i have a tendency to be sad near windows

thinking of all the problems i have

with my man with his triflin yellow ass.

my man is more a concept than anything.

at dinner i watch red-pepper soup spill

onto his powder-blue button-down

& ask, why don’t you love me anymore?

i sit on the couch with a wine glass full

of milk, cry in ways that frame me gorgeous

& fuckable. my girls come over & we light

his suits to spark our spliffs. my best bitch

tells me i need to get over him, say he don’t

even exist, but what she know? i have all this

house to walk through, all these gowns to cry

on, all these windows to watch the rain.

there must be a man in this house who loves me

too much to do it well. there’s a room

in my basement filled with water & gold & that’s it.

water up to my well-managed waist

gold-link chains curl around my ankles

like a boa constrictor or the hands of a man

around a neck he once loved to bite.

i dip my head in, let even my hair get wet

& rise out the water Hood Venus

Afrodite, ghetto god with iced-out ropes draped

from my head & arms, covering my nipples

& ill nana just so. i could be a trophy for some

award show only niggas know, every rapper’s

favorite ex, 1996 given a body & he don’t

want this? i walk into my foyer cause i have

a foyer & say who is she, nigga? i promise

the hydrangeas flinch. my man is so fake

he don’t exist. my girls was right—the suits

we lit were mine, my man is all in my head

& it’s a bad head. tomorrow, after i run

& spend some time studying the mirror

i’ll burn this whole shit down

like Left Eye would, like any good wife.

whatever survives will be my kingdom.

i hope i make it.

my bitch!

o bitch. my good bitch. bitch my heart.

dream bitch. bitch my salve. bitch my order.

bitch my willowed stream. bitch my legend.

bitch like a door. your name means open

in the language of my getting by. bitch sesame.

lets get together & paint our faces the color

of our mothers if our mothers were sad men

only soft in bad lights. let’s swirl the deep grape

& coffee pencils until we look like odd planets

on our way to looking like the daughters

we secretly were. caked & cakes hairy

just short of grace. we look terrible

when we’re the most beautiful girls in the world.

bitch my world. bitch my brother. bitch my rich trust.

i’ll miss you most when they kill us.

sometimes i wish i felt the side effects

but there is no proof but proof

no mark but the good news

there is no bad news yet. again.

i wish i knew the nausea, its thick yell