I accedentally said "Statistically they’ll all be pregnant by the time they are 18 anyway” and your heart broke inside your eyes when you shook your head and replied “You’re right but don’t say it"

This is a love poem,
To the girl
Who asked me out in the fourth grade.
I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say.
I’m sorry I don’t remember your name,
It must have been something like Katrina or Kate,
And I’m sorry that even as nine year olds
All we were learning in school,
Besides how to tune a violin,
Was that in order to be a person
A real,
Living,
Validated person,
We’re required to define ourselves
And categorize ourselves and
We’re required to check the box saying
“My heart won’t start beating till I know what love is” and
By the time we’re in the fifth grade
We want to start growing up so badly
That we play pin your heart to the boy or girl sitting next to you
Thinking maybe it will start beating now


The only words ever coming out of
My mouth that grew up on chocolate milk and ice cream
Should be “I’m sorry”
And I am because
Nasty is the only adjective that
Fits what I see most days.
Yet, even though I believe that
98 percent of the people I meet are good
I’m also sure that 99 percent of their situations aren’t
Which makes me seem like a pessimist,
But is it better to hope entirely
For a world no one is changing?

This is to the girl across the street,
Whose older brother is always high,
And who, at age 14, has learned
The right way to ask for things
And can shape her eyes to con almost anyone out of
Anything she couldn’t win by
Stealing it in the first place.
I made you repeat
“I’ll stay away from drugs,
Ill run when they are in front of me”
Enough times to
Hope cautiously you’ll hear my voice in your head
The next time you want a drag

And Princess,
I know you lost your mom to
AIDS of all things,
But you are good
You are good
You are good
Of heart and mind and soul
And you’re not innocent, I know
But you’re good I promise.
I saw the boys whistle at you on the street
I saw your step bounce a little more
But you’re more than you’re culture gives you allowance to be.
And your stars aren’t the same as hers
Because you see them with bigger eyes
And you’ve got the means to touch them
Even with rippled fingerprints and
That scar on your left thumb.

Sorry for the profanities, mom,
But lately “f@#! this shit” and
“I love you Jesus”
Are the only phrases that make any sense together,
Because that girl I worked with last summer
Asked me honestly what I thought about stripping
And she wasn’t sure weather to be proud of her body
Or to be careful with it and
When you’re working more hours than the sun’s up,
In the middle of summer,
Half a grand a night looks like gold with your clothes on.
Mom, she wants to get through school
And mom, the rents due
And I’d be scared to leave him when he hit me, too
If it meant taking on the
Other half of the bills

And mom that 14 year old tested positive
For carrying a child of her own
When she should be taking tests on Geometry instead.
She looks like butterflies and tire swings
So how is she gonna support a life?
Mom, these are lives
And I’ve heard a person can die a million times but
These are
Real,
Authenticated,
Ongoing lives,
And what do I do when they die?
When they are dying everyday
From now until some saint comes down and
Scoops them up?


No,
I’m not a romantic,
But this is a love poem

For you

I hope this is the ugliest, retching poem you ever read, and I hope it makes you uncomfortable and I hope you vomit when you think about it

I tried to love you like Jesus
Because you’re the sick that need healing
You’re the orphans and the widows
But I came home and cried because
I’m no great physician and
My eyes are almost as heavy as my heart

Illness and infection and scowling and judgment line these streets
And misery hangs on your clothes lines
And you are beautiful people,
But this is the ugliest place in the world

See that boy there?
The shirt that is too small for him?
It has been for the past 3 years
And will be for the next 2
Then his brothers can use it
For the decade after that

And cloudy days are scary because
The rain leaks through tin roofs and walls and doors
And mud cakes you like makeup
On the clowns at rich kids’ birthdays
And the mosquitos are always worse
Immediately preceding every storm
Then for days and days and days after that.
How are you supposed to work in the rain?
If you can find work at all.

The sun isn’t any better though
Because have you ever
Smelt poverty
Spoiled rotten and sour and forsaken by it?
Like milk left out too long
“Hah! And how am I supposed to buy milk today?”
It always too hot
It’s always sticky and
How are you supposed to work in the sun,
If you’re one of the lucky ones with work at all?

That sour smell of cracking backs
And crack cocaine
And craked concrete floors
stains your clothes
And your hands and your children.
And your hands aren’t ever clean,
But some of your souls are.
The rest are lost, or used to pay
The devil’s debt of your father
Or uncle
Or brother.
That devil lives across the street
In a barred windowed house
And he brings you his trash
“Here, find your blessing in this, scum”
And some days your dogs eat better than you,
But they don’t have any decency at all.
You at least can hold your pride
In the same arms as your newborn
Because when it’s hot there’s not work
And when it’s wet there’s not work
And when you’re idle you’re lonely
And everyone else is too,
So you fake love for a few hours
But these tender children hardly know their mothers
Or how to spell their own names

You're not listening, you don't understand me
They’re people
They’re people
They’re people
But our animal farm has made them cows
Knee deep in this shit hole
Piling into pickup trucks
And garbage trucks
And ambulances
Like the cows we make them
Headed to slaughter
But they’re not stupid
They’re not ignorant
They're not pathetic
They are angles and demons
Just like you
Just like me

Children walk barefoot here
Cut their soles on broken windows and beer bottles
And trash is still burning in their front yards
And their own people will always mark them as
The seven years of famished cows