Annee
and Jini
and Lynnette
and Jane
each of you raised me
in your own way
and i still ache for you
every
single
day
Mom
July 22, 2025
j’ai espère que
je pouvais penser
en français
i’m fairly certain that is incorrect
damn close to gibberish
but the sentiment still stands
i wish i wish i wish
i could think
in french
maybe i could understand and speak it better
then
[was french the language my Mom studied in school?]
[could we have practiced together
if life didn’t suck so hard
in 2001?]
November 14, 2023
i am living in dreams
this morning:
asking my Grandmama all the questions i thought of
at her memorial;
snuggling with my Mom, refusing to question why
her dying would be a test
that i passed
after six months of her gone;
exploring a Gaza un-riddled with holes;
and persuading governments
Not
to fund a genocide.
these are my
wildest imaginings in sleep.
October 14, 2023
golden sun
on a golden dog
in a golden human’s house
(but she may be the silver sliver of a ghost now)
(i wonder if ghosts ever fill
their transparent selves
with the amber hue
of gold)
October 24, 2022
i wonder
if my mother
would have been great
at getting my pronouns
right
would she have stood up for me
at family gatherings
corrected people
when i wasn’t near
would she have been
the ally
i needed
to come out
with a bang
instead of this subtle
exhausting
whispered
coming out
over
and over
and over
again
every time
a ‘she’ is uttered
or a ‘ladies’ is announced
or any of those microaggressions
my gender dysphoria
insists
are actual aggression
i don’t know
i wish i knew
but i really don’t
she was an ally of all queer folks she knew
(I know 100% she’d have been to my wedding
would have celebrated like the world was ending
when she knew mine was just beginning
because that’s just the way she was)
but gender is somehow harder
and the in-between confuses even the best
of allies
and i don’t want to put her up on a pedestal
nor do i want to underestimate her devotion
to a me she never got to see
i only knew her for eleven and three quarters years
and i have memories of less
she is both the person i was closest to
and the biggest mystery of my life
and i just wish
i could guess
what it would be like
to have her
stand up
for me
December 4, 2021
the fourth
the fourth the fourth the fourth
not even the day of her death
but her birth
so why does it hurt
like it’s 2001
and she doesn’t get to turn
40?
why does it hurt
like two years later i dreamt
she re-appeared, so full of life,
explaining it had been a test
to see how strong
i was?
why does it hurt
like i haven’t talked
and talked and talked and talked
in therapy
to partners
to my other parent
and parental figures
and myself
and even at her
about loss
and mourning
about denial
and anger
and bargaining
and depression?
but apparently i’ll never fulfill all the steps
because it hurts
and hurts and hurts and hurts
[and not every fourth is like this
but this one,
it hurts.]
kipventures 