august.sacramento

the sky was a peach at sunset and fire at dawn and we ate lemon ice and prayed that the city’s electrical grid would hold up. the number of homeless had risen and not all could not be housed. caring citizens were combining forces and giving away tents on the weekend. others were cold complaining to cops and assemblymen: get these sorry-ass derelicts off of my street!

we live like birds

you get a key and a room
of your own in a small city

what a feeling
you can make a whole world
all to yourself

you can read books
you can play guitar
you can write books
and songs with
friends

you have an address
you live there
wow

rescue some kittens
and raise them

life can be really very nice
for some years and then
one day things change

they tell you GO!
you gotta go

they push you out

you cannot stay under

any circumstance

we live like birds

system.closed

I passed a young man of Asian descent lying on his side, he was bald-headed and bloody. He told me how the politicians were tracking him. He had a square of metal and tapped the top of his head where some of the skin had been scraped off. He was smiling and calmly began scraping at the cut, and I asked him to stop. He asked for water. I had a bottle in my bag and gave it to him. I walked up another flight of stairs to a room crammed with technology like the inside of a space shuttle. There were operators in there who knew me. I became enraged, feeling helpless. I believe the operations people carry out across systems could be more carefully intended and tended. Instead they get rushed and executed, payrolls capping both ends. People are shut out and they suffer. There’s barely enough water to go round.

‘street art midtown’ by k

response

response to Audrey Marie Keel

i do not know what it feels like to be forced outta country (thank god) but i do know what it feels (and felt) like to have to leave the home of the culture i grew up in which would (and did) have me hate myself for i do (and did) not belong i am (and was) not loved nor do i (nor will i) exist in the belly of the culture i was born into, there was (and is) (and will be) no place for me and i ran like hell to get to myself to find myself to love myself against all that hated me (including them) (including me) before i even knew who i was (who i am and will be) and that was (is) (will always be) different      — KatYa (response to the poem ‘Home’ by Warsan Shire)