Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

by Danez Smith

don’t fret, we don’t die. they can’t kill the boy on your shirt again.

i spent my life arguing how i mattered until it didn’t matter. who knew my haven would be my coffin? dead is the safest i’ve ever been. i’ve never been so alive.

dear ghost i made i was raised with a healthy fear of the dark. i turned the light bright, but you just kept being born, kept coming for me, kept being so dark, i got sca … i was doing my job.