Home-Going Celebration

Not much has changed. We are still gin- soaked and head-stoned, teetering on ledges to test our mortality like pills weren’t enough to prove it.

No need for gold. Our pockets carry lust and adrenaline like currency, so many of us addicted to drowning the screaming pain. We knock back

enough to never need another flight. Our nights are never over. We never want the hangover to end. We say: You always live once, but being young and black with an expiration date sobers you quick.

Our future is a sad summer. Sin and champagne flutes to make the blood bubbly and effervescent, inhaling so much liquor even our offspring are tipsy, turning our veins into a swift cemetery.

We gamble with our obituaries like we don’t have a thousand other ways to die. Chase a good time like a needle on scratched vinyl, so we never have to feel the heartbreak

of morning. There is no mourning here, just darkness and pools of people we don’t know, a song prophesying that we will die fast, die young.