i used to think there was a dead end at my intersection
i can’t unwoman myself
i can’t unqueer myself
i can’t unmolest or unrape the safety back into my body
i will be black even in death
all of the traffic lights are lit
there’s a STOP sign on each corner
above it reads NO OUTLET
Kerrice Lewis is shot and burned alive in the trunk of her car
this neighborhood of traumas melts together
as the onlooking man wants to know
if i’ve ever been with one—
a man
the answer is yes, but not in the way he fancies
he straight & hungry for my kind of winding road
and this here is the dead end
i still gotta perform, for him—here
where one avenue say Me Too, and the cross street is Solidarity
but the next block over ain’t Healing
upkeep your own route.
butch, you strong. rugged. like salt-rusted winter road
every corner a speed bump—snow-chained tires over your living corpse
you gotta go out the way you came in
naked and weeping