pepper jack
i belong to myself these days
hasn’t always been that way a stranger i
used to call mom still four hot embers in my mind’s eye
still a cuss and a key-turn and fast footsteps up the stairs
you don’t belong to you photographs charred at the corners jeer
if i look too closely back at me or them or her
i still wrestle with my body so used to playing tug-of-war
over myself that even the half left limp and dangling still feels
like someone is trying to wring me out like a water-logged rag
i marvel at my scars my tattoos with a hint of indignation
like the biggest fuck you i could give was to draw
on the walls rip up the carpet threaten to raze and break
these good bones down to the studs and build back something i like better
i guard myself too closely at times throw molotov cocktails at passersby
who look in my direction i try to explain in therapy
that my home training was more boot camp than
debutant i don’t know the right forks or words to use to make people
understand that i do want them close but i still need to sit facing the exit
i think i will spend the rest of my life sneaking
into the kitchen after dark eating handfuls of shredded cheese
like it’s my birthright no forks necessary
i forgive those four hot embers for all of my burns
that stranger i used to call mom
don’t blame her for how much she wanted
me to belong to her
i am so damn good i know that much i am someone
you might want a piece of i am still
learning how to share
the revolution might not be televised
…but shit
it might be on signal
you might catch it on vanish mode
on the bat-phone
all my kinfolk got two names
two phones
all my niggas got two jobs
all my boifriends got two scars
from where their shame was cut free
all my friends are too tired to hangout these days
all my nightmares got fangs on ‘em these days
don’t have to go to the movies to catch a blood-bath
the revolution won’t be on tik tok
‘cuz they finna cancel that shit
too bad we only got two parties in this country,
and neither of them are lit
all my aunties say “it takes two to tango”
but i got two left feet,
so i’m hangin’ up my dancin’ boots
last time i fell in love with a real
down-to-mars-girl
i got caught two-timing
and them two new tires
were expensive as fuck
all my slimes need root canals
need the change
that was supposed to come in 2020
when we all took to the streets
and risked our lives in an attempt to stop risking our lives
all my day-ones don’t give a fuck
they’ll pull up on you if i text them “ski mask”
make you two-step with a two-piece
all my poems are about Palestine now
even if i don’t say it outright
my anger, my heartbreak—
the gall of this fucked up place
to keep changing the rules
keep making little angels
and then turning them into ancestors
before their sweet-sixteens
all my shorties got two-plus baby daddies
‘cuz we pro-hoe on this side
and even if the revolution won’t be televised
it might be live-streamed
once they drink a little too much tequila
and start talkin’ that talk for real
all my babies will be free someday
i know it
well, maybe not my babies,
but my babies’ babies
if the world even lasts that long
if we even have enough drinkable water
and the polar bears aren’t gone
all my people are going with me
don’t really know where we’re going,
or how we’re going to know
if we made it,
we’re just going,
on some parable of the sower type shit.
and maybe,
maybe we won’t even make it.
shit—
maybe we’ll all just die some revolutionaries
KELSEY L. SMOOT (They/Them/He/Him) is a full-time PhD student in the interdisciplinary social sciences and humanities. They are also a poet, advocate, and frequent writer of critical analysis. Kelsey's debut chapbook, we was bois together, is forthcoming with CLASH! an Imprint of Mouthfeel Press. Find them on Instagram @nonbinarypapi.
TYTTI HEIKKINEN is a Finnish visual artist and illustrator. She originally graduated from the Turku Art Academy. She has participated in art exhibitions in Finland and Denmark. In the USA, her latest illustrations are forthcoming in Lumina Literary Journal Vol. 20 and Miracle Monocle Spring 2024 issue.
