What happens to a broken promise?

Does it sting
like a bee?
or creates a wound
and leaves a scar?
Does it die in the heart
or grow as a seed

Maybe it just lives
like a ghost

Or it creates strangers?

Like fireflies, they dance
around my head, teasing,
promising resolution.

I can't catch them,
too quick for my heavy hands.

Movement on my fingertips,
but the light dims just as fast.

Frustration closes my eyes.
Defeat sweeps my mind clean.

...

My eyes snap open,
The light blinding,
and finally,
pen can meet paper.

Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me
Yes, it hurts me- a little bit, a lot a bit
but I understand.
You are yourself and I am myself-
You will do you, I guess I’ll be me

I still wonder though.
Who am I-
Why not,
What’s so wrong with being a part of me,
my life- who I am?
What’s so bad about me?

Is it because I’m not “pretty” enough
or “cool” enough
or good enough to you, to be a part of me? Associated with me?
Because I won’t just make you happy
I will make myself, my family, those I do- and don’t know happy
I will try and make you as well.

What counts as part of me?
Just that I’m nineteen, female, probably bi
born in Geneva, Illinois, raised in South Elgin, Illinois
but also raised in Westford, Massachusetts
both painfully boring towns; quiet, uneventful.
Does that make me as well? Is part of me South Elgin, Westford?
And then what else- what other parts of me?
That can’t be the only part-
So I’m also creative, loud, spontaneous
the part that makes me different
Is it so bad to be that part?

Part. Of. Me.

it sounds like a bad pop song. Is that why you don’t want to be
part of me-
Why is it that sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me?
Does that mean you won’t speak, look or think about me?
i don’t think that’s possible.
Am I really that much of a stranger?
I’ve known you for quite sometime -
You’ve known me
So can you even not be a part of me?
You can be yourself, as well as
Part of me.

so
yes
You are part of me.
As am I to you,
Just not all of me.
A single piece, maybe, a part,
that shouldn’t be too much to ask.
You can have alone time, but even then that doesn’t mean;
for the time alone, your part of me is gone.
What an illogical statement,

Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be part of me.
You already are.

Right Downtown where
buildings scrape blue skies
and leaves share
their space on the cement,

A vagrant just on the end of 10th
dances wildly capturing high-class sentiments
he throws wide arcs of brown shrouds
and falls with practiced elegance,

the city waltz between trees,
the jazz swing stepped proud,
in harmony with the breeze
your lolling head beats

out an ancient melody.
You belong to the streets.
You creak at the knee.
You smile right at me.

Between the glass pane
you see mine and wink,
you are perfectly framed—
I never do look away.

If you weren’t all
that I am not
so free
would I have seen

the officer turn the street
his rigid blue uniform taut
like his skin and hard
like his eyes?

Officer! I wish I could’ve
screamed, would you
had heard me? Turned a cheek?
Street dancer, city slicker,

You were everything—
****, the way he tapped his feet
floating high, mesmerized,
stunned, I just watched

sitting in a leather chair
hair dye dripping blood red,
his cracked lips flare
a smile turned cross

he falls onto the cement
he goes home colored red
he fills the cracks
he is dead.

My Master died some time ago

But he left me 'The Ways of White Folks'
And he taught me about 'Democracy'

I recall the 'Dreams' and the 'Dreams Deferred'
And how he sang 'I, Too'

With less than a hundred years between us
His lessons are the same

America for him was brutal
America for me hasn't changed

So with the words he left me,
I craft my trade in his name

With artful thought, I pay my dues
Studying my master, Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

How badly I want to be in that
John Hughes film
I want the cheesy romance
That reeks of tears for fears
And looks like the **** or geek or criminal
That sixteen candle
Sitting on your 944 porche
With the credits rolling up kind of romance
Please leave your notebook at home
Locked up with a vow you don't remeber.
I want that weird science kind of chemistry
A day off involving you
I can look pretty in pink
I can look pretty in Hughes of you.