t1⁄2 or, t’make breath where we shouldnt

time t’take stock.
as in, live. alive
,us, an invnt’ry
so far from living:
      a certain liquidity (of life).
a d’K nearing blüz
where cogito is justa fragment…

i think…


there4 i am made 2D again
              — again, made vantaBlack —


oh.
  sorry.


  u
  want’d
my color
      as capital?


  as in,
the state?
  as in, the
        punishment?
          as in, the
        sentence?


as if.


as in:
as if, to be
were
[simply]
          a grammar.
as if, Black
couldnt
  modify
              beast.


simply
      sib’lant
beast.beatbeating
my rawtaut
hide a
      land mass
              ina seaswellkeloid
                our sweet aroma
whiffsssss of prerogative
boyyyyyyy’nt
      ina saline wavewash
          [our bodies]


      d’perversz
thought
      we had sunk
t’new depths
tho we had
[simply] died
     again dragD from
drexciyan
ghettos & stuffed
      t’d’gills
            t’be
            dined
              on.


[let us]      be,
        cuz
        Big Floyd
    gurgl’D
         i cant
          breathe
    ndrwatr

                  & latr
                  a wave hit
                  shore &
                            [simply]
                     ebbD

                                  again


z.No scott. – a wordsmith, educator & master of None – calls No Place home.

z.No’s work has long existed at the margins and/or in the rejection piles of private yt institutions. z’s undergraduate thesis at Wesleyan University – on sum cusp//laughing with me: a poem in ten acts – was a rogue production, staged without departmental support. Since, z has taken matters of publishing into his own hands. In 2019, z wrote, designed, and released his first collection of poems, wetlock’d mat of heritage [i call a scalp], which z matriculated into bookstore inventory himself ;)

A recent graduate of the CalArts’ MFA and winner of the 2022 Emi Kuriyama Thesis Award, z.No has been published in SPOIL (Hilo Press) and has forthcoming pieces in second factory (Ugly Duckling Presse) and The Journal for Dominican Writers.