my mother calls me a poet but the truth is,

i only ever write poetry when i'm not quite awake,

i dream in spoken-word poetry, stand before doors

& when i wake up, i cannot remember

whether it represents the beginning of something new or the end of something old.

i read kafka before bed & wonder if my father hating me would have made me a better writer,

or if it simply would have made me cockroach-scared of the world.