I Turned 25 This Year

Here’s a Poem About Grace and Forgiveness

The Present

(part 1)

Dad still preaches on Sundays, so forgive me if this sounds like a sermon

I was named after him & thought I’d preach like him

I started cussing in my poems and gave up the pulpit.

I woke up early on my born day & so many didn’t say that.

This is for all the 20 something(s) & then some who don’t think it’s worth it

we, who grew from iPhones & iClouds & iCarly & I-used-to-play-outside-too.

For all us eating our way through quarter pounders, quarters for laundry

dorm rooms & board rooms

crumbling to the fecundity of executives & relatives, when it’s all really relative anyways

Momma we ain’t makin’ it doing it your way no more.

Kids are entering the workforce who were born after 9–11.

Black kids are still watching over their shoulders

America’s divided down a sidewalk of spilled blood & dripping bodies & the civil war never ended

I un-followed so many people on Facebook after 2016 & that’s really America’s problem.