synonym for pixie cut

when a boy plays peter pan then

some year after year his voice would break

his body strain muscles mass wrestle free

his beard a tell breaking loose of the young or the green

and he would no longer fly.

 

but if i woman

took on the suit then

still wild at thirty at forty

laugh dew light dancing

unshadowed & weightless scent

forestborne greenhorne each dimple

each jab forgiven & winsome

hair a peter cut because it on

a woman makes the eternal boy

music is black

pitch black, such that

any other color is to drain it wan & thin

til it no longer goes so oceandeep

soaking every nation as it does now

one drop dyed the world.

 

America was born blue in the face

from a bruise with a welt, a wail

new forms of sorrow we six-fingered devils

spun pain into gold into gospel aimed up at a God

remixed to love us back

a God with a little bit of vodun

made the whole church jump with hollers

chants ecstatic & nine-high

 

music is black because we said once, hey l

et me show you what a fiddle can do l

et me show you, Joplin said, how to twist ivories

into a new grey matter

let me show you, Coltrane said swirled some classical

into this new thing young thing wonderchild jazz

made America's orchestra Duke Dizzy Basie Cab's

bop moanin swung & modal black tie brass

& double bass modern that blinded warcannons

 

 

instead of pedigree, our kings & queens

rose merited through soul jazz & swing

the hardest-working we’ve always been

temptations impressions miraculous supreme

Brown-ness & Wonder

conscious & soul music

for marches Malcolm Martin & Mayfield

 

music is black just look

at a speaker grille don’t listen to Elvis

or Boone's lies disguises & covers for housewives

sanitizing to hide its right fever

as they clutch Grammies close like pearls

whether 'round a midnight fire

or the 1s & 2s revolving

even now the roots of K-pop & J-pop

are Chuck's duckwalk Mike’s moonwalk

an nameless cakewalk a vine teen's poplock

 

in Ibiza they thrum to the 4-4s & boom

birthed in Chi-Town & Mo-town warehouses

machine sounds rhythms smuggled on hambone on ships

funk that rode in our hips

techno the grandson heartbeat of disco

needle skip the next rebellion is Brazilian

b-boys call parana e parana e, parana

Zion-bound war-ready they break free

bush meeting is block party

 

music is black

though they dogwhistle urban sneer inner city

Sister Rosetta & Jimi

means it's been ours take all into your ears

rock & roll was rhythm & blues was race music

which said on the very face of it

this is your little corner

our back of the record shop

 

but we sampled & shared laughs

ate well grew big grew loud until

nothing could hold our voices

until nothing could hold us

grew beautiful & still sing

both, neither, and both

a woman is a wanting

a girl is a gasp a

boy is a sigh

the gift of daggers to the sky

i make a man shoot star water

dappling black sheets

gravity is how women beckon

the wet of atmosphere

the expansion of space

inhale or exhale which came first?

you-- i-- fold and unfold

truth bodied & tactile language,

in and out until everything is new

a woman is a secret

a boy is a fact

or statement a girl can rewind time

men interrupt space with limbs

while women like me are so

nothing as to be all

i hold the deepest hunger

no monolith or obelisk can please

i demand tribute i take all light,

men like you liquid things to fill me

where is my boy that gives and takes

i am a girl that births sustains destroys

i am that i am both neither and both

a man has me erupt

(fire is blood to a meteor and)

i have him accept, embrace

we fold together make breath

we original singular mass defeat heat death

heaven's reward fallacy

God doesn't like that celebrity you dislike

God is just

God's likes are equal to ten thousand likes or a hundred thousand whatever it takes to make you happy

God ignores your ex for you

God likes everything your best friend has ever posted online

God gives and takes away

God let your parents spank you and let your mother miscarry after you

God helped you find those family photos in the attic that one time and the memories just came flooding back

God likes how skillfully you describe the innocence of your childhood of social media

God wants you to get that raise

God sees how well you tip

God watches you eat local

God loves how you love animals

God knows the wallet was empty when you found it

God knows you didn't mean to hit her that hard

God believed you first

God let your abuser get off scot-free because it’s good for you

God will have him crash while drunk driving and he will post a selfie from the emergency room but he won't die yet (it will be liver failure)

God knows when you will die of breast cancer, that you will die of breast cancer you are unknowingly attracted to pink ribbon merchandise

God loves you back

God is busy watching sports

God has a favorite team and it’s the same as yours which is the same as your dad's

God wants you to get that energy drink caught in the vending machine it's meant to be yours

God lines up the green lights just perfect for you to catch the bus on that one day for that crucial interview Thank God! you say once for yourself and once to the interviewer

God loves praise

God is like you in that way

God gave you DD boobs but didn’t make you blonde you made yourself blonde and you took selfies at the salon you took selfies at the gym

God loves every face you made

God made Candace blonde

God gave Candace parents that gave her a BMW in high school and a Porsche in college there she goes tagging herself in her family's cabin #ilovemylife

God hates Candace as much you do there is no Fuck You button on Instagram but your fingers are like God's as you ignore her but one day yes one day someday eventually... and you can’t wait until the afterlife

poems about insecure attachment

there was a hole in me where

Home should be, a childhood

deep & a mother wide

my filling is praise receipts

& prayers  names crumpled days

by the handful a

megaphoned song for anyone

digital lights singing i'm still hungry

 

the hole in me a lover tall

(i told myself) and burrowed

huddle small but

she was an ontologist who spoke rainfall

named as adam did the animals

unmade monsters into nothing

my absence into absence

once, each blink destroyed the land

--to a child, everything dies at night but me

but then she gives object permanence

brown & fertile

in two cupped hands

to plant.

Platonic

there is more love

in the bus driver's thumb

when he covers the slot

it's okay, go ahead

as my card chirps from hunger

as I stall and my purse coughs

 

than the thousand soft sighs,

rising wonders and longings

forming cloudlands for dreamed selves

of downcast-eyed boys