Black lives do matter, and I know that you know this, but I want you to care

every inhale
exhale
can't breathe
knee deep
inhale
exhale

song of the silence in the morning,
sound of the birdsong in the night
inhale
exhale
trepidation on my fingertips
oh
how a before tastes on my tongue
sticky like tree sap
inhale
exhale
eucalyptus woods climbing to reach an after
so close to materializing with every
inhale
exhale
this is the part that hurts—

during a fight, you feel the
bruises on your ribcage as you box, as you
inhale
exhale
and you breathe deeply because
he couldn't

scream in the streets
a eucalyptus tree falls onto the highway
someone hears you inhale, exhale after

there was shrapnel, pieces
a before scattered around
periphery of this during,
sideways glances and whispered warnings
of the indonesian word for evil,
pepper in the nose and when you sneeze
you

inhale
exhale

still thinking about the SFMOMA exhibition
soft power
and the image of their gangly white arms
afforded not to understand
because admission was free in the before
sunlight on the hummingbird's chest,
all you need is
inhale
exhale

delta breeze in the evening dusk,
we wait until it passes

inhale
exhale

count the sound of our breathing

if you listen, you can hear the sound of a tree falling

do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?
do you think they see me?

Giovanna Lomanto is a 21-year-old Southeast Asian, disabled student majoring in English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley who moved back to the Bay Area of California after spending her childhood in a suburb of Sacramento. Currently, she works for a local creative writing nonprofit called Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, where she hosts workshops for low-income Oakland youth to interact with a greater creative writing and publishing community. Her first collection of poems was released in the summer of 2019: no body in particular, published by Scrambler Books.