lightning strikes the tallest tree
before it stoops to you and me
in the morning, the fog settles down,
kissing the ground with dewdrop lips
before dissipating into the sky as the sun
rises into the great wide blue.
can you see me?
you like my outfit?
see my shoes?
i only do this for me, i don’t
want your attention, nor do i need
to hear your praises.
please know that my heels are
the most comfortable shoes in the
world.
i’m being childish. this is ridiculous and i can’t believe how stupid i am sometimes most of the time. seriously.
one hundred haiku
is the internet’s command
this is one, you guys.
The instructor said
“So what do you think?”
And the class was silent.
And I was silent.
But which ought to have spoken?
I am a girl. Twenty years of age, born and then removed
from Prince George’s County out,out!
to the West.
My schooling there was preparation—
I was— “I am the only colored student in my class.”
The emphasis is my skin’s.
Indeed, it must have prepared me.
I know of Februaries spent accepting apologies
from young white children on behalf
of their ancestors for wrongs committed
to my own.
Ought they have spoken?
But who is to speak now?
Surely I cannot fault the instructor for his white-ness,
just as he is not expected to act any
differently
considering my race.
God bless him,
God bless America,
for bestowing the bliss that comes with ignoring.
Am I to fault the class for not speaking?
Are I not part of this class?
I am black, after all.
Ought I to have spoken?
What was there left to say, that
hadn’t already been said within the silence?
Yes, they are more white, but they are no older,
and the silence keeps us all bound
in the dark.
I am my ancestors, and I am not,
I am me from the moment I’m born,
I am them from the moment the ship docks.
the closest i can get to being dead is to be asleep.
i feel so small when i close my eyes. like the enormity of the cosmos is pulling me out into its blackness—like the darkness of eternity is pressing me into myself. i have to clasp my hands—feel my fingers, my arms, to make sure they’re where i left them. the ground feels far, the sky is gone, and the immensity of everything whispers scents and paints tastes and mixes everything into nothing, into the stars. and that is all, but it is enough, it is everything until i open my eyes again and the ground is close, and the fan is spinning above me and gravity exists and colors are colors and sounds are sounds and i am a normal sized girl in a normal sized house again.
