Lose Control
⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀After Missy
Jorrell Watkins
“Moving is hard if you’re thinking
about what people are thinking.”
That’s what I’m thinking
our living room tuned
BET 106 & Park.
Soulja boy crank dat
superman, brobro—I go flailing
knock curio cabinet, look at god
not breaking Mama good China.
Threw neck in limbo, waddle
legs through pool palace—
school dances we
bleacher-cobble, errbody else
drop it low, whistle wild dey—
we waiting for Missy
egg us on floor, whispering
get ur freak on ghoul
pull us from our bleached husk
we scarecrow in twister
the beat, tightrope we wobble-
wobble people hacking guts
I stop dancing, look over
brobro gone.
*
At bars advertised as clubs
I hug the wall. DJ spins classics
Hot in Here, Cupid Shuffle, Lose Control
Missy don’t give up on nobody
I see you brobro, dougie’n, two-steppin’,
Missy done spun you hip-hop weapon
I’m sweatin’, gawkin’ at you snap-rock
torso-twist. All of the lights outshined
by yo’ white tee bridged-denim white sneaks
this buttonup aint cuttin’ up for this music
I came out to cut loose, drop this front,
throw my back out from going back in
this circle of dim and rhythm, spirits
dwell within. brobro, watch me go in.
Jorrell Watkins is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. His chapbook, If Only the Sharks Would Bite, won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry. His full-length collection, Play|House was shortlisted for the 2020 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Currently, he’s working towards his 2nd degree Black Belt in Karate.
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