Prolit

a literary magazine about money, work, & class

Greedy Ghazal


Met a dope boy on Tinder with big hands and big dreams.
In a world full of scarcity, he owes greed.

I extend compassion with my touch. He chokes me,
& I can tell his cracked palms know greed.

Afterwards he’s bashful, asks me if I like women.
I like whatever I can get; unlike him, I’ve never known greed.

He wants to work in tech; utters ebonics & code-speak
but no degree, no prestige in a city drunk on dough-greed.

That’s fucked up I moan as I climb the mountain of him
to see punched walls & bedroom plants. I too grow greed.

Nice & slow is boring; he worries he’s becoming gay.
I say call me back over. You know you want some mo’ greed.

Silicon Hills is the name. Gentrification is the game.
Companies throw us petty pennies & we blow greed.

This bedroom is the only place he & I have control,
so I throw back on his rage. No passion, no greed.

Curriculum Vitae

KB

pronouns: whatever will get me the job
corporatebody@gmail.com
Surveillance available upon request


PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
Emerging professional well-versed in being poor. Ready for the next opportunity to fight for my life.


EDUCATION

  • Terminal degree in terror, expected 2022

  • Blackness, 1995-2021

  • Queer-adjacent university, 2013-2021

  • Trans-exclusionary high school, 2009-2013

FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

  • Marked as alive during global embarrassment, 2016-2020

  • Lifetime achievement in most tokenable, September 2019

  • Inaugural Fellow, psychiatrist’s office, 2020-2021

  • Winner, “still okay” award after scrolling through trending topics, June 2020 

  • Semifinalist, trauma dump scholarship, March 2021

WORK EXPERIENCE

Cashier and other things I wasn’t paid for,
A to B Grocery Store
April 2020-Aug 2021

  • Managed to run from point A to point B in roads greased in butter

  • Heard “the nerve of some black people” and didn’t end customer’s life on shift

  • Got no hazard pay; compartmentalized for the sake of crummy monthly payment

  • Assist (while dissociating) with placing customers outside my comfort zone

  • Execute administrative tasks that pertain to the CEO’s pockets

  • The suppression of everyone else

Person who cares,
Anything University
August 2019-March 2020

  • Explicitly told not to care; cared anyways
  • Pitch innovative strategies to deceive students of any marginalized identity
  • Work with staff and faculty currently using or considering despair as an alternative to This
  • Wrapping myself in bubble wrap since I’m so damn fragile
Activist,
Feminist Nonprofit
June 2018-July 2019

  • Promote, co-produce, and attend indoctrination meetings and events
  • Realize that an unburdened girl is a rich girl or a liar
  • Ferment the fright of Black people while trying to fight for abortions
  • Stare at a murder of crows outside of the courtroom everytime murder was up for senate bill number whatever

BOARD & COMMITTEE POSITIONS

  • Secretary, Texas Climate Crisis Brigade, February-December 2021

  • Co-Chair, Committee of Black people who survived, June 2020- November 2021

  • Chair Elect, Association of Black queers who survived a Black childhood, 2013-Present


SKILLS

  • Hopping fences

  • Hiding myself

  • Development, including:

    • Giving false hope to people who’s nation thrives because of their suffering 

    • The “helping hands” of white people ($15,000 from forced allyship donations 2020-present)

  • Workshop facilitation and design (Topics: diversity as compliance, queer studies in the whitest way possible)


REFERENCES

  • God as my witness

  • The gay agenda

  • Every person that’s seen me cry

KB Brookins

KB Brookins is a Black/queer/transmasculine poet, essayist, and cultural worker from Texas. Their writing is published in Academy of American Poets, Huffington Post, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. KB is the author of How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022) and Freedom House (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2023). They have earned fellowships from PEN America, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, and Lambda Literary among others. Currently, KB is a board member with Ground Floor Theatre and Texas PRIDE Health, MFA candidate at The University of Texas at Austin, and freelance artist/consultant. Follow them online at @earthtokb.