in broad dayliGht black girls look grim

she delivers her own eulogy

from the casket

a to-do list

a sort of laundering

things to cleanse the world of in her absence

i ask how she prepared for death

she gives me a list

things to bury with me:

myself

regrets

the asks: if i’ve ever thought of being with a man

the man (bury him beneath me—as close to the core as possible. that he may burn with no chance of root/rebirth/resurrection).

the truth

the lie

i write about the molestation

but never the rape

bury the rape

i read it

attempt to talk myself out of death

out of casket

out of trauma

out of nothing

i don’t know

i don’t prepare

this is honest—

to myself

i am the opposite

my influence lives beyond me

to be some-thing / one

to matter

to resonate

idk

i guess—not to be like a person

a dot in the universe—then nothing

idk

if it doesn’t have an ending, i don’t need to end it

what are you?

practical

irrelevant

replace—form new meaning

it has to be a choice (seed, speck, glimmer, spark—become a flame).

frustrating / to have an end

& keep revisiting