Read-lining

Our wires haven’t been crossed

the power lines  

are in completely different counties

—

April PAD Day 3 prompt: communication 

What a pretty name

Hi, my name is
not nearly as important
what you call me 
behind closed doors, closed 
minds, or closed hearts 

where you fetishize an 
exoticness that once threatened
your grandparents so much 
that they sent mine
to Arkansan incarceration camps 

emerging years later with 
broken hearts and steeled
wills, a thirst to 
prove their Americanness/humanity,
become a model minority 

modeling resilience after abuse,
white-adjacent acceptability, and 
generational trauma embedded deep 
in the DNA that
became this face you 

now deem desirable

— 

April PAD 2021

Poetic Asides Prompt Day 1: introduction poem

Space walls

We've had the 
luxury of space
for so long 
that it seems 
a right and
not a privilege.

We've had the 
burden of space 
so long that 
we believed it
was alright to 
ignore each other

We've believed that
proximity was a 
burden and not 
an opportunity to 
remember that connectedness 
is actually our 
most natural state.


--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 7: lucky or unlucky