you can’t be unsaid
those who would do
you don’t sleep well
they are waiting
for the sound of you
remembering they
stay busy erecting
walls between you and
memory trying to erase
the cause without addressing it
they say your name without
looking at you they
only see what they made
they are afraid of the original
they are afraid of their creation
they would like you
to be quietly malleable
N visible so they
pretend not to
see the elephant
not to smell the
funk of his farts
coloring the world but
the funk is real
it can’t be unsaid
like the undeniable slick
sweet coolness of steel until it
cuts shedding blood that
can’t be unspilled the song
of language dying can’t be
unsung it will grab other
words to remember to remember
crossing oceans leaving home
the world turned out like a gourd
no quarter in the storm
being the refugee over and over
in a land you never chose
no harvest though your
blood waters the crops
divided without you at the table
no shelter from the machine
that wants to eat you
after it squeezes out the
essence of what keeps you
walking upright still you
at the core when you scratch
pass the veneer when
it all wants to press you down
until you run over your
self on the way to being
what can grow in the
desert until unless you
remember the words
whispered to you before
the light before the air
before you knew the ocean
if you can remember
the words that name your
path they can’t be unsaid
you are
you can’t be unsaid
you are