Lately
I don’t feel close
to poetry.

It feels elusive.
Unfamiliar.
Once it spoke to me.
But now it’s mute.

It sits back
and doesn’t look
at me.

If I call out
it doesn’t hear.

Lately poetry is
like that demon
I used to want
to reappear.

i could be that girl
whose voice is low and melodic
and coats your mouth with
acacia honey
whose eyes are the color
and depth of
midnight
whose presence is thick like
new york summers
rosy like
los angeles in early spring
if i braid flowers into my hair
if i write enough poems
if i learn to show the skin of my essence
but remain an abyss—
i will stop making art
when i become it

I've never been homesick.
I've been “home-sick”--
carrying that hunk of lead in the pit of your stomach
as your time away comes to an end.
Back to routine,
back to routine.
Not to be mean
but I want to take my roots
and plant them elsewhere
time, after time, after time.
Because you have to come back to your roots.
But this plant is rotting from the bottom up,
reaching for the sun with a weak foundation
and I don't want to fall.

I've never been homesick.
But I've been so sick of the droll,
the toll,
the tax I didn't know I had to pay
for the sake of community.
But where's the common unity
if the clockwork pieces
move farther apart
with every passing hour?
Our time is coming,
but I don't know what will transpire.

I've never been homesick.
I've been sick-
sick of wanting to be sick
so I can stick to faulty sympathy--
faulty because I need to grow.
Faulty because I need to know
I can go it alone
without these training wheels
I can't detach
because guess who can't afford
half the tools she needs
since she spent it all on comfort?
It's how I was raised:
substitute praise
with a trifle,
a trinket,
a treat.
We only eat
to fill the holes we dig for each other
while father, sister, mother
spiral down-- farther, farther,
until we forget what we’re burying.

I've never been homesick.
I don't have a home to miss
(not yet) because I've never been
I've never seen
where I'm meant to reside
for the rest of my life.
My home is farther than I can reach
so I strive for heavenly speech
to mimic the local dialect.
Maybe someone will detect
that I'm lost
I can't get there just yet
but I'm homeward bound.