It’s all about the energy,
the feistness, the blanket you use to cover
the harnesses that you deployed
to hang me from every tree and streetlight and destiny,
a warning to those who would sleep with me
without being told to —
you’d better listen here.
Listen to Girlie and Joe and every last one of all of those
who are no longer with us, out of sheer, impossible fear
for what might come ever closer, ever near.
Don’t sit so tightly.
Don’t grip each other’s hands so righteously.
The Chaperone, the Superintendent —
they always know where to find you, ferociously
screaming inside, tearing your hands away from
the insight that you so desperately know is your divine right
and true, honest fate. This is faith, by light and by night
This is standing side by side,
in integrity, and not in any kind of public assembly—
this is knowing that there is a Presidential Election due in September,
and we still haven’t heard any kind of news, or vision, or
perfidy, which means we actually do live in
well, at least a country.
And I can go swimming now, in the place between the ocean and the deep blue seas;
in the place where they want to commemorate all my victories, and I’m like
fuck no, please, not in this lifetime, not in this mindspace or along this dreamfighting spine all the more windward, all the more
refined by the times you looked skyward, and flew high
in the corners of your mind, dauntless and defied
only by a higher spirit of excellence. A riding something that never hid inside:
a writing of something that never dared to reply
except in perfect, lockstep timing,
a dauntless, very complicated rhyming—
a sense that to let the experiential learning turn,
you absolutely do not need any kind of invite.
You absolutely do not need to edit yourself into a very thin tide.
You absolutely do need to let the sea wash over you, and make sure what you revive
is hot, sweaty, and tired.
Is not testy, and is not mired
in others’ destinies. Only in the mangroves, and only in the museums
where they tell the real story.
Show the real, glowing fury.
Transform it all into serendipity,
and walk tall, with their all their surprises and achievements
held very, very high.