They run the school;

if you fight against them,

to the front office you go.

My shoulders now fall

well below my earlobes,

friends of old when

work felt more important

Another attempted assassination

shimmies across the headlines.

Erase the concept of “perfect.”

Let the chalk dust cover you

like tree pollen to a windshield.

A messy mind, hoarded with

thoughts, memories, and emotions

in three corners triangulate about

the pen and paper in the other.

My aura be

day-three-color menses,

crimson rambler roses climbing,

Pinot Noir low histamines.

It’s quite the miracle—

seeing bare ankles in the morning

replacing the cloth you saw

just the night before.

Where areolae once existed is skin—

scars healed over, smooth like plastic.

I can no longer feel my heartbeat

something about you

makes my lungs feel like high school,

like not cool, like cold pool,

like Boo-Boo the Fool.

“Softie”

is what they

called me as a teen—

so slim thick the homies

couldn’t see past parts.

A unicorn’s horn

is like a Black woman’s braid

scrutinized, fried, dyed, laid to the side

Two little sprigs resembling

star-shaped miniature palm trees

appeared in my garden bed.

It was on dark summer nights,

when the maidens stopped their work,

they’d put their aprons down,

loosen up and start to twerk.

My hips hold continents—

my womb is a gilded room

where royalty sits enjoying

tea and crumpets.

They taught me that

sometimes the ones were love

die, but that’s alright.

It’s just part of life.

Sometimes it hurts,

but most times it tickles

like feathers on the nose.

Often unspoken,

but through action, it shows.

Aye, I may not have a soul,

but I will move soles

toward efficiency and sameness—

who said the world needs difference?

our 4th floor balcony was as

God-sent as Noah’s Ark,

facing west

to watch the technicolor sunset—

a chance to forget, just for

women’s-clothing-pockets of minutes,

that COVID was running rampant.