Poem 2 (Odysseus)

You have such a funny perspective on things.
You think that there is some private conversation going on,
and someone was supposed to pull you aside and tell you
what to do, when, really, you are the one who decides what’s important.
You decide what you want your history to be.

Dogs barking, odd textures
of music and layers of graffiti.
Rooftops and smokestacks.
I have always grown up
next to freeways and crackhouses
but I never knew, growing up,
why my friends wouldn’t want to come over
and stay the night, why I would always have to go
to their homes. It was normal.
Folks from around my way
just look a certain way. It’s normal.

Say it loud...

I am a man without people. I am
No One, Incognito in black skin.
I am whinnying needle
galloping in vein,
I am bad trip incarcerated in flesh.
I long to merge with all other
like kind, by-product of brain-matter
is no exception -
I lust for all flesh.