first year of college

let’s discuss conductivity

litmus test adulthood

you were so nervous

you do laundry now

your mom texts you every day

and it’s sweet and it’s kind

but it’s sort of overwhelming

mobile depositing checks from your job

at a picture book museum

you studied white supremacy in children’s literature this semester

one of my final papers was on how using statistics to

evaluate the conditions of  the oppressed is less conducive

than the usage of anecdote; of story; of myth; of truth

thank you for letting me stay over at your house Melissa

despite only knowing me for a few hours

I’m sorry your grandmother died

and ruined your trip to Canada

I had a dream last night that Audre Lorde’s biomythography

and Lynda Barry’s autobifictionalography had a baby

that baby is me

gender doesn’t exist on the east coast

or maybe it does

except magnified

some people personify gender

wear a pink dress

call it gender

wear doc martens

call them gender

sever the body

call him gender

your friends bought undocumented drugs with this internet currency called Bitcoin

and your art history professor spewed the sentence

“half an inch of empty”

and “queerness of the train”

your classmate did a ten-minute presentation on

chairs

“chairs are really interesting to me

especially empty chairs

they echo human form”

you learned about Puerto Rico

abolish the Jones Act!

(no, not that one, the other one)

“chairs symbolize an absent person”

and the “potential return of who is absent”

you are surrounded by new people

this is your opportunity for love

another tinder match

another corner-eyed glance

another misspelled word

I learned that being a grammar nazi is another form of racism

Kafkaesque cacophony of your breath during sleep

I don’t need no white man to evaluate my oppression

no academia, no fancy words, no damn statistics

another trap song plays unironically in the background

how can it be 2017 and you still have yet to diversify the board?

old white women and men sit on boards

and I’m sitting on the side of the street waiting for the bus

Lord take me to Antonio’s today

another slice of that bacon chicken ranch pizza please