Clean up after yourself. Pick up
that book chile, you still got
a good back. Seek therapy.
Don’t kill the creative in you.
Don’t kill Black people. Get a job —
one that doesn’t make you
the dictator. Take back 400 years
of overcontested leadership. Give
thanks to the futures you’ve stolen.
Give back what your people call
inheritance. Wash your hands; cut
the grass; don’t kill Asian women.
Don’t have what you call bad days.
Don’t think that — due to fear planted
in the roots of your kin — you can’t get rid
of yourself today. Get a job —
one that doesn’t require blood from me.
I’m low on iron & desire to tell you
once again. Quit playing. There’s a puddle
of blood you’ve shoved into a corner.
There’s a mop and my people
wringed into a bucket of waste. I’ll wait.

KB is a poet, essayist, and cultural worker from Texas. They are the author of How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022) and Freedom House (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2023). Follow them online at @earthtokb.