Texas, No Exodus

I insist on survival every day I stay in Texas.
Let me explain. A friend came over today
& boom: joy shone from our fingertips.
While the moon transitioned from waxing to waning,
my bro got a top surgery letter. We get by
with bitterness & rage. Home is no refuge
from pain. Home is a state where all my homies
share best remedies for sads acquired during
our new winter. Acquired from a legislative session
where our rights are chopped-n-screwed like songs.
We shake hades away at Tuezgayz,
melancholy in a city without transit, so
I must sit idly on I-35, call my mother
while my blood pressure subsides.
Richard Wright once escaped to the north,
a place where cold awaited him.
I understand his urge to float to a land
with less waves but water nonetheless. All I need
is a couple baddies with yeehaw slang
to South Dallas Swag in the ocean;
no body of water can tame the sweetness living
in my gold-toothed bro from H-town.
Everything’s bigger in Texas. Even the aching hearts.
Love is wrapped up in a land that wants me
more than the news lets on, so I run to it
quicker than a governing body says get out;
I rodeo to it
on the back of a smiling Longhorn
holding a Texas flag with tampons doused in blood,
the phrase come and take it surrounded
by an exodus of rainbow

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