3030 excerpts: part one

why hi high

shaking notes from my fingers
I'll tryyy to give them gloss for yeh
because yeah, I would love for your eyes
to lift me into the pantheon-
my pride would love that validation.
I'm pregnant
I would love for you to think my baby beautiful
but the most important thing is
I gotta get this motherfucker out of me

________________________________________

any mortal thing, tis that I may

I mean
it ain't funny
but what the heck else am I supposed to do it with it

like painting a body
in clown make up
post-blessings

because you know it's too hard to move!

like putting a looney tunes band aid
over a sputtering, gurgling rash
that looks like it's only smoking
deeper as the cycles go on

it hurts me just like it does you

I just don't like looking over at eyes
being eaten out by disuse

skin I've placed my lips to
scattering away
carried by worldwinds

so I'll put raybans on them,
I'll whistle along with the gusts
blowing hearts away

___________________

labels and heart hearts

I fell into the maw
with no rope to tug on

certain
that the light
I could see shining
deep

was the color
I'd been looking for
all along
*

felt like heading through dusk
toward a campfire

I could hear it crackling,
the absolutely uncommon burning

thought its breaths
were in the shape of
my name
*

in my frenzy, in my impatience
I threw my self into it

the embrace was sweet and quivering,
as if a wire was waiting to snap

I cautioned a smile,
with enough arrogance in it
to trigger:

it lurched,
pierced my stomach
like a heated pin,

bloodless
(alas, all hands would remain clean
even as my eyes could not
stop themselves from yammering)
and excruciating

it was a neon arrow
pointing right through me
almost like it was sticking its tongue out!

____________________________________________

thick and clear

through
rib cage
through
textbooks
through
real jobs
through
shinier new hands
through
NY
through
PA
through
OH
through
IN
through
september
through
october
through
november
through
december
through
january
through
february
through
march
through
april
through
may
through
june:

how many layers can our frequencies flow through
and after so much,
how loud will the ringing be
//
everybody gets scared of college,
our turnnnn.
//
thank God for video chat.
__________________________


another day, another

I was sitting on the couch with Alex
in YCA, not doing shit
Avery comes through like some kind of mad spirit
taking a respite from Nubian Olympus
to bless and confound us with a cameo
as he likes to do

Clothes black as skin, looking bad as his soul
stepping, dipping to the beat
Itchie is letting kick from the grates

Mr. In the Place to Be does his thing:

5 ft 4, maybe, and again, yes, dark as hell
but outshining every other motherfucker in the room
presence dust miting all in the vicinity

he slides in to Cece's office
and slides back out
looking around at all the ants
scuttling for pizza and light

I don't even remember if he was even turned in my direction
when he said
"Emanuel, how you doin?"

I smiled, surprised and gratified (I mean, let's be real here)
and said "Ahh, okay. Just trying to be happy."

his head swivels to me, with an emotion inscrutable:
it was maybe momentarily bemused, but nothing on his
face was dancing when he said

"Don't try. Just be.
Don't try, baby. Just be."

he lingered for a moment, savoring the way
the air spread out around his words
humming like seeded crickets,
then opened his mouth wide,
shining wild teeth in a knowing, glimmering grin
and step, dipped back out the door
back to the obsidian mount from whence he presumably came

****

I've been letting myself get choked.
Twisting and gutting my own body
under this grip
trying to sear my form
into a password
to make these fingers
soften
and thus validate me

but they can read
every lie like hounds.

sometimes, it's felt like
trying to keep secrets
from the sun.

****

Doubts are like carbon monoxide?:

Sometimes, you can find even a turd
in the right shape
the perfect shape;
a key
that will unlock all the butterflies
you'd been gassing to ash.

I don't know if what Avery said to me
had the same weight to him
as spitting off to the side of the road might

but damn if it ain't tugging at these bars
__________________________________________