Black Cat Found At Airdrie and Germantown

“I’ve always had your fucking back.”

loyalty persists despite it all, even when it’s all we’ve got, even when the love begins to curdle: a woman erupts into sobs and screams into her phone as we near Kensington and Allegheny

coils fall gracefully in her anguish from a green and purple headscarf; the passerby’s definition of “stranger danger,” violence, threat, racing fearfully out of the car and onto the platform

fear: our disguise for sacrifice, unconditional care, the acidic distrust that I know deteriorates her throat all too well

self-sacrifice and trust rust into a carnal anger, one that sears within me, too

I resonate with those who wear their pain on their back and their stories on their arms

those who surrender to those who fail to understand, instead of buying into the disguise

I know I don’t live the same story: an “exotic” seeming girl presenting facade playing professional

I think my privilege is less who I innately am and more in how much I am able to get away with hiding in my more “palatable” skin

held captive to making meaning within the world we’re forced to find loyalty to

this is what makes me feel united with you, ready and willing to break rules: so know you are safe with me here, even if I do not look like I am

this “professionalism” shit doesn’t feel natural to me, either. instead I want to talk about how

I’m fucking angry that the black cat on my walk to work died

I’m fucking angry that someone half-heartedly laid out a can of food by her body

a last ditch effort so as not to feel guilty and yet, a resource just far enough out of reach

I’m fucking angry that no one has picked her up, that no trash man or trash woman or trash person gets paid well enough by the state for me to expect her to be picked up

and here I watch each day as insects pounce on their food and her once life melts into the concrete.