ars poetica

                                           you think I’m kind on the daily

                                            —and my healing

                                            always soft

                you don’t see me

                                            beat to the ground 

                                            the Forehead Man 

                                            & his Mouse-God friend—how 

                                            I bonked the lights out 

       from their faces til one 

                       had no teeth 

                  and the other—

                                            only a mouth 

                                            stuffed full of them—

          across this white field

                                            I use my own Pointy thing

                                            Stabbing—after all is always 

                                            Personal

you see—they did not see 

           my Rage coming—

                                            said they wanted me

                                            to go Home—Go back

                                            their jaws cajoled— 

                             Go back 

                                            to where you’re from-from

                                   & so 

                 they saw me Go

                                            & Go

                                            —with each blue 

                                            wide-eyed Stab— 

                       and Stab—

                     into the bone 

            & mush of them—

                                            Gone—Home—

             Home to my Rage

                                            and they—such slabs 

                                            of meat—

                                                               Stayed

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“This poem began on a crowded train, where so often, the accrued violence of this nation can so often come to a head in intimate, quotidian moments that are seemingly small and ahistorical. I’ve had many encounters in public wherein I felt threatened by someone’s racist, femmephobic behavior whether it was implicit and fleeting, or plainly and bluntly articulated. In those moments, my rage can feel overwhelming—I’m flushed with it but can’t express it out of fear of being harmed, detained, murdered, or some combination. These moments are the nerve endings of convoluted systems of abuse and historical events, and when I feel compelled to contain myself, rage sends my imagination leaping. Rage can be a creative force; writing this poem is an act of rage.”
—Aldrin Valdez

Black Lives Matter Anthology
 

“I will lift my hands in adoration

Of how something so bright

Could be so heavy.”

—“Praise” by Angelo Geter