Rudy Francisco

have the audacity to be beautiful

even on days when everything around you is ugly.

They will push you away, tell you

to leave, but have no idea how good

you are at following instructions.

When you vanish, but your ghost

becomes a guest they cannot get rid of

and the memory of you plays

resurrection with their smile,

they will ask where you went,

if you will come back and why

you gave up so easily,

as if they didn’t own the voice

that requested your disappearance.

They now know solitude does not

scare people like us

and our absence is something

that we are not afraid to give

to those who call for it.

: Cupid is irresponsible, and I’m tired of him using me for target practice.

: Cupid is irresponsible, and I’m tired of him using me for target practice.

Our last conversation

ended with yelling.

We both said things

we didn’t mean.

I heard there’s a

woman in Palestine

who makes flower pots

out of used teargas grenades.

From this I learned

the explosion

is not how the story

has to end.

Being black in America is knowing there’s a thin line

between a traffic stop and the cemetery,

it’s the way my body tenses up

when I hear a police siren in a song,

it’s the quiver in my stomach when a cop car is behind me,

it’s the sigh of relief when I turn right and he doesn’t.

is young and there are still

songs on the radio that can

make you want to love something

They hang like an eviction notice

from the environment. I wonder

how long it will take the planet

to tell us we can’t live here

and the locks are changed.

wonder if the next generation

will know water the way I did.

The way it runs through the fingers,

the way it wrinkles the hands,

cools the skin, the way it freezes,

flakes and kisses the ground

on the cheek.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place

at the wrong time, just being alive

and not bothering anyone,