There are small braveries that do not feel brave.
I’m going to start to write in pencil now,
because nothing is etched in stone/permanent
because my heart is stronger than my wrists
& I must.
Moment of bravery?
Deciding to do it/to write
I’ve said this before
Another?
Kissing a mouth on a corner on a public street
in the sun.
We’re going to have a problem, he said.
Heat bearing down/giving birth to a relationship that would wring us both out/lay us out
to bleach us/bleach not our blackness/our browness/which is oceanic
& will cover earth one day
not bleach that unstoppable beauty /but bleach out the ink we defined ourselves in
when we signed our names in books & papers
under definitions of who we thought we were,
we are not that.
I am no longer ink.
I can erase any version of me.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Poet Douglas Kearney and composer/producer/drummer Val Jeanty link up for a a compelling LP that feels like the written word come to life. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2021