasing texts that still seek to advance disproven theories of human development
that were rooted in falsehood of white supremacy. 

If man can understand the words of Kant and King,
then surely, he can recognize the mold of the noose that shaped this nation,
and see that the systemic oppression inflicted on my people as something greater than just the “current political climate.”

it’s time for me to send that text

I want my brain to feel like my home;
colored by golden ascents and Monet’s,
instead of images of blood-stained bibs.
I beg for dreams filled with laughter, comforting kisses to my shoulders,
And memories of a non-adultified childhood.
I desire the warmth of a relaxing silence
Than the sharp sting of a haunting echo.
These desires cannot simply live in idealism when I know
the men who have created the horrors visualized across my phone,
can get a good night of sleep without help of aids—
while my Cymbalta causes me to sweat out my white sheets,
and relive the misinformation I shared with one of my peers at 2:40pm that day.
I want a life where I do not cry myself to sleep over the guilt of
not choosing a career where I could’ve freed my parents from Uncle Sam yesterday,
instead of fifteen years from now.
I still believe in his grace,
and that he makes no mistakes for the battles he has sent me.
I just wish he’d maybe type the wrong letter in the address book
And his next message is returned to sender for the time—or even permanently—being.

My mother hates flowers because they don’t pay the light bill

I ran into my mother’s greatest enemy at the botanical garden today.
I swore I heard her scoffs as I walked among
the flowers that were being fed by the sun.
Some of them were being kissed by bees.
Others, with the help of the summer wind,
sprayed an orchestra of scents that seduces the olfactory systems of the living—
A scent a perfume could never come close to recreating.
Though my mother could care less about this feeling.  

This garden is endless,
But it is human; it contains imperfections.
I spotted one of those faults.
It’s sadistic, vulturous even,
To give it so much attention.
But it is not out disrespect.
I am not mocking or degrading it—
They share a common temporality with human life—
It is because I wanted to get to know her.

There lied a purple flower.
It had a single wilted petal that was the most sun kissed of all.
It hovers over the other petals that falls underneath her so she
Is the first to catch the evening downpours
and droplets of the sunrise fog.
As I got closer, I could see the wrinkles that were dancing along its surface,
And the purple hue that likely once painted the petal
Had hit the point of no return. 

That flower is dying.
She knows it.
It is inevitable that the other petals on its stem will reach the same fate.
But it’s not her time.
Not yet at least.
She still has more sunrises and sunsets to observe.
She must survive for the children that surround her. 

I want to touch that petal,
Gently brush its face and
Dry the water droplets that hadn’t dried off yet
And take the weight off her.
But I know if I do so, I’ll break and put her children at risk,
Even if it meant I would be saving her.   

I know I shouldn’t disturb her.
I know I must leave her be. 

So, I sit with her,
blocking the sun to give her a little break,
catching my tears whenever they fall too close.
Eventually, the bustling street becomes silent as the number of buses running drops to a trickle.
Sunset is coming. 

If she could talk, I know she would tell me to go,
that she can handle everything on her on own.
She’d tell me to go play with the living
and say hello to the other flowers.
So, I nod at her and smile.
I turn my back,
finally understanding why my mother hates flowers,
and walk away.

I’m tired of reading poems about vaginas that taste like pomegranate when we keep dropping bombs on the soil where she grows 

How would we even know what a good pomegranate tastes like,
Since we can never really consume fruit so “exotic”.
We can lay them on our pearly marble kitchen countertops,
Grab our unwashed knife from the sink, rinsed with lead-purified water,
and draw the first cut down the middle of that fruit. 

Once the cut has commenced,
We have already stripped the juices in the fruit of their authenticity.
The seeds will start to spill out on our pearly marble kitchen countertops,
And as we wipe them away onto the trash can,
The seeds leave a message written in red on our fingertips.
It should be a sign for us to treat the blessed fruit with respect.
We should honor her family, Lythraceae, and wash our hands before
We take our afternoon supper.
But we do not respect the “exotica”.

With our stained hands, we consume her
We suck away the flesh around the seed
Until our tongue can either no longer handle her tartness,
Or we have consumed the last of her juices and completely stripped her of her flavor.
We have no desire to respect the nutrition that she provides.
We simply toss her remains in the trash where she will eventually join
Her sisters that have been slowly decomposing in desolate landfills,
Or reused as decorations in the mass graves we once claimed would never
Become part of our everyday vernacular again and would remain a relic of our history.