Stories of K

  By Kevin Kogo    We never kissed.   Just stood close enough in the chaos   that your sweat mixed with mine   when the police trucks came.   You had that look—   not the kind that makes poets write shit,   but the kind that makes men stupid.   The kind that makes you charge armored vehicles   with nothing but a rock and a prayer.   I remember how you held your sign   like it could actually change something.   How you screamed yourself hoarse   for people you’d never meet.   (How I wanted to be one of them.)   Then the stun grenades hit.   You grabbed my arm—not romance,   just survival instinct.   But for three seconds,   I was yours.   Afterward, we shared water from the same bottle.   Your lips didn’t touch where mine had been.   I watched you walk away ...

 By Kevin Kogo I woke today and realized   I have been building a house inside a machine.   The walls are made of unanswered emails,   the floors—worn thin from pacing   between what I owe and what I’ve lost.   Every morning I oil the gears with my silence,   let the conveyor belt of expectations   pull me through another day   of assembling a life   that isn’t mine.   I saw my face in the bathroom mirror   at 3:17 PM—   a stranger with my eyes,   hollowed out by fluorescent lights   and the weight of pretending   this is what living looks like.   They call it "work"   but I know it by its real name:   a slow excavation of the soul,   shoveling myself into piles   labeled efficient  professional  disposable.   One day I will stop   and the machine won’t no...