Posts for June 12, 2025

queer is such a queer word
i think i like my words queer

matter of fact i fucking love 
dem queer ass lovely 
words 

i especially adore them when
queer letters come together
to spell queer words like

love and angels 
fearless and brave

beautiful and resilient
future and longevity

holy and divine

i love queer ass truths that
speak life like

Baby you belong & God 
don’t make mistakes

i love those real and raw
queer words that jumped

out of the queer mouth of james
balwin reminding all of us

you have to go the way your
blood beats. 

queer warrior ancestors 
charted out queer paths 

for our queer asses
to be free  

audre lorde prepared us for
this moment warning

our silence will never
protect us

so tonight i’m make some
queer ass noise and i

spit fire into the queerness
of the ethers and i continue to

make my queer ass art 
love my queer ass wife

and write more queer ass poems
dancing my queer ass all the way

home.

The most annoying part of a new scar forming
isn’t the space it takes from your body,
instead it’s the itch that accompanies
whatever experience created it.
There’s this sense
that you can scratch away the pain
and continue as you always have.
We tattoo constellations
over the course of a single life,
and our bodies choose these points of fire
to remind us not of what we can’t do
but to remind us of what we have already done.
Dotage and damage both create similar scars,
yet the difference between the two
sings only in the memories
our scratches uncover 
from the depths of our minds.
Remember your skin 
and remember that it reminds you to challenge it
with those prickling nerves 
bubbling beneath the surface.

Delicate flowers 
With small white and pink blossoms
Grace the rocky cliffs

My alarm goes off:
a pocket-sized chaos
ordered with the authority of my thumb,
a reminder to check on Merdle, the dog,
who is in the backyard

where it is 17 degrees
and the snow is anchored
to the grass with a mortar of ice.  

Merdle has been out there for 30 minutes.  
I leave the office and walk upstairs
stopping at the wide bay windows to pour
a cup of coffee and consider Merdle  

who is doing an inarticulate dance
around a stuffed pink squeakerless chicken,
pausing momentarily to smell walked dogs
a block away, barking and running
wide loops,

then stalking the perimeter of the yard,
then running again, full blast,
then stopping at her chicken-friend-victim

and yelping then plopping into a snowy flower
bed onto her back and twisting
then falling asleep
upside down
for 10 minutes  

which tells me:  

I do not know
how to live.

The whippoorwill calls.
We hear it from the swing.
Piles of grandchildren
laughing as dusk falls.
Lightning bugs dance
as they try to escape
the hands of Summer children.

The whippoorwill calls.
I hear it from the bedroom.
I came to visit Mamaw
all the way from college.
I worry about her
since Papaw died.
The somber sound reminds me 
of the sadness in her eyes. 

The whippoorwill calls 
but I can’t hear it.
We all grew up and 
scattered like the lightning bugs.
Mamaw sits alone now
barefoot in the swing.
Listening to that lonely sound.

I must begin making my list
of succulents, aloe’s green salve
spread across the pox of sunburn
while I scratch sand from my scalp,
leftovers from an afternoon of salt
sandwiched between two slices of rye.
I like my lunch late after the air warms
and the sun turns its face downward.
I like my supper when the sand
no longer burns the soles of my feet.
The skin on my legs and arms
is pink and raw and stings to touch,
but is so close to you,
radiating like a sunburned child
who’s left her basket just below the tide.

this drive is cobwebbed memories,

I keep a list of the lost in my phone
I look at it sometimes when I feel alone
Just some folks who remind me of home
I think of all the places we’ve gone
All the places we’ve roamed, planes and trains and boats that we’ve boarded
Knowing that it wasn’t where we were or where we were going,
But that the journey was more important
But who knew that it would be this short-lived?
Who knew that the last time I saw you,
Would be the last time I saw
You
And I feel like I owe you all an apology
Because I can feel you watching me
And I know you’re proud of me
But I’m not gon hold y’all, this grief? This hurt?
Feels like sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool
And I’m running out of room to let any air
Out or in and I’m
Literally waiting in my skin for
Someone or something to do me in
Maybe a chance to begin again or
To be another name that people use in
Past tense
And every day yet and still I’m convinced
That this grief I feel
Isn’t permanent
And that instead of people potentially Adding me to
Their list
I’m reminded of all of the reasons
That I still continue to
Exist

The first girl