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By Joshua Merchant

 

pray about it. pray about it and make sure God looks

like you. pray about it and know an Angel be a

bloom before the fruit drops. even a cigarette can be

a clasp reaching for something higher than the self.

love yourself through a gasoline soaked mattress

and a barb wired pillow. love yourself through the

heat. today someone spoke ill of you. prayed you’d

wake up frail and crisp. called such a wish Black.

called it self preservation. called it your mother

scorned and pretended she knew her. remember

your mother. the Bible she thumped when she

caught you questioning your lingered eyes. the way

she held you after the thought of you being taken.

forgive yourself for lying to her. she’s with God

now. God is therefore is She. forgive the way

mockery told you to change to protect Her. and Her

cousin. and Her cousin’s cousin. the one who’s man

you laid with. the man who needed the change to

see you naked. the naked you kept hidden. love

yourself through the locked door you paid for limb

by limb. blood by pill. pray for the next child who

speaks and hears death. pray for the erasure of the

next lie. pray for the next child to see everywhere

the love lives without drinking the gasoline of a bed

unraveled. pray the next child smells smoke and

laughs. when you are gone let your hand be a bridge

and not a whale that engulfs. when you are gone

there will be eyes that see Black. and woman. and

man. and more. and more. and always has.

 

Joshua Merchant, a Black Queer (they / them) native of East Oakland explores the realm of love. They’ve had the honor to be awarded the 2023 San Francisco Foundation / Nomadic Press Literary Award for poetry and was nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net Poetry Award by Spare Parts Lit.

 

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