Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
– Arthur Rimbaud
Now at the verge
of birthing little things
of my own, I think
to what I thought
were beavers’ teeth
in my younger mouth.
Saliva on my face, from
my mother wiping crust
off of it, I vaguely recall
this time of us together. Pride
had not yet been earned,
although teachers tried
to give stickers despite
my illogical fear of them.
Remembering the gardens
we once built up, hard
before I adopted this
language as my own.
Still I hold on tight
to my mother, always.
Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, MI. His nonfiction and poetry have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize, and a Digital Book Award. He has represented Detroit at four National Poetry Slam competitions. He’s a professor of English at Wayne County Community College. His books include Class (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2017), Circus (Brick Mantel Books, 2018) and Civilian (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2019).
