the universe is
an endless mystery
but people are all made up
of blood, bones
sinew and regrets
maybe it’s my scorpio rising
or my sagittarius moon talking
but it all just feels like
any other mythology
filling our great and desperate desire
to ascribe some reason to being
still, I’ll let you
tell me what my birth chart says
if it means I can
trace the outline of your body
without using my hands
Sex Sells
you can make your art
make obscure literary references at brunch
drip poetry when you speak
but really all the people want
are the deepest
darkest parts of you
splayed out for them to examine
lurid tales of indiscretions
I am a difficult person
I am an endless void
always hunting in the dark
my mouth, a vault
of bittersweet words
I am a writer
and a scholar
and a slut
an eldest son, so forth and so on
but you just want to see me undressed
in the pale light of this room
manman
grafyé rasin-an
dwèt ou blé épi an san
twou-a pa ni fen
Blan/Lò
Gadé mwen,
all decked out in white and gold like
I’m the second coming.
dripping venom instead of holy water.
wouldn’t mind the suburbs, if not
for the new age bros and vapid white feminists,
who have the gall to assume they’re part of the solution.
ki sa pwòblenm mwen?
thought you could talk down to me in perpetuity,
‘til I obliterated your ego with my doc marten boot.
we were never really friends, just friendly.
can’t feign austerity for your comfort any longer.
shower me in your hyperbolic platitudes,
wild, brash, dehumanizing for drawing boundaries – I’ll embrace it.
rather that than live sad, frigid, and fraught with fear.
Anvéwité
They taught us that the natives were all dead,
That indigenous islanders were long extinct.
Wiped out by European diseases, lack of weapons, poor luck.
But we know our ancestors, we know our histories.
They insisted that our minds were inferior,
Yet the “great nations” of the world were each built on our forced labor,
And when we claimed our freedom for ourselves, we became doctors, lawyers, architects, writers.
They claimed Kwéyòl wasn’t as good as French,
Et anvéwité, they were right about that at least – it’s richer, much more complex.
It’s the rough colonizer tongue, blanketed in the pure beauty of African and Carib languages. A shining example of our diverse heritage.
They’ll try to teach you false narratives about yourself, about the world,
Whether they intend to or not.
To survive this indignity, stand firm in your reality,
And stay one step ahead.
do you love me?
est-ce que tu m’aimes?
tongue dripping with silver,
kisses all over your body like Paris rain in the afternoon.
est-ce que tu m’aimes?
touch like the summer – wet, hot, unrelenting,
and enrapturing you all at once,
until every inch of you is soaked in sweat.
est-ce que je suis le diable?
peut-être, peut-être pas
est-ce que tu m’aimes, encore?
Hayden Winston 
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