Jade P.

Ode to the things you should’t have feared. Or, Future beginnings with endings subject to change

To the girls in the story whose voice become three dots of unfinished breath before the
climax.... we missed your arrival

To the walk of shame
to “who’s to blame”
to a soul in a frame
to sporadically appearing on the screens of some teenagers
who were almost too glad that it was them

If God shall bless me with more time
I think you’d find
that it is spent, perishing in me
And coursing through

you

created walls out of crayon shavings
Toothpicks
And the limbs of barbies that no longer had a voice in your memory
their inanimate matter was so identical to yours

That if God took you by the
Hand, he would feel nothing

And everything

17 1/2 months

Jitterbug pelvis, insides contracting and contradicting old aged purity

Watching voltage hit your flesh, enraged schizophrenic
beating to shadows drums--
who becomes numb first?

Questionable hums against
your thighs
High concentration

Produces sweats and chill--
Drenched in fluids
Of an unforgiving soul
Whose hands mimic those who came out of them

Fetal position surrendered in bathroom tub
Like ma-paternal figures’ past paused and played
Back in a new generation
Cause when you’re born it's out of appreciation
I was born out of appreciation
When I was born I was appreciated and didn’t know it wouldn’t last always

Throwed off, calloused hands
Blood giving the room
Color my heart in truth that has yet to find Him

Vinyl gloves and records.