Break from Madness    Kennedy A. GisegeYou shave your scalp then click               your tongue like a boy who cutsoff his fuzz for the first time, snicks               his chin as blood flows out, then stopsso madness can recede. Or does it,               when you cut off your hand whilehacking up wood. Does madness               begin to wane, then? Or whenthe funeral drum rings with sinister               distractions as a woman smiles at you?Does madness flee for the he-bird               when he warms eggs while the she-birdgoes to war? Because she-birds must do               everything, not just dance whenthe drum beats. How about when               a singer yelps without notes and youwonder if you are black enough or blue               without being told madness is like that—like waking up from a fever that says               you need a break before it cuts, excoriates.   Sometimes I Wonder If God Really Fuck with Me Like That    Sin à Tes Souhaits& i mean if She don’t who could really blame her my prayersare hardly coherent hardly consistent too many drunk textstoo many requests for someone who don’t call too muchi run out of words for God and i can’t speak to my demons buti hear them my language is never as big as my sins my gracemy demands which have taken to lingering in the back of my throat& who can say whether God has favorites remembers only someof our birthdays maybe She’s exhausted maybe She’s a simulationi never know what’s real i never know what to believe i used tobelieve all i could have was the winter streets i kept returning tofades funerals & the familiar cold of County & now i’ve made a homein uncertainty my life is open concept i let the light wash through undesignedwarm enough to murk up the mirrors i am mostly alone & mostly unafraidlike a hummingbird at dawn September flowers are pinking in my yard& on my father’s gravestone too i sense a revolution & many deadbefore spring ancestors way past impatient embracing their kin the skywas my lover we laid all day with each other tried to figure out howwe could survive solo just the two of us & i don’t know about you buti can’t say what any of this shit means i know how to make a poemmake a thing pretty & so must God but i’ve been so ugly & so has She& i swore when i wrote this poem it would be all gold & saffronthought it would smell like some pine forest epiphany at leastsome cocoa butter at least an explanation but these are just words& i’m not saying i don’t believe in God i’m just saying She ain’t easyto read She don’t respond She don’t keep her read receipts oni’m saying my cousin still can’t come home & my homie still can’t come out& yesterday i ate lamb & licked the blood from the plate & laughedfor an hour & everything was perfect & it feels like a trick