lover is a day

drive thru crosses

he tells me i could be my own god if i combed out my hair. frayed twists climb across my scalp in a way that screams murder. it is a strong accent that i faintly recognize / as if i saw it once in a swimming pool/you could do it, he says, destroy then become.

hot pieces of Orion melt on my back and stain my shirt. i take off the shirt / cause i'm with my god anyways / and all we do on sundays is cry into old linen and eat chicken sandwiches.

if i could stop picking at my nails maybe i would be pretty. in the movies, and on the bus, black girls wear stilettos coming from hand and exude locally farmed honey from their pores.

he holds me like dumplings in a refrigerated take out box and wonders why i don't glow like the video girls. i tell him it's cause i traded beauty for fear when i learned to fight in year 7.

he knows that's a lie though because valiant heros don't got depression hair. and valiant heros wash their faces when they don't have places to go. and valiant heros can meet the Black God inside a melon slice and the pomegranate seeds of the Woman Earth and can eat both in 30 seconds without throwing up.

i tell my brother that he shouldn't shit on himself but that's what i do everytime i take more than 2 breaths consecutively.

i am wasting time and space and funny enough the mirror glides smooth against my thighs and presses old toothbrushes into rose buds

i am not used to writing prose on greasy wrappers but i think i'll get up today and maybe wash my face before 3 pm. it'll be difficult but i'll do it for him - for him and for my shadow.