I Wonder
I wonder if you think about me at all
Even if it’s just a little bit, I want to know.
Do I make you smile?
Does a small grin play across your face
When you hear my name?
I hope you think about me.
I wonder what it’d be like to hold your hand
To have your fingers intertwined with mine.
Would you hold it loosely or tightly?
Would you let me go when I pull away
Or would you tighten the small embrace
And not let me go?
I wonder what it’d be like to hug you.
Would I be able to hear your heartbeat and you mine?
Would you wrap your arms around my shoulders or my waist?
Would you hug me slightly or would you hold on as if
You wanted to remember the moment forever?
Would you reluctantly let me go?
I wonder what it would be like to do these things,
To experience your touch, burning against my skin,
Your arms around my fragile form,
And your fingers laced with mine.
But I will never truly know what it’s like
Because I’m barely brave enough to wonder.
The hand
I imagine that
if I touched it
it would be softer
than the smoothest silk
or velvet
I have ever known
and if it touched
my cheek
it would be
more gentle
than a warm breeze
or the sun’s rays
caressing my cheek.
I imagine that
if I held it in my own
it would be softer
than a newborn’s foot
and sweeter than
a first kiss.
I steal covetous glances
and imagine
caresses that
will never be
and I feel the
forlorn absence of
something
I will never know.
I imagine that
if I pressed it
to my heart
you would feel
my thoughts
and laugh
or run.
little things are big things
my brain bounces
on
off
and contemplates
the little things
your hand
mine
I wonder if I would feel something
deep down in this cursed heart of mine
or if it would be terror and nothing else
for the thing I fear is touch.
these hands weren’t made for holding
i know it
because of the disgust in your eyes
the surprise you try to hide
the shame behind my lies
does not disguise
my hand
yours
just too close
shocking
and unnatural
Your Hand.
I sit and wonder,
What would it be like to hold your hand?
You; me, hands clasping each other.
My lungs gasping for air as I begin to flush,
to blush,
to rush with my words.
My voice barely audible as you squeeze my hand,
skin on skin,
our fingers wrapping themselves around each other.
Maybe you’ll rub my skin with your thumb as we walk together,
while our hands intertwine.
While we swing our arms back and forth,
perhaps humming a song,
Or speaking in rhymes.
Your grip will probably be steady,
soothing as your skin brushes mine,
While mine would be quite the opposite.
Oh, how I know that holding your hand
would be the opposite of bland.
But for now,
these
are
solely
my
fantasies.
10.6.2020
This Is a Raised, Closed Fist
I wonder what it would be like to feel the roughness of your bandaged fists bound in the cloth ripped from your clothes and peppered with the power attacking your lungs.
I wonder what it would be like to hold a grenade in your hand and feel its heat eating through fabric while its burning smog tears your eyes.
I wonder what it would be like to be dragged from the safety of your car and tazed to the ground where the broken shards of your window knicks your face under armored shoes.
I wonder what it would be like to be blamed for planted evidence, hypocritical evidence, unjust and unvalid evidence, and for freedom of speech to be met with force.
I wonder what it would be like to extend kindness and be told it can't be accepted or met with any sympathy because it violates some order from a mysterious chain of command.
I wonder what it would be like to have your protection deliberately pulled off of your face, your arms, your legs, and compromised with weapons meant to harm you.
I wonder what it would be like to be told the technology used to control you is not meant to kill you, yet see it be done twenty feet from you.
I wonder what it would be like to have your eyes and ears overwhelmed in order for handcuffs, batons, and boots to gain advantage over you.
I wonder what it would be like to hold your hand and hear the names of your community's victims chanted from memory because you could never forget everything that you were told to ignore and excuse and accept. I could wonder what it's like to do the right thing and demand what you're entitled to, or I could listen.
I could listen to the stories of these events. I could watch the recordings of it. I could, in fact, experience part of it with you. I could, in fact, do it.
I could wonder and wonder and wonder while the news is pouring in at my fingertips, while my friends invite me in their car and in their homes to join, while I am on the websites and platforms that make it easy for me to support, but I can't say that I'll never know or understand. I have, more than ever, every opportunity to find out what I've been wondering, and if I sit and stay in silence, I will never hold your hand.
Learning to Live
You asked me, once, if I had ever seen the stars,
back when I only knew city smoke and broken glass.
But who needed stars when I had your eyes glinting from the passenger seat-
your fingertips tracing constellations across my ripped jeans?
You taught me to live in the in-betweens.
In car rides at dawn, belting out your favorite song
(but every song was your favorite, wasn’t it?)
In subway stations at dusk, screaming into the tunnels
(I’m still here... Don’t forget me.)
But how could anyone forget you?
You were the cosmos pressed into a sundress.
You had the stars in your eyes and the world at your feet.
....I should have known better.
There are no stars in the city.
this place choked the light from your soul
until there was nothing left
but an endless void.
you gave me the world.
a world I had given up on.
but when the world gave up on you
I didn’t notice.
And I wonder now
if I should have held your hand tighter
that last time.
Would it have changed anything?