13 Poems That Will Move You

“So I’m sitting in the barbershop getting my hair cut when this dude say he would kill his son if he found out he was gay.”

“May of that year / he began to debate killing himself. / Debate not contemplate."

“It happened while I thought about grace, how a lady / handles her body.

“I lay in the dark & stretch the portrait / of a white woman across my face / until it splits."

"I knew I wasn’t poor, / because I could always eat / at the restaurant where I waitressed."

"In paint you're still pulling him / out of the river. Still taking the skin / off (again) with a bullet brush."

"I tried to touch myself / in the hotel room / when the bar closed / before I’d had enough,"

"I’m waiting for a white woman / in this overpriced Equinox / to mistake me for someone other / than a paying member."

“it happened to me: / I dated a white anarchist / who made me do all the dishes / while he crowdfunded his trip to Rojava”

"What else / have I claimed that was not mine?"

"My mother wept nightly for eight years / my living curled its hands / around her throat not choking exactly."