after Gwendolyn Brooks after Terrance Hayes
I think about what it means to be a ‘we’
it requires a closeness tested and real
to feel time passing and the fire still blazing uncool-
ed and unbent a partnership unspent ‘we’
survives and doesn’t go out with a hit of the lights left
to their own devices ready to school
the ‘I’s in a trust that resists rust we
stay together, ride together, in each other we live and lurk
forever we lie within each other late-
nt in a love so blatant we
savor the taste of each other strike
‘n out together- we are tethered on this unstraight-
end path all rickety and smattered with cracks we
fill them in together as we sing
songs outta tune lathered in sin
we croon, ella lo que quiere es salsa*, we
feel our grins spreading, all our thin-
king needs to stop lets get our drinking on- hide the gin
it’s for breakups and we
are not there yet because we are jazz
not built to last but meant to be had like a summer fling in late June
on a never ending loop and over in the blink of an eye we
are made up of a you and I even if one of us is to die
‘we’ remains a truth of a love gone too soon.
Kamilah Mercedes Valentín Diaz is a chronic over thinker and the author of Moriviví: To Have Died yet Lived, her debut poetry collection with Alegría Publishing. Originally from Puerto Rico, Kamilah has tons of experience with change, but during the pandemic she was forced to sit still. With so much time to spare and her mental health circling the drain Kamilah found refuge in writing. Her family, sheer stubbornness, therapy, and writing journey helped her come back to life. As a college senior attending Purdue University, Kamilah is studying Political Science with plans to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing after graduation.
(*from ella lo que quiere es salsa, by Victor Manuelle)