Young Writers Society

we're being realistic and going for 1 poem a week lads, this thread is to let me pretend its ok to be not coherent

•1•
no, none of these dead are mine. nor
their photographs, or whatever they were given
as epitaphs, or the shape of their bodies
writ however briefly into the grass.

not even their names. nothing on this continent
belongs. you push me down on the bed and i
surrender. in my sleep i dream your language
overarching, geographic. if i had any incense i
would burn it. years ago you told me about grief

but i knew already, i saw you hollow. but
you never understood absence, how it fills
a body up, the enormity of always too late
and never good enough. you say let me take you
home and i do, though there is no such thing

as a homeplace. if i were to die tomorrow would
you remember all that i am? me with all the ghosts,
the grasping roots, the name no one could say and
that i didn't choose.

Where are the rest my wild friend?

That last line of the ~name I didn't choose~ really echoes powerfully in my mind I dig these diaspora pieces!

•• •• ••
i thought maybe i should go. told the small animal
of my body: here is a hiding place where i can
bury you and i together. where the earth will be
like a hand upon our face. and we can be happy.

(but god was there in the dark with us
god was the voice that said no)