You play Love

i set a daily reminder to treat myself more gently to stand in the sunregraft the melanin i bled out in bathroom stalls so white girls could feelsafe to stop apologizing so damn much language impaled by falseprophets dragging around daddy's bones hoping to find them but i can'teven find myself mixed breed lab experiment with that good hair auntaddie said don't belong in no braids birthed by a black body whosegrandmother only entered homes from the back porch all the flavors ofsilence mucking up the welcome mat walls forged by shame fogged upwindows concealing frozen gifts of half-baked promises mommy anddaddy happily ever after childhood in corduroy shambles slipping in andout of spare bodies wielding magazine confidence convinced when awhite man whispered you're a stunning mulatto it was a golden proverbtaking up space in foreign beds where fetishized crevices are spreadunder microscope slides a first i love you belly flopping out of mommy'smouth at 20 a penance from her own mother beyond the veil moldylanguage where descendants swim inheriting eyes with no windows toxicglows sealing whiskey confessions in a mirror with no reflection scrapingthe bowels of love searching for playground scraps retrograde amnesialanding upstream or somewhere in brooklyn.