BLM

In a Time of Restlessness

My wife says she doesn’t dream and my spirit animal is the world’s biggest concern. I’ve never had the hazard of simply living as being a cross to bear, but I sympathize with the bodies of black men being fed to bullets. Closing your eyes to the plight of a breath is equivalent to biting your tongue though your teeth have fallen out long ago. Not even the most spiteful virus can quarantine the hate created from the vines of a bad seed. Regularly talking to plants not only helps them grow but controls the temper(ament) of your own voice. Soft pastels are the most prominent shades seen when one is sleeping, but she doesn’t even see those. How can a man give up when it’s clear he’s already surrendered? Even nightmares know when enough is enough. 

To write a children’s book

or to not write a children’s book?

Bedtime

A dad tells his daughter,
There’s more life in a beached whale
than in you.
And it’s just a Netflix show
featuring a mobster who
gave up his crew in exchange for
being awarded witness protection and
relocated to a snowy country that speaks
a language in which you can’t help but
want to exaggerate and
elongate each vowel sound,
but so many teachable moments occur
as a result of binge-watching away
one’s life.

I wake up in the middle of the night to pee
and get water and
even half-asleep
am able to note the cyclical process of the
flesh at rest and the mind dreaming of
traveling to places
outside of a body too scared
to ever leave.
We lie down and live and love
in the most comfortable areas
of ourselves,
timid residents hiding inside
a land too familiar to vacate.

We should all strive be as fearless as
that beached whale,
having just migrated up to 5000km to
mate and breed only to return back
to colder waters before doing it all again
next year.

Instead we pull the covers up
over our bodies before going
back to sleep,
wading in the warmth of a mattress
too soft to ever
snitch
on ourselves.