A woman boards at dawn, extra heartbeat concealed under pencil skirt.

This evening, I was craving some Ben & Jerry’s

So I got a pint of salted caramel

And ate it with a spoon that was still warm from the dishwasher

Alone in my kitchen at midnight

While simultaneously realizing I’d missed my opportunity to make 69 jokes yesterday.

The end.

You were born hard pressed

Down a fine line

Between the hands of homemakers

and coalitions for coal mines

Longing to breach the hills

Where you roamed to hide

From the arms that held you

That should have never touched you

Where you road the bus

To a school you hated

Made attendance matter

To those who you mattered not

Gained scholarships up to graduation

And left to attend university

But wait…

What happens to a dream deferred?

When the cart becomes derailed

And perhaps

the road less traveled

Becomes the only path left in sight

For you in this meantime

Where glass ceilings became cement walls

You do what feels safe
But sometimes life has a way 
So you make a plan

Have a seat, take a breath

Find beauty in the pause.
You walked the stage 
mastered the Masters

Sometimes you wake up

To realize you’re living that dream
When all you hoped for is
All you have.

it’s the
way your day starts and ends
with your waking thoughts consumed
by all of the problems you slept with that rest in your room
and all the pain in your heart to match
the ache in your bones
the realization that you’re doing this
alone
and that no matter how much you give your all to
make this house a home
you’re always outta time
really, out of hope, out of luck
a few days late and more dollars short and
you’re trying to avoid eviction court and
you have more bills than you can afford
so when you finally sit in your car and scream
because you need a release
because sometimes showing you’ve been disturbed
can actually protect your peace
please understand that a lot of us feel like this and
the only reason some of us
haven’t let go of that thread
is because there’s someone who won’t let go
on the other side
the way your day starts and ends
can literally depend
on a support system that may or may exist
of your family and friends
and just be aware
that some of us have none of them
at all
no safety net to catch you when you inevitably fall
so maybe we’ll do better
by each other as a law
because God knows even the strongest soldiers, and camels
can only handle
so much straw

staged between our
breaths

I once prided myself on my attachment–
it was the only thing I could afford at the time–
and even though I thought it elevated my mind,
the only thing it raised 
was my unstoppered arrogance.
At least I was held in my place
by a purpose I did not yet understand,
too young to thank the one who gave it to me,
too curious to question the foundations,
too satisfied to know true hunger.
I traded this destiny 
for stability,
but only trees seek stability
as they remember the storms of their ancestors 
that swept away anything
untethered and unbothered.
So I must relearn to mutate roots
to attach myself to the causes of my youth
that have changed so little since the storms of the past
first exposed them to a budding mind.
Those movements have moved so very little
in a world that has shifted so much,
that I cannot help but wonder
if I have moved so little, too,
or if I have just blown back to my roots.

Years from now
When the kids ask what it was like
When the world shut down
What will we tell them?

Will we tell them about the fear?
Death all around us
Scrambling for face masks and hand sanitizer
Store shelves empty of food and essentials

Will we tell them about the loss?
Missed graduations and birthday parties
No Sunday dinner at Mamaw’s house
No final moments to say goodbye 

Will we tell them about finding ourselves?
Uncovering creative talents
For art and music and nature
Recreating community at a distance

When they ask
What will we tell them?
And will they believe us?

How much life do I have to cut away
to make a space big enough to breathe?
Now I gnaw on the raw edges, disturbed
by the cold air gushing from these wounds
where I severed all connections. Since then
the void of daylight hours is limitless. I could toil
and fix everything with all this slow empty time.
Maybe it was wishful to think I could heal at all. 
Like blood my life coagulates as the months pass
solemnly, fruitlessly, bringing no great epiphany. 
My future necroses. Blackening in the distance,
the rot spreads inwards from my periphery.
Why am I so tired even in such quiet? Silence
still is too loud. What must I give up now, now
that I am surrounded by all these gaping holes?

After my grandparents died
the year I turned twelve, 
she was the closest I had.
She belonged to my best friend,
but had enough love for me too.
She wore her white hair
in pin curls and had it permed
at least once a month. 
She said warshcloth instead of washcloth.
She made polyester patchwork quilts. 
No fancy patterns, just a warm blanket. 
She taught me the first steps
of crochet, made me an afghan 
of granny squares
when I graduated high school. 
She had the biggest garden
I’ve ever seen outside of a farm.
She sat outside on the porch
summer days, rocking
until some signal we never heard
told her to get up. 
She’d wander that garden, 
so to pull a weed or two,
maybe pick some tomatoes for dinner, 
then settle back in
to rock some more.

most of the time 
the chamber is empty
spent days ago 
on something 
no one will ever read 

but I write out this poem 
knowing 
it’s going to give me a backhand 
say fuck
smoke two cigarettes 
sitting in a squeaky lawn chair 
wearing a set of faded boots
that want to kick 
in my teeth 

it’ll take a drag and look
over a set of pitch black 
don’t give a damn
sunglasses
tell me I wrote it this way 
so I’ve got no room to complain