East Oakland

The city smells like

cream and sugar.
Starbucks on the corner
where residents need to sleep.

Starbucks on the corner
where residents used to work.
Starbucks on the corner
the local donut shop used to lease.

The local donut shop
fed the neighborhood.
The neighborhood doesn’t
get fed anymore.

The neighborhood can’t
sleep anymore.
A white man
rides his bike
to the Starbucks on the corner.

The first white man I’ve seen
here in five years.
The white man almost runs me over.

He buys me a cup of coffee.
The barista asks me,
how do you like your coffee?
I tell him, Black!

Evolve Benton is a black and queer writer from Los Angeles, CA.  Evolve is a social justice educator and the Assistant Director at the University of California, San Francisco Multicultural and LGBT Resource Center where they focus on the retention and access to equity for underrepresented student health professionals.  They hold a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University of Los Angeles. Evolve lives with their family in Oakland, CA.  Their writing has appeared in the Dillard Review (2008), Trans bodies, Trans Selves (2014) and Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity (2016).

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