Acknowledgments

This one's for my homies.

Hello, Friends - and I do mean, Friends, HELLO.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Today’s post is short because one of my besties, Sherine, who happens to be an extraordinary poet, teacher, and editor, is visiting this week and we’re celebrating her birthday! Here’s a photo seconds before we were shook by a 4.3 earthquake.

Many of my friends and our mutual friends have birthdays this week and next - Happy birthdays to you all. Cheers to you from our iced teas! If you’re reading this, even if it’s not your birthday, I love you! I miss you! I celebrate you! Your hair looks great and your jokes are funny! When did you get those running shoes? How did you land that new job? Did you get to take that nap yet? Homies, tell me your news. I’m listening.

So many of my favorite people were born in August and when this month rolls around, it reminds me of how lucky I am to have you all in my life. Leos and Virgos rule the world!

Danez Smith, one of the zestiest poets working, gets it, too, in their poem ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Reading it feels like reading texts between besties. Smith captures and shares the warmth and humor between soulmate friends with precision.

acknowledgments
BY DANEZ SMITH

you save me half a bag of skins, the hard parts, my fav, dusted orange with hot
•
you say we can’t go to the bar cause you’re taking your braids out
i come over, we watch madea while we pull you from you
•
you make us tacos with the shells i like & you don’t
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i get too drunk at the party, you scoop my pizza from the sink with a solo cup, all that red
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you, in the morning, bong water grin, wet chin
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you, in the lawless dark, laughing like a room of women laugh at a man who thinks his knowledge is knowledge
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i text you & you say, i was bout to text you, bitch
•
you cook pork chops same way i do, our families in another city go to the same church
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you, rolling a blunt, holding your son, is a mecca
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you invite me out for drag queens on the nights i think of finally [ ]
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you pull over in Mississippi so i can walk a road my grandfather bled on•you gave me a stone turtle, it held your palm’s scent for a week
•
i call your mama mama
•
you request like a demand, make me some of that mango cornbread
i cut the fruit, measure the honey
•
you & you & you & you go in on a dildo for my birthday you name it drake, you know me
•
a year with you in that dirty house with that cracked-out cat was a good year•at the function, i feel myself splitting into too many rooms of static you touch my hand & there i am
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do you want to be best friends? a box for yes, a box for no
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did our grandmothers flee the fields of embers so we could find each other here?
friend, you are the war’s gentle consequence
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i am the prison that turns to rain in your hands
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you, at my door the night my father leapt beyond what we know
you, dirt where i plant my light
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the branches of silence are heavy with your sweet seed
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you smell like the milk of whatever beast i am
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your poop is news, your fart is news, your gross body my favorite song
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you, drunk as an uncle, making all kinds of nonsense sense i listen for the language between your words
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& when we fight, not a ring, but a room with no exit we spill the blood & bandage the wound, clean burns with our tongues
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if luck calls your name, we split the pot & if you wither, surely i rot
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we hate the same people, we say nigga please with the same mouth
•
& before we were messy flesh, i’m sure we were the same dust
•
everywhere you are is a church, & i am the pastor, the deacons, the mothers fainting at the altar
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as long as i am a fact to you, death can do with me what she wants
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my body, water, your body, a trail of hands carrying the river to the sea
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i ink your name into my arm to fasten what is already there
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i would love you even if you killed god
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you made coming out feel like coming in from the storm
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you are the country i bloody the hills for
•
you love me despite the history of my hands, their mangled confession
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at the end of the world, let there be you, my world
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god bless you who screens all my nudes, drafts my break-up text
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you are the drug that knocks the birds from my heart
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ain’t no mountain, no valley, no river i wouldn’t give the hands for comin’ to you sideways
•
to the horrid friends who were just ships harboring me to you
•
& how many times have you loved me without my asking?

how often have i loved a thing because you loved it?
including me
•
& i always knew
•
with yo ugly ass

Source: Poetry (December 2018)

Leos and Virgos rule the world,

Kayla