J.Q.F.

Psalms for Daddy’s Number 1 Candy Baby

Confidence is believing the worst outcome somehow won’t happen
even if you are in the middle of that outcome.
Privilege is seeing order in the universe.
Depression’s perverse richness is that people
sinking in quicksand feel everything in extravagant depth
they just can't tell you about it.
If cats could text you back
they would not.
On the Amtrak I help a woman hoist her bag into
the overhead shelf and the people behind us applaud.
In college I got my stomach pumped and the EMS guys told me
I was the politest person they’d ever driven.
In college I lied about having anal sex (everyone was doing it).
My bimbo self was happy
went to the movies
misfiled things in accounts receivable and accounts
payable at Murray’s Cheese.
Being highly intelligent and self aware has gotten me nowhere.
This ends now.
Relax your muscles.
Faint and maybe piss yourself.
Climax.
Memorize some poems your mom said
to keep your mind sharp when the revolution comes
and we lose.

La calle y la noche tambien son nuestras

— for Yulizsa Ramírez and Nohemí Medina Martínez; rest in power and peace

Nothing will save you.
Not your beautiful hair

or your beautiful nails;
not your beautiful bracelet

or your beautiful crucifix;
not your beautiful shirt

or your beautiful jeans
or your beautiful ass

in your beautiful jeans
and not your beautiful new shoes.

Not your beautiful cash
or your beautiful phone

or your beautiful watch
or your beautiful credit cards

and their beautiful debt.
Not your beautiful knock-off Michael Kors bag;

not your beautiful 2007 Hyundai Sonata;
not your beautiful washer and dryer, paid on installment

or your beautiful saving-for-a-mortgage fund.
Not your beautiful eyes

or your beautiful smile;
not your beautiful laugh

or your beautiful personality
and not your beautiful family lineage.

Not your beautiful spouse
or their beautiful shirt

or their beautiful watch
or their beautiful eyes and

not your beautiful children
or their beautiful lineage

or your beautiful god
or the beautiful cops

or the beautiful people who last
saw you at the bar because nothing

will save you if
they don’t think you should live.