& For You This
I was balling at the rec finding ways past whoever thought to check me
at the top of the key and it was going good till the grip on my sneakers threw
it’s hands up looking for a foul my skin ate pavement The cement
opening my leg like a notebook The cement scrawling its name into the red page
of flesh Back then when my body was made of movement and my joints
ran on sunlight tears were always in the corners of my eyes so I cried
Whoever stood on the court with me turning their noses up Half of them already
knew how to stuff their ducts with pavement had already perfected the athletics
of feeling nothing that could not win you a game and I just sunny side up boy
with freshly christened cheeks Til my cousins come over lace the whine of
my cry up into laughter Put a name to the pain in my leg strawberry scars
I point out how there’s nothing sweet about it but they’re already showing me
their own like trophies Their bodies notebooks too full of stories
all this to say I wrote you a poem
I picked myself up and kept playing
while blood shuffled down my knee
and I learned to do it again and again
and I have all these stories
and I have all this pain and it belongs
to whoever is willing to read it
and I have all this body that remembers blood
and I have all this blood
all these oceans of blood
I mean I’m not done with the story yet
Kenny Carroll III (Hi!) is a writer, performer, teacher, and host from DC. He was the 2017 DC Youth Poet Laureate and in 2019 received the Thomas Lux scholarship from Sarah Lawrence. His work has been featured in the Split This Rock Quarry, The Hill Rag, Mixed Mag and other publications. He’s been lucky enough to perform all over the country. He’s in love with pancakes, and the wifi in his apartment is named after his and his partner's dog, Kevin.