I begin with love, hoping to end there.
I don’t want to leave a messy corpse.
I don’t want to leave a messy corpse
Full of medicines that turn in the sun.
Some of my medicines turn in the sun.
Some of us don’t need hell to be good.
Those who need most, need hell to be good.
What are the symptoms of your sickness?
Here is one symptom of my sickness:
Men who love me are men who miss me.
Men who leave me are men who miss me
In the dream where I am an island.
In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.
2019
Shorty
Contemporary
2021
2023
Faith & Hope
LGBTQ+ Experience
Poetic Form
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Duplex
The poem starts with a couplet of two distinct lines. The second line is repeated and a new line is added, and then repeated until there are seven couplets of nine to eleven syllables each. This form was invented by Jericho Brown.
Repetition
a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times