becoming a little moon—brightwarm in me one night.
thank god. i can go quietly. the doctor will explain death
and i’ll go practice.
in the catalogue of ways to kill a black girl, find me
buried between the pages stuck together
with red stick. ironic, predictable. look at me.
i’m not the kind of black woman who dies on the news.
i’m the kind who grows thinner & thinner & thinner
until light outweighs us, and we become it, family
gathered around my barely body telling me to go
toward myself.
it won't be a bullet,
hollow bones
by tirunesh sherman