If you look closely,
many black men
have hieroglyphics
on their necks,
telling a story
of a razor blade
and a ghost &
in between those two, a
young man
whose skin is made
of black ashes.
When strands of
manhood
bud around
his jawline,
he turns
to himself
and lit TV,
smoothing
the surface
back like a stone.
Plastic razors
& cheap cream,
he scraps into
history, each
stroke slicing
too deep
like peeling
far into a potato.
He tears into tissue,
an invisible
massacre
develops
below the mouth.
Fresh bristles rise,
pushing up &
against
his traumatized
pores, leaving
mounds of pain
in red, white & brown
in the area
that’s supposed to
manifest the makings
of a man, but instead
is a scarred entry
into adulthood.
Matters into
his own fingers,
he spears off
those raging dunes
into the unknown
to undo what’s
been done,
to undo what
he never asked for,
engraving
scars
into the surface.
An irreversible
tale dwells.
When he is
faced with his
image,
he sees
a ruin
and, behind,
the ghost
of the father
who was never
there to help him.
