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Employers schedule lunch interviews to see how well you can handle pressure without vomiting. This has to be the only reason they would want to watch me simultaneously chew and explain my leadership style. I roll my eyes when I see “Lunch with...” on my itinerary, squeezed in the middle of “Presentation with...” and “Panel with.” I’ve tried to treat lunch interviews like a date, but gazing into my future employer's eyes would make the situation more uncomfortable. Instead, I follow strategies I dislike as much as the interview itself.

As a Black man, with a protruding belly, who loves food, I hate having to negotiate whether or not a burger and fries are aesthetically pleasing to my interviewer. My self-consciousness always leads me to choose the spring salad with grilled chicken and a drizzle of Italian dressing. I wash the saltiness of the salad down with a cup of still water because belching from a carbonated drink seems a bit juvenile. During the interview, my mind juggles the interview questions and the concern of a dark green leaf stuck between my teeth. There are moments when the questions require me to stop eating because “intersectionality” and “theoretical framework” can... Read full post »

my ugly feelings run wild. like children at a restaurant: screaming, crying

as if it’s the end of the world. is it not? all three of my friends i still talk to

say they can’t leave the house without wanting to cry, or that community is just

one more unkempt room in the house of the collective unconscious. who wants to

touch a bird with a bloody hole in its stomach, pick it up and let it die on the

palm of their hand? my favorite people will do it, even give them flowers in

the backyard, a proper burial. others will run it over, try to flatten

it into the concrete. like they do everything else. it’s not that they want to,

i tell myself, but it’s all they know. condescending bitch, the other voice

says, slinging rocks at the glass cabinet where i keep my love for them for fear

i will lose it. how do you write a poem when you know what you have to say?

i’m not subtle. not nina begging not to be misunderstood, but more like the

nina music guy tells me about: pulling the gun on the record exec that

stiffed... Read full post »

The mud on the ground felt lumpy and cold under my feet. Big chunks of
dirt made up our farm as we had just harvested the potatoes a few days prior. I
ran, feeling the wind in my hair, enjoying the sound of it whistling past my ears
as gusts whizzed by trying to play with me. The ground was slanted at an angle
providing more of a challenge for my balance as I weaved in between the two
rows of grape vines, barren for the season. Their naked brown mess of branches
backlit by the solid gray sky, the overcast a preview of the weather for the next
few months.

The horizon was broken up by the silhouette of an ominous forest. It was
hard to explain but the forest always gave the feeling that if you stared at it for
too long or, god forbid, went inside of it, you’d end up on the receiving end of
the terrible misfortune it seemed to promise. This feeling was accented by the
neighbor’s house, just over on the next plot of land about a quarter of a mile
... Read full post »

Before city, Before town, Before tribe,
       Fire,
A camouflage of perfect design
So demanding of attention
One hardly notices the flaws of ignited wood
    When light gently holds your eyes,
It is when liquidated, bottled, and produced
That such champions of flame as we
Should find a light in

Every city, Every house, Every street,
       Bulbs,
Like buds blooming into nighttime stars,
One hardly notices the dying moth
    When captured by its light
Who but we, could claim such mastery
As to grant a mundanity to flame
That its blooming prevalence should sprout in,

Every machine, Then appliance, Then pocket,
       LED,
Like a mating bird flashing its rainbow plumes,
One hardly notices its clipped wings
    When lost in its color
Scissors still clamped on its feathers,
Not even knowing its own lullaby should be
    Wounded,
    Shackled,
Cities making mockery of stars,
Sun sighing into a night still well lit,
One hardly notices the shadows
    When eaten by the light,
Starving ourselves of the dark,
Never once to see,

The flawed burning... Read full post »

I pass people I recognize on the train sometimes.
I’m never sure how to feel about that. I knew you a lifetime ago; we chatted last week. It’s a selfish kind of love to know someone only in that way.
I’ve never met you, but for a single moment in January, our eyes met and you waved right before I could look away.
I never learned your name, but we’ve passed each other hundreds of times.

The sun sets differently on the train. I think it’s because you don’t choose it.
Everywhere else travel is a constant process of choices. There, on the train there’s nowhere to reach, and no way to get there faster. We’re already in motion. I wake up, and I run out the door to get to work. I can taste the urgency in the morning air of the city. I swap breath for the exhaust of a car that carries a person as jittery as me.

People hate ‘sonder’ now, and it makes me sad.
For someone who has just reached a newfound understanding of everyone else's lives, it seems cruel for that same ‘everyone else’ to pretend this newfound... Read full post »