YOU GOT ME! Thoughts as I decide to love you (culture)

Kyrie Mason

have i,

have i seen anything as beautiful as you

in quite a minute? far away, maybe

but that afro doesn’t seem familiar to me

it doesn’t smell like the old flowers or fruits from before

but something more robust, from darker earth –

because there was air in that soil,

hit with a broadfork for pulled pork and heavy collards,

little

tasty things from overseas with intuitions of chaotic fulfilment

finally, letting myself go in an invisible future, i see myself clearly

and let in those high winds that asked to carry me to such dizzying heights;

the taste of which i still hold

in cowpeas, onions and sausage

or smoked okra.

Kyrie Mason is a graduate student at North Carolina Central University’s history program. He’s been writing for several years, with a few poems published around the net (Humankind Journal, Jam & Sand). He hopes to mix academic and artistic interests throughout his career.