told rishona (the poet) i didn’t know who the fuck eric garner is,
until i remembered who eric garner was.

opening your mouth is risky // rewarding.

like last night, at poetry open mic,
i leaned over and whispered to tyler (the friend) //
“he who hesitates masturbates.”

opening your mouth is risky // rewarding.

covering (the girlfriend’s) mouth inside the bathroom of the executive office,
pressed up against the wall,
so the concierge wouldn’t hear her moaning.

tyler said, “she’s a ride or die”.

opening your mouth is risky // rewarding.

jimmy (my sponsor, the firefighter)
told me he’d run into a burning building to get some tail.

shelby (the therapist) told me i’m not as funny as i think.
sent me 89 reminders to pay my last therapy invoice.
“it’s your sensitive side that people find charming.”

good advice isn’t cheap.
this poetry class is $295 without a membership.

opening your mouth is risky // rewarding.

WORDS: white. water. rafting.
watermelon. waterfalls.

i told tatiana (the teacher, poet),
who carries
the glorious gap in her grandmother’s teeth,
that conforming to poetic forms feels like homework.
she explained with grace
that poetic forms take root in history,
move through time and space like spoken-world winds.

see, forms are the price of admission,
not just for clout,
but as means to bleed color from sand,
wonder from misery,
the way wind rocks pine in the bottom floors

of january //

but i opened my mouth again,
and taught a masterclass on how to feel dumb.

opening your mouth is risky //

and behind me just now,
a crack of lightning //
to make me feel small as well

// and the rejection letters soon followed.

-

i told tyler (the friend, who writes on paper)
that poems written in notebooks typically stay in notebooks forever.

“insecurity doesn’t look good on you,” he said.

-

Opening my mouth.