Burning Breath

I can’t breathe,
It’s allergy season,
A yearly occurrence
Yet still a fear arises,
With burning breath caught mid chest,
My mind fears another pathogen near,
That could further take my breath,
My life
Away

Precious Lasts

There is a loneliness
That resides in our close quarters,
An unspoken sadness,
An anger,
About the fear we speak of
But dare not name,
We are all knowingly closer to death,
And on the precipice, it is terrifying,
To see each other,
And wonder how long we have,
Before the unknown swallows again,
Before our hellos are really goodbyes,
The moments of nothing
Seem wasted,
And yet are our precious lasts,
To be with and be here in

Duress

I was critical of my result,
Fearful I was deemed less
Progressive,
less inclusive,
Less open-minded,
less accepting,
less anti-racist,
Less,
Less
Than I see myself,
Than I wish to be,
What can I fix?
What can I make be
What I know is more authentically
me?
But check,
Check one,
Check one, two, three,
There’s more to the picture than I had perceived,
There’s a place I reside where I am alone,
Where shielding my differences
Is how I make this
Safe–“home”,
More comfortable than were I out bearing all,
Being me,
Being free,
I’m enclosed in the wild open,
Still a black girl in Maine,
A rare, wild specimen,
Afraid of being tracked,
Tagged,
hunted by the
Majority,
whom I’m swimming in,
Marginality makes me weary,
Getting closer to authenticity is my aim,
But duck and weave is the game,
I am no less,
Just extremely
stressed,
Identity under duress

The Good Word

Speak the good word preacher,
To something we can relate,
Speak of hope,
And why this is as such,
The hurt, the pain in all of us,
Hold all our hearts in tender care,
Our dreams, or worries, our despair
Balance with your own self-care
Lose not yourself,
As weight load shifts,
Preach to us,
Of all of this

New “Normal”

Return to normal?
Who has that power?;
To quell disease that now eradicates?;
To bring back lives since lost?;
To restore security in most anything?
How foolish to talk of such fantastical things,
When reality has been brutally clear,
This is the new normal,
My dear.