My waking is a protest I march every morning,

the threshold of my blanket a picket line I cross
uneasy. Find me protesting at least three times
trekking to class: wallet in protest of gas
prices, legs in protest of inclines & my soleless
Chucks, spirit in protest of 7 a.m. alarms.
I protest-manifest a cookout or crab boil.
I protest the absence of catfish. I protest anyone
but my granny making the red velvet. Mary J hops
on the mic & protest shimmies through our bones.
You knuck, my aunt Kesha bucks in protest.
Flo Milli spits & my cousins throw ass,
protest physics & laugh with all their protest teeth.
Tony! Toni! Toné! queues and our uncles say
we ain’t know nothing ‘bout this, protest real smooth
past the babies and their Walmart sundaes,
little wooden spoons softening to pulp
in their mouths, protest softening to pill bugs
in their palms. All night we protest the stars
back to their positions. My momma protests
any newbies being her spades partner.
We protest Uno’s lying ass telling us how
to play our game. On the drive home,
Jill Scott sings like she knows what thoughts
we’ve protested to be here today. We sing
along terribly because she is right.
I carry her voice to bed like a hymn.
I fall asleep with protest humming
in the back of my throat.

DeeSoul Carson (He/They) is a poet and educator from San Diego, CA, currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. His work is featured or forthcoming in Voicemail Poems, Muzzle Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Offing, & elsewhere. A Stanford Univerity alum, DeeSoul has received fellowships from The Watering Hole and New York University, where he is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program. Find more of his work at deesoulpoetry.com