things justice is not:

Facebook statuses

hashtags

thoughts & prayers

the outcome of an election

philanthropy

public awareness

adequate time to grieve before the next tragedy 

don't make a home for it

don't let it get comfortable in your heart

don't make space for it under your skin

stop the electrical current in my brain that reads

I don't love anyone but dead people 

streetlight by streetlight the length between us grows.
every handshake, every side glance, another block.
you and i are miles apart in this city.

i am barefoot in the kitchen, coffee, hot and bittersweet,
the dregs sliding down the mug toward your lips
where you, in the living room, ignoring me, are feet up
and waiting for comfort and service and quiet. (when will
this shit find equilibrium, fuck) -- (you are
so eloquent) --

i am in bed after you've left, knees up, praying
that i am not barren. i have never hated you more.

years ago we laid in a baseball diamond under
a heated fog sky, you laughed at me, you reached for my
legs and hips. years ago there were long trips
in unstable cars, apartments dim in moonlight,
thin walls and neighboring conflicts. years ago
there was pressure, assurance, desire, the weight of our unborn
pressed into the pit of my stomach.

yellow globe by yellow globe i traverse this city.
you stopped waiting for me, and started standing still.

without this, then

you looking at me looking at you or

the crumbling facade of what i felt-- Roman, obscured, mosaic.

we must eat, sleep, shit, speak, or else

a murky kind of decay, the gradual disarray of the body:

sweat stains, unkempt curls on shoulders, blisters. 

perspective and the ability to write are all well and good but

equationally speaking, they do not even us out. 

without your demeaning attention i grow too large, secure,

find myself adrift in shipping lanes, directionless and valued.

diminution or some other challenge:

else loud, outrageous, captain and crew and seastorms for days.

breakers, tall grey thunderheads that charge an ornate prow.

your semen, desireless or not, adept at drowning.

somewhere in the dense swamp, a path, or light, or firm land may be--

but-- ten weeks later it closes, darkens, floods.

the blood of untold cells, the grinding of my flesh in the expulsion.

a rift where there was never space before. 

you must look past me now: or i might be freed to own

that hope, democratic surplus, bodily Pompeii. 

i might have named her Demeter, else

saltwater in the afterbirth, a warmth in the current.

me in the kitchen, bleeding, silence; or else

admission, honesty, a cold or underdone dinner. 

I am just now getting to the point where I feel myself to be at home 

The detritus of a woman made slow, made whole 

So much of the language of impact is masculine: heavyweight, bull, predator, slugger; even the hidden masculine of philosopher, academician, champion.

Yes I feel that way too

I read race books because nobody writes beautiful haunting polemics on rape

I read race books because no one ever tells rape survivors to expect, much less embrace, the white-clean rage that becomes a prescribed burning

I read race books because microaggressions against rape survivors are constant, everywhere, socially supported, the whisper that says don't jump so obviously when the door behind you slams

I read race books because my well-meaning therapist couldn't trace the deep fear of realizing that the criminal justice system was set up to protect my aggressor and not me 

I read race books because I needed someone to tell me that they too knew what it was to be wholly ostracized and wholly written off as of no further capitalist or socioeconomic worth 

I read race books because no one writes grounded, historical studies on the pervasive violence of men upon women from a vantage point that does not privilege the view of masculine primacy 

I read race books because James told me what it was to be invisible, Zora told me what it was to be hunted, Frantz told me what it was to carry a burden, and Toni told me what it meant to reclaim humanity in the face of deep injury

I read race books because the voices that I found there knew what it was to designate a whole swath of humanity as violent, criminal, aggressive, to be feared, to be avoided, to hold at arms length even the individuals who do not seem to behave in the way of the group they belong to, to expect hurt from an entire demographic, and be right 

when the people around you start finding out you put hennessey in your morning coffee

the jokes you will make:

I've been around you too long

(I've been around that black man too long)

the best part of waking up

is henny in my cup

it's not problem drinking when the problem is I'm not drinking AMIRITE

the slips you will make:

yes it really helps me I feel better all morning

all Saturday

morning

I meant 

none of this matters.

they will still slaughter elephants for ivory, they will still

sell 12-year-olds at the Super Bowl.

my mother will still tell me I can't wear horizontal stripes and I 

will still curl up to you, lonely in a big brick city,

and ask you why we do not fuck any more.

the jokes you will make:

are you never lettin go cause Kanye warned a boy

do you want some water for your thirst

(I don't)

(I have coffee with hennessey)

i wake up deafened from the volume at which my dreams have been screaming at me
my grandpa forgot he wanted to die in january and by the time he remembered it was may

i wake tired from running, immured from the fear by sheer exhaustion
i dream of the state mental hospital where they shut him up with the weather channel

i wake slow with images still real for my eyes, my pulse too fast from the fight
the cold fragility of his hands, five slim bones collected in my hot, fleshy grasp

i wake with skin scraped pure from the purl of the carpet where i twisted and retched
i could not save him from the smell of vomit, the taste of pill casings, the glare on linoleum tile

gifts i accept from your mouth:
acceptance, charity, understanding, story.
i do not know what to say to you but i know that you will listen while
my errant tongue spits out ire and fear and self-protection
faster than your warmth can disarm me.
for you i might be beautiful, who could say?
for you i might be peace or solidarity or support,
or produce some amalgam between your mouth and mine:
i should be so careful, to capture you in this way.
secrets i cannot even whisper to myself
insist on writhing out over the breakfast table,
wet and trailing seed as they arc toward your hands.
they are limp for you, a relaxed twining
of the worst of me, a seeking of stillness and rot.
and you will only listen, and tell me i am wrong--
you will not notice these entrails
till the heart of me, red and steaming, is laid out
before you like a lie i couldn't keep.

some days you are called to let someone's heart break
at your kitchen table, in your car, on your phone
some days you are called to witness their breaking
with your eyes, with your hands, in your lap, in your mouth

i hope we heard you
i hope we touched you

i want to sit with my grief
look it in the eye
sing with it
but it won't sit still

it ranges, restless, between the extreme and obscene
between mimicry and denunciation
it insists on action where i would seek pause
it insists in community where i would seek solitude
it insists on meaning where i would seek space
perhaps following
grief
is the best direction i can take

i have underestimated the necessity of reflection