On Forgiving The Man Who Altered My Blood - Joshua Merchant

who was i
but a glass
of water

unable to exist
without a pair
of lips,

a box of grits
dredging my
mattress?

in my mind i
was singled grain.
boy, did you

prove me wrong.
boy, how we multiplied.

this must’ve been
the fire momma
warned me about

a torch of god welding
our faces together
into something

unrecognizable. all i want
is to know or remember our name

our smile, laughter,
our freshly lathered
and rinsed skin

where our letters
in the alphabet start

or begin to be
able to taste
the memory of us

without my eyes-
loins- mind- body
betraying themselves.

there are days i wake
and the whole of me wants

to put a hole in you. but with
so much to recover from
i cannot add a body
to the list when
ours was the first.

the Black body is so rich
and the fucks we give
can pay the morgue

and what We think
is love can turn
a vein into quicksand

and because We are
i must find the honey
left in me to pour

into you
for me
for Us

where ever We are
my double
my doomsday clock
my coffin
my candle

Originally published by Push Black (580 Split, Mills College Literary Journal)

Joshua Merchant is a Black Queer native of East Oakland, CA exploring what it means to be human as an intersectional being. What they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of loving and what it means while processing trauma. They feel as though as a people, especially those of us more marginalized than others, it has become too common to deny access to our true source of power as a means of feeling powerful. A collective trauma response if you will. However, they’ve come to recognize with harsh lessons and divine grace that without showing up for ourselves and each other, everything else is null and void. Innately, everything Merchant writes is a love letter to their people. Because of this they've had the honor to witness their work being held and understood in literary journals such as 580Split, Eleven Eleven, and The Rootwork Journal.