dopplegangers.

for Elizabeth:my sister, who knows.

erelong our buds will blossom into buttercups.

life's too short for me not to say that

i...well, doihavetosay? won't this poem do? 'cause the

zealots with their branding rods have

anchored us together, like the extra A between your names,

but brazen, you dare not drown. you say, think quick, for

even as our lives are taken out of context,
there is still a literary chance - we
have yet to be mollified in Flanders

now, i see that some days
are far worse off than others,

but if disaster strikes on monday
would we leave our A's behind
two Gretels grasping for breadcrumbs
on the other side of the week?

now i feel that when we speak
our zaftig shapes sway to the beat of
dangerously different drummers

even our discord is divine
just know that i too taste it,
our friendship bitter-sweet
and while you've never seen me weep,
during nights of fitful sleep
i hear your whispers - how they
tranquilise and fortify me...
saying shh, just listen: you and i?

we're just a couple of fellows:

fellow, "don't you know each other?"

same glasses, different mothers

fellow black, up-and-coming

twenty-somethings. my fellow,

"you look like a fella, girl!"

we take fellow clumsy steps, 
unstable we fall feeble over fabled

fields filled with
flourishing blossoms

and buttercups.

yet brazen, we dare not drown.