Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

by Danez Smith

how old am i? today, i’m today. i’m as old as whatever light touches me. some nights i’m new as the fire at my feet some nights i’m a star, glamorous, ancient & already extinguished. we citizens of an unpopular heaven & low-attended crucifixions. listen i’ve accepted what i was given be it my name or be it my ender’s verdict. when i was born, i was born a bull’s-eye. 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.

take your God back. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent.