stranded in a city made for me

the pilot who brought me here was sure i’d have a key to unlock the mystery buried in the sea of starlit sunshine that sunk our treasure it’s glowing beauty is all i remember in passionate riptides it was pulled out further and further and further and i gave up watching and decided to leave

**A draft that didn’t see light, not sure of date:

i wake up half baked and the world gives me time to add and equate the benefit of doubt due to the color of my skin a lapse of reason a few minutes to begin good intention seekers nicely imprisoned for laundering our whites, not the socks in the duffel, yet an equally angry vet wondering where the rules went with an ever changing board designed to adapt to rent its slipping away and the fear and intimidation that still sit silent in alien suburbs where they don’t see torches as necessary defense i’m the lucky one spewed out washing my skin duty delivered and i’m stuck within clambering to the next of kin where do i go? i want to help. i’m not one of “them” the great forgetting wasn’t lost on me i’m decidedly pretending i haven’t added to this. the start? polish and Italian joke books in 2nd grade, mocking street slang, defining identities by the size of their nose all the while being told ‘but you’re not one of those’ i wasn’t overtly taught to be racist, so i supposed, its who we are under the clothes that i wore in an effort to avoid confrontation i didn’t know why you couldn’t eat bacon. i should have asked. but when you’re born with privilege that you don’t even know math equation symmetry is all that’ll show.

adjust our lenses

feel the flow

all are one toe to toe