We talk while I’m washing the dishes, questioning
the strength of our friendship, protesting
her date with him, because
of how he attempted
to force himself
on my ex-girlfriend
years before. The plates
never come clean. I scrub
but the memory of the sins
he attempted won’t disappear. A glass
breaks in my grasp, blood on my hands
if I don’t bring the reason I don’t talk to him
back up. The pots stop getting washed when she
calls to tell me how he showed up at her home uninvited.
Deonte Osayande is a former track and field sprinter and writer from Detroit, Michigan. His poems and essays have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, a Pushcart Prize and published in over a dozen different publications. He has been a member of the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team multiple times. He’s currently a professor of English at Wayne County Community College, and teaching youth through the Inside Out Detroit Literary Arts Program.
A Quiet Courage 