why you tug me this way
and that
is beyond me
beside me
leaning on me
pressing my skin but i stand tough
firm on my ground like orange peel unripe
which tree was i on before you shook my roots from their resting place
and did you even know what you were doing or
do you just walk so hard that fruit must fall for you?

and what made you come back by here?
silent but smiling
threatening to unroot my foundation again

i can't say i shall not be moved

i want to be moved
always have
and why shouldn't i be?

even if i just sit here waiting for a one as you
even if i close my eyes so i don't have to hold out my hand to feel you touch me there with your heart open wide
ripe and bursting with hope for the taste of the best the season has to offer

dare i say it out loud
that i fear your presence
that my distance has been an effort unfailed

i don't mind rivers
i don't mind their pull
as long as they get me closer to where i'm going
away from you
my danger

my dear
i would soon stop the current for you
but on it must go
taking me higher than this here
what we have
is
moving maybe

i just can't see where we might go

after the touch is gone i always wonder what it meant or where it could go
i never think to say anything out loud because i believe that sound in the wrong time can make things go
wrong

but in the afterglow or afterhaze of good feeling awarded to me from another i am never sure
questions surface like dirty clothes in my sink not yet taking to the soap
i am not clean
is this how you remember me?
who am i and what am i to you?
where will this go? or even better
is this a moment or a message?
a memory or a masterpiece in the making?

revelation doesn't usually come until hours later when i have regained a sense of silent solitude
when i have come back into honest communication with myself
when i can say or understand or know
that right now is nothing more than a breath
a wrinkle in time
and what is happening right now in this curved trajectory of light
is nothing less
nothing more
than love

the urgings of daylight on untouched flesh are many
the glow of heartbeat through soft wool
the tenderness of wanting something missed
or needing something old to remember one's self by

in the absence of nature lies the hardness of city life
polluted by sensations unreal
a kiss is no longer a kiss, but a means to an end
a deal breaker
a flat line on a screen whose job is to scream for life
or death

but
when we become human again
when we loosen the stays that bind us from feeling
from touching
from breathing deep upon impulse

in that moment
close to heat and heaven alike
sun does herself shine through
golden and rich
parting us from paths untraversable
and leading us into the welcome wanting arms
of ecstasy
(and in its beauty is where we ought to be)

i am drowning in the petals of your memory
soft and shy in shades of pink
with each breath you rise and flutter with wings of certainty
and surprise
my hopes strive to tether themselves to something solid
a branch
even a bark rubbed weary from years of touch and tease
winds whose breath tousled with itself after meeting
you

come, call peace to this battle royal of the sky
release the silent longings of sound from the synapses of my skin
move and sway
rhythm and blues

crash then scramble back up to your lofty perch whence you whisper to me
silver rivers on delicate lavender nights
rock beaches dimmed and caressed by your cool cover of words
on words
on sounds
in silences that say to me
sing on, baby
sing on

i want to let go of you
i want to forget that moment when you told me you liked me
release the fear or remembering us in that second
or those hours when we lay close
bodies melting mid air
upside down
inside out

in the dim gray light of the leftover sun i can only see my mistakes
my frustrations
the stains you have made on my emotional canvas
my palette wasn't even filled
i had no need to paint
didn't even know where my brushes were

i watch movies now
images regurgitated over and over again
creation eludes me
and i'm ok with it

so why did you come, only to wake me up and then leave me alone again
sport perhaps
baseball, soccer and boudoir

i didn't bring you here on my own
you requested your own presence
and i acquiesced

and i keep actually listening to you tell me lies
keep believing in your goodness
somewhere in you

i don't believe i fell a third time

but what if it's not sweet
anymore?
what if remembering is actually the sticky glue that holds you back from falling into the place where you're supposed to be
what if memory is just unhealthy remembering that only brings tears and frustration at mistakes made over and then over again and again

what if memory isn't sweet at all?

moments, they say
moments--value the moments

i cannot go back to that moment
it scars too deep
draws blood
makes a fool of me

tell me why
tell me why

Sometimes I wish I had kept loving you
Kept feeling something when I thought of you
Instead I thought a whole lot
Did only a little
And maybe lost something so much more precious now it’s gone
Grown a bit I hope
Transformed a lot I know

I sometimes wish I had been able to see things through your eyes
The way they are when I only see stares
What is going on back there?
Something beautiful I know
Something inspired and amazing I know

Sometimes I wonder on what would have happened if I were someone different back when I wasn’t yet where I am now

But this is life and
Here we are
Right here is exactly where we be

if not a song...

I wish I were a flower
So things like sunlight and showers were free
And everyday someone would stop to stare at my beauty
I wouldn’t mind visitors like beetles or flies
Because they’re only there to share my light

Colorful and multihued
No one would laugh at me, I’d never have to wipe my shoes
Rising only towards the sun
I’d swear she’s the king and I her only one

Neck craning for the sky
Head glowing with delight
Petals pointed to the sea
Not a day in life would I be lonely

Eyes always on the warmth of the prize
Only at night would I take a rest
Love, admiration and Intoxication plague me
What lovely drugs to celebrate my glory

dreamtime poetics

earlier today it was my ex
then when i laid down tonight it was a little boy, maybe my brother asking me why i react like i do
why i withdraw when and how i do
now it's the victimizer, the one who has me all up in arms

when i had locs i used to be able to get rid of the smell of smoke by febreezing my hair
it got the stank right out
i wonder if there's such a thing for humans
some kind of spray that can get the stank out of you
keep you from filling a room with your lies and deception

i think i've heard it said that if you call the devil a liar to his face he will disappear
is it true?

earlier tonight it came to me in the book i'm reading like this:
don't take ANYTHING personally
i didn't finish the chapter yet though
i wonder if it works though
cause what i'm doing now is ignoring
which i don't think is the same

if i shoot you in the toe will you go away or keep trying?
and if i feel the need to shoot you in the toe, will i ever be able to trust you again
or will i always carry a gun?

these are the things that make me feel like i know you are not an angel
and that what i saw that night was a reflection off of someone else's shoulder

as i sit here knitting
i think of the one who had me laid out and feeling jubilant on a friday night passed
then i think of how it ended so abruptly
how i won't see him no mo'
i think of getting things done that are important to me
of how i don't like leaving my house in the rain
how i treasure many things, including freedom

i value redundancy when i'm the one dishing it out
through hands
fingers
kisses
hugs
touches
whispers

i think of how my poetry is just my thinking
of what i choose
when i choose to think of both the joy
and the pain
and how my poetry is just that
mine

confession #0869
i create confusion in my own head even though i know God isn't its author which is why i am aware that i am th eone doing it
and i know doubt is the devils' cousin and i know that i could do better than i do
but my brain works in overtime and maybe one day someone will stick along long enough to make some sense of it or help me stop what it is i do
which is too much for any one person

but it kind of does work for me
sure it gets sometimes i bit redundant
lonely-ish
but i appreciate solitude
i live in its box and have for some time
i built it up so pretty and nice
even painted
and i'm so comfortable here
i can know the sound of my own voice without being confused by anyone else's hand in my pie
i'm the head chef and i know what i make is healthy so i can eat it

and i just don't know what the rules are anymore outside my box because i haven't left it in so long
so i don't know if i wasn't supposed to kiss him the 1st date
and maybe he shouldn't have seen my place but it was cold outside and i know i don't yet want bitter so i let him come in
and then when he left it feels like part of me went out so now i'm a little scattered and woozy
and i just wish i had something to take for this because even though i'd like to
i don't know when or where my next meal is or will be or coming from or not

and it's a little blistery out here being alone in my head

:looking for shelter within

if you aren't human
then what are you?
if you aren't touchable, then when can i see you?

in my dreams you will come to me
riding on the back of the silver colored pegasus the little girl wants for christmas
you will never have touched your lips to chocolate colored papers from a country whose name only holds 4 letters

heavy with knowledge but not weighed down by the brunt of who you are and how you came to be
you will be beautiful with skin toned for love
tinted bronze by the same sun to which i have prayed for warmth for all these years
you will be born of a king whose name you call daily
giving thanks with your whole self

[work in progress]

teach me how to write poetry

teach me how to rhyme with my legs shut
teach me how to spell backwards in a different language
or with a different lilt on my tongue
cah oo aalk iif oor ouf o-en iike iis???

not really
i think we ought to start out with a shut case
ending sentences without pencils
beginning them with punctuation in the living form

i could curl up lazy
like a comma
and then you could come right up behind me
, and continue the story

or you could twist me into a basket of french terms
to make it sound good when you stretch me wide
enjambement
fall me from here to the floor and keep the pace

piña colada my syllabic count
smooth me out to keep the paper neat

translate this into twelve different languages and send them back to me after penning the pulitzer

or...
or you could just come close to me on a sunday or monday night
sneaking up to my left shoulder
whispering something nice into my neck while i peel the fruit...
what about a movie tonight?

make me scream

i used to hate the visual of curled up toes
under sheets
next to a lover


ew
is that my bizness?
is that my job?
i'll pass

but tonight or last night it felt like the cold that comes after being out inside an oven
toasted and then set free without fulfilling purpose
ain't i supposed to be feeding somebody here?

tonight i wanted to be made to scream
from some kind of holy ecstasy or pine-scented pinnacle
i wanted to get high with my eyes closed

i ended up writing about it a few hours later
still somehow satisfied

she is sitting in bed
pretending to be someone different
pretending to be a poet
pretending her eyes were hazel like the boys all the girls used to have crushes on in grammar school
and yes she is still from chicago in her dreams
because it's just right to say
"pop"
maybe there really is something to being different

she is sitting in bed on the same sheets where others had come
before

she is listening to your cd
the one you gave her
the one you exhaled love into
the one you breathed life into before you slashed you down
timbered you into the lake where you drowned your former self and became the monster beneath her weaker self's bed

boogie don't feel the same when it's a yellow monster in a children's book

you know,
just because you think poetry is beautiful doesn't make you
just because you think poetry is beautiful doesn't change yo' ugly
an' if you don' fix it soon, son
it may follow you til death
not to be confused with def

she is listening to the sounds of where she was when she said yes before she said
let's wait a while
before honesty was the actual answer

sometimes we fall before we pay attention
and that's ok
there's a mirror in every corner here

she is still alove
and awake
she is not hopeless
not a penny
not a coin at all
she is a living breathing sheep
waiting to to be led somewhere
she doesn't know where yet
but when her leader comes

she will know

right now, she is praying
for direction
and for the wisdom to know when to follow