two poems

Poem for my roommate:

Here is a thing is that I'm tired of.
I'm tired of here, and the thing is
of staying too long and leaving too soon.

I say something and I can't see the
sidelong glance that says “you hurt me
with that, you motherfucker.” and you

can't see the sharp stick that pokes my
ribs every time you tell someone else
that I'm weird or that my thoughts

could break bottles with their shrapnel.
There is far too much pretending in this common universe.
Meanwhile you look at the insides of the rocks

tumbling down my insides, in a lab for seven hours.
Fred Shuttlesworth died, I want to tell you. It's
easier to be arrested for drugs if you are black

and you should know that before smoking that DMT
in a room by yourself at our birthday party. I
wish you understood how to be relevant

so I won't have to.


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Poem for Rose

In Italian, I learn the words for different foods

and things you would find in a classroom. I know

how to describe the clothing you are wearing,

I can't yet communicate abstract concepts though.

I was talking to you on the computer when

I started to feel like a scrap of paper with

a grocery list on the backside of it. I started

crying and I didn't know why, just that

at one point I had a reason that I can't

think about right now or doesn't exist

anymore. Two weeks ago I needed to buy

deodorant, but now I don't. It is October,

and so we bought bags of candy corn but

they have been mostly eaten. You make

me into a better person, but I don't know

how to say that. Instead, I give you this

cancellina; you use it to erase things that

you have written in chalk or pencil.