White Girl

Hello love, I can’t

hold you up anymore.

My back and shoulders are sore,

collarbones like crushed strawberries,

black and blueberries

painted on the canvas of my brown skin.

My friends ask me about you all the time.

I think they can hear the lie of you

on my parched breath,

starved from the drip down your throat,

licked from the grind of your teeth

that settles

in your tongue’s pores.

Whenever you step down from the strength of my omissions,

and shrink into the truth of you

I close the blinds,

draw the curtains,

kill the switches,

and fill the kitchen sink with lukewarm water

to let my heart slowly thaw

until I feel a pulse in my left wrist.

My daily habit of despair.

The take up and let down

of you and me which usually

ends with the sound of your rock on the step

and the rapidly syncopated beats of your strained muscles.

But today,

you didn’t come home.

Back from the roll of your white girl’s sack

and I escaped from the choke of you.