Javon Rustin is a poet, performer, computer programmer, and writer of stories, stanzas, and software. He is a 2x HBCU graduate, receiving his Bachelors and Masters from North Carolina A&T. In the realm of poetry competitions, Javon has since been a 2x national poetry slam finalist as well as a Regional slam champion and Regional team finalist. He has worked as a teaching artist for youth in D.C., Texas, and North Carolina. His hobbies include reading as a form of escape or turning trauma into halfway-decent jokes. Javon has been published in six anthologies and his performances can be found on Button Poetry, Write About Now, and All Def Poetry. 

GOD’S PROMISE IN REVERSE by Javon Rustin

It stormed the night we fell in love.

We washed ashore the fanciest dining Google could find.

I was rich because of her eyes. Lighthouse bright,

they were two floating diamonds and stayed on me.

Still the most expensive jewelry I wear today.

My attire was night sky, a streak of moon gracing my shoulders.

She wore a vortex with heels, a sea of black spiraling a brown body.

A cyclone sucking in the whole room’s gaze.

Her smile could light the night like lightning bolts.

I was hoping jokes would keep them flashing across her face.

Her words: a whirlwind of everything I want to hear

lifted me, turned me stormchaser,

made her the only eye I wish to be caught in.

When our lips curved into up-side-down rainbows

we saw God’s promise to never drown the Earth

made in reverse: that together

we would flood the world with our presence

over and over again.