Brooklyn, February
you leave me eleven dollars on the dresser
to catch a cab chafing drool
down the pipedark avenues
i am tricked and treated and slowed
under this hurricane-comedown kind of night
this is a consumer’s disdain
we all know all vanishes
but that doesnt make this
easier thats still satellite-light
dappling your broke-lyn loft(not stars)
the moon’s benevolence like you
is a trick of perception and drugs
but maybe you will miss
this time me or will me a minor heartache
but thats still eleven dollars and these
bruises are still burrowing
upward
the cabbie laughs eheh this damn sure
aint enough to get you home bruh
i wonder why he thinks id go back anywhere
ive been? when i think return
its more keyboard diction than reckless boom-
eranging i find like lot
theres nothing to be gained in the past
and thankfully eleven dollars is far enough
to think about my next line of white inhalations or
exhaltations pouring me half empty
down a drain which isnt so bad which
isnt so anywhere ive been before
coloringisms
a group of vigils is called an implication
AND SEE SEE YOU ALMOST BELIEVED ME! with my facts
and book learning!
let a black boy loose in a library
and youll understand american slavery
id be nervous too white america fight
america part of one nation under a god
divisibled i took classes once so i know
amaze really means: thats dope as fuck THOUGH
im also scarred i mean scared
but depending upon your pigmentation please
choose your own adventure!
ive never worn a bullet barrel unibrow or heard
jim crowing me home BUT my doc used to say: the best indicator
of future behavior is past behavior
and yalls asses still dont see why im nervous all the time?
why all the time feels like its ready to time me the fuck out?
i am not impressed by sunsets but pressed like:
how many morea these i got till i step into the wrong
Missouri or Unites States? i am working hard to be impressed
or amazed these days in general
in this maze:my poor blackface trying to whiteface
against a whole lotta whitefaces trying to blackface i am egg
on my own face and something smells real red white and blue round here
but mostly red mostly something id read in the paper read
as long as im not the dead headline and sinker
Kamden Hilliard tries to study creative writing and psychology in New York. He succeeds. Sometimes. He is: a poor sleeper, 2012 Davidson Fellow, 2013 Norman Mailer College Poetry Award Semifinalist, a 2014 Callaloo Fellow, contributor for Elite Daily and an avid hiker. He tries to keep busy. Sometimes The Adroit Journal and Dark Phrases Magazine let him pick poems and essays to share. His poems have appeared (or will appear) in Requited Journal, *82 Review, Specter, and other lovely places. If Kamden wasn’t writing, he’d be very sad—or a scientist.