We don’t say sorry.

May I go outside to play hide
and seek?

The stars are dark outside.

No puedes. No aguantes.

You are not allowed to ask.

Once my mother said:

you don’t know how to live alone.

She may as well have
told me I cannot survive
without a man.

And is it so bad?

May I come with you,
dear brother, please.

I want to learn the game

no one really knows
how to apologize
or take the blame.

No one is allowed
to love so openly.

When I think about colonization,
my mind jumps to the Mayflower.

This week I listened
to a podcast
on brown men dating white men,

who have mastered the ability
to open faster than brown men.

If I date a white man,
why do I have to explain
my very existence?

Their proclivities
as men lie
colonizing
the body.

And if I let them,
they may colonize my soul.

No. Do not trust
the white man

in the gate outside the door.

May you find happiness.
May you be whole.
May you find ease,

as told by the meditation on repeat.

Tell me something I don’t know.
Give me permission to exhale, master.

May I sleep with my work clothes
at the edge of an unmade bed,

alone like my mother foresaw.
These are my May days.

Don’t let me be lonely
when my mind jumps

:: looking ::

JO / oral / verse / rimming / kissing / licking / spit / splitting / dom
my heart open

Open. You? As I prop open the screen,

I respond:

Negative on prep / kissing / oral / body contact / bottom / I am at the bottom
of a sinking ship

that should have been
a shipwreck,

a makeshift bed lies
under my skin, in waiting.

these are the rules of the house:

we don’t say 	      sorry

do not ask	      questions

don’t love		      the whole body

so openly
                               don’t trust

so willingly		the white man
                             
                              	 	outside

the door                  

don’t go		         sleep

alone		         we can't

you can’t		       
                              	 survive

without			            a man