the lion pack traveling side
by side, though not evenly;
colliding shoulder to shoulder
territorial and instinctual.

trying to tame the manes
beneath logo-baring headgear,
hoping to hide soulful eyes
behind dark shades of plastic.

clothing loose to make up
for skin too tight, laughter
bouncing off cement and
rubber sneaker soles.

that musky scent of male
mingling with each individual
mixture of hopes and dreams
hits me in full force, leaving me
at a standstill long after the last
of you has passed me by.

this love is a curse,
a ship lost in unruly waters.
this love is cruel as steel:
we both taste of metal.

i broke no bones in this body
when our rope snapped, taut,
yet the quake of bitter reason
shocked both you and i to truth.

we cannot survive as one,
nor as one outside the other.
this love is a charging bull,
the scarlet flare of sorrow.

bending on two pairs of knees,
even the sky smells of earth.
this love is wretched, numbing.
without it, we would not feel at all.

summer provides a different sort of grass,
the sort that thickens into a virescent mattress for the weary body.

we drop down hard with heavy-weight souls tonight.

cricket chorus sings me to slumber, your grip is firm,
and the breeze swirls the stars above our heads so still, so calm.

but i must confess: i can no longer write these words for you.

fall will always ****** summer into a blackened passion bed,
and your eyes which mirrored mine are now quick to shut me out.

a farewell to a friend is not quite the same, you see,
as a farewell to a friend-turned-lover - there is no objective.

just an unfinished canvas,
paint slapped over the ever-present question mark.

House of the heart, these vacant arms
Spaces yawning wide and deep as cratered moons
A star-strewn grayscale and rainbow dreamworld
The pounding like waves and hammered cities
Soul drop-off box and doors with sunshine keys
Girls and boys drink feathered eyes and brainmusic
Machine wash cold, tumble-dry bodies
Slinking off in a frenzied tangent, doubled over
To cachinnate at **** men without faces.

to take to the skies would have been
monumental, for in that moment we forgot
how all life must breathe:
even empty days teem with respiration.

kaleidoscopes hovered before my eyes in
the heat of sister's fury, the disbelief
she houses in every filament.

when mother taught us to soar, she said
don't land where you aren't welcome but me,
i never could read the signs right.

we broke down fifty feet from the tracks every
night and sometimes in the day.

trying to sleep i could feel the sorrow
hanging above, sultry and certain, and when
we wake again our wings will unfurl.

ready to go?

you are the forty-fourth
president
of the united states
of america.

you are black.
you are history.

you rolled in on the
waves of the storm.

you want to save us.

you are the forty-fourth
president.

even in the shower.

even when you sleep.

and when you get angry
and scream and flail your arms.

you are the president
of the united states
of america.

even when you cry so hard
it cracks your face.

you are the president.
you are america's new mask.
you are you.

barack hussein obama.
forty-fourth president.
USA.

It
was always
the darkest part
of the ocean floor
where the sun's rays will
never
touch the
sand.