everywhere i go

1

i want last summer back again. i want next summer now. i want a summer of love, of light, of love, of love of love. absolve me of my obligations. close my mouth and put me away. lift up a woman darker than me and put me back on the ground. i am not the one you are looking for. 

i am the one who walks in the tall grass and digs in the sand. i have no home and i claim no culture. i do not claim africa, i do not claim this place. i claim no dialect no accent, not nigeria, not texas, maryland, connecticut. not tennessee, not ireland. i speak no trace of algonquian, my english is not of england. my ancestors have lain no claims to me. i do not know their names. i do not know their histories. i speak only my own tongue, the tongue in my mouth. i am claimed only by myself, i claim myself. 

when i wake, i feel no weight upon me. no spirits sleep in my stomach.  no ghosts haunt my womb. they know i can not carry them on and carry them out. they know my insides will be barren always. they went into my brothers, i am sure. 

i am the forerunner of no one, i prophesy no savior, i am the posterity of nothing vocal. i did not start myself, but i sustain myself. i will not end myself but i will be ended. my culture is a room with four walls and a slanted ceiling, that is all. i claim no land, no water, no sky, the sky does not claim me. i feel when it rains that the water does not know me. i am a stranger to all those before and after me. my line is short and thin and ends with me.