A Night Spent With A Political Man

I lay down with him in a bed of smoke Lipstick stains on the rims of his glasses From where he brushed up against my mouth And let words of power spill from his

He’s a smooth man Swaggy and knowin’ of it He never really left the streets Just found himself a bigger purpose in them I let him settle in it, fit himself comfortable in his britches While he tells me about all his dreams for the block

And I listen Sweetly, smiling Pursing my lips and waiting As this man bigger than men Sets his dreams but only so far

I find it most interesting / the limitations of his radicalness

Somehow we The people for whom he so adamantly dreams of freedom Are still to blame Still to fault Still to fix what was not ours to inherit in the first place

I don’t stop him, though

I enjoy the light in his eyes The weight of him pressed against me The sensation of his words reverberating through my bones I pick up on pieces of his plans that need more More

More than any cishet man can ever give I let him rest his head on my bosom, Almost comfortable in this space we’ve created Where ideas foster, dreams are imagined Futures brilliantly displayed on bodies in motion Laughter And tears In succinct sayings / “The ballot or the bullet” Manly manifestos, iterations of fighters past Reborn before my eyes Elusive And yet Oh, so alluring

I struggle not to fall between the cracks of his charisma The leader we want, but do not need I pick up on pieces of his plans That forget me Us The invisible chains created such that willpower alone is not enough to break them

What dollar will I spend here, if I have none? What community will I stay in if its water is leaden, its streets unpaved, schools underfunded Homes destroyed and rebuilt with no space for us?

We are ancestors before we transition Experiencing life and death at once In this moment and all others

To find joy is to fight

But not for him

We cannot sit We do not rest Music is trivial And liberation will be a land of stoicism and anger

Frustrations with nowhere to travel So we might reach for freedom and be half dead at the summit

I lay down with him in a bed of smoke Listening to his dreams Almost comfortable

As a fire only I seem to see Rages around us