I’d love to tell you I’m lounged in my recliner with a corona watching ESPN smoking a swisher.
In actuality, I’m drinking a Poweraid on the corner of the loveseat watching the Food Network brushing my teeth every time I have a smoke because I’m scared to kiss her.
You call it whipped, I call it love, you call it soft, that’s why you’re eating a hungry man frozen dinner and I have a home cooked meal to grub.
You call it selling out and you’re in the shower with Rosy Palm and her five friends when I’m with a beautiful girl washing each other in the tub.
What’s love?
How about eyes that send a shiver through my body with one glance, or lips that make my toes curl with one kiss, and a personality that still gives me butterflies in my stomach when I’m going to see you.
Even the little things, like how you say cereals and how you get scared when you see a horror movie preview.
I want to know your aspirations, baby just tell me what’s on your mind, baby just tell me what you want out of life, lets go get it together.
Does it make you smile when you read my love letter? That smile is what keeps me going, and those eyes are what keep this love growing.
Blowing kisses, slow dancing with you just holding you. Can’t imagine not ever knowing you, and my heartbeats for you, just know it.
Never give up on me, the towel never throw it. I’ll go twelve rounds with the world, toe to toe, but a thing in this world cant touch us, together we’re glowing.
We’re like every fairytale all wrapped in one big piece.
I’ll find your glass slipper, or kiss a frog to make you a princess; maybe you’ll call us beauty and the beast.
How about I just be your knight in shining armor, you can be my protector, so girl don’t ever walk out, you cleaned up the mess I made out of myself.
Never asked about the situation, didn’t care if there’s no wealth, never judged my circumstances, just knew what was right and love is all we felt.
Could have been with someone better with anybody else, but you were a sucker for how I made your heart melt.
Now I don’t want to see a day go by without you, because
What’s a bottle of merlot if I don’t have you to sip it with?
What’s a queen size bed if I don’t have my queen to lie with?
What’s sending a love letter if there’s no forwarding address?
What’s the point of listening to that song if I don’t have you to dance with?
Why buy that cologne if you can’t smell it?
Why bust my ass at work for a promotion if I don’t have you to spend it with?
Why have an argument if your not there to have make up sex with?
Why tell a joke if I can’t hear your laugh?
What’s a kiss if it isn’t your lips?
Why check the cell if your text aren’t there to read?
What’s love if I don’t have you?
A life I couldn’t get used to, I’d miss the little things like when I walk in the bathroom and smell your shampoo or just having someone to always talk to.
I’m love drunk with my love, with my best friend, no bitter end just happily ever after, love sweet as Rum more than any guy could ask for and some.


By: Joey LaPiana

I wounded myself, to feel how it felt, razor stripes of my life trickled from my arms, and chest, i tested how it felt, again, how it felt, to hurt, and i lurked, in these tears of trickery until they dried.

I remember looking into hate for a well of ailments, but just layered laments on my fragility, but I still remembered the memories, as they blurred through times passing, fast forwarding right past me, pulsing, flashing.

I Remember the blasts of my friend, as his head cracked on a trunk, six bullets, rolled back eyes, pink foam, and a rasping noise, and all i thought was to catch his breath, one last concept, as it slipped on by.

Not one tear, not one cry, neither him nor I.

And I, still feel the feeling of those wondrous eyes of mine, gasping unto beautiful skies, in the sweet sweet surprise, of something bigger, something so profound, as to drown the world in doubt, of its thinking.

So young, so innocently brilliant.

And I remember sinking pits of regrets, and things i wish i said, as i bled, in tears, before the years stole the deepest emotions ill ever know, and strolled through uncontrollable turmoil, in rolls, and waves, of the tolls, Ive paid, in coils, of hate, all balled up in haste, and chucked at the door, mucked of the core, spilling its guts, on the mudhuts of my humanity.

Humility unborn until true scorn pierced center mass, penetrating my soul, my coal, my face, and my masks, changing me, redirecting my intentions again, to the forbidden zen, of absolutely fucking nothing.

Not a bird chirp, a cricket, or wind.

Not a frown, smile, or squint.

Fucking nothing.

And i remember my operational function, unplugged and bludgeoned, in the intoxication of girls, that whirled right past me, leaving blood, cum, vodka, and glass, in my shadow, lifting from the ground, proudly striking down, everything but what mattered, as it shattered my heart, into a million fragmentation's that popped, on every person it came across.

I remember everything, like another's memory, remembering something at the door of knowing, before dying upon its showing, of the path, the caste, the infinite black, staring back from the black, and laid upon me the eyes to look back, and see that it wasn't me, and suddenly ...

I remembered nothing.

I'll always be a shooting star
Trailing across the skies,
So you can look up
And wish for all
Your dreams,
And I'll listen
Forwarding it to whomever
Can make them come true,
And whenever you want
Take out your net
And catch a ride with me,
We'll blaze the night
Brighter than
The northern lights,
And when you're done,
I'll drop you off
Safe and sound,
Let your continue on,
Treading on your path,
While I keep you
In my thoughts,
Hoping you know,
Always this star;
Shines just for you,
Even when it's cloudy,
And if it rains,
It's just to cover
Your tears from the world,
Because you should
Always smile,
I know I will
Just for you...
© okpoet

Like life just past the eyes thought favors and window gazing,

Stars coming down in a shower, fingertips at lips, whispers and guys with good manners.
Bewildered afternoons below suns, twined fingers, blistered bodies.
Favors in cockpits, exploring universes, bleeding cheeks, missed moments.
Mouthing words during plays and winking eyes to show support. The ability to be better,
but not the will. Knowing enough or not enough, knowing too much, knowing nothing. Know-nothings.
Reality twisted around time and naive children ran to the beat of a heart, speeding summers and slow springs. Cats and casts and days without end. Morality but infancy and infinity.
Socks in drawers opened Wednesday morning, raindrops on glass, flecks of gold in her green eyes. Sending and forwarding ebony instruments. Paranoia and infinite alliteration.
Kisses.
Cinnamon flavored tongues, isolation in dark rooms. An uncertainty surpassed by will. Twelve gods or one God. Almighty men and decency. Contempt for a boy, Monday hushes and rocking cradles. Men walking rails. Deleting unfinished texts. Jumbled words pulled from a list of words.

The feeling of thinking of you.

I vow to be a voice for
my people
my country
for my struggles.
Tired with the
media targeting
my culture as a problem.
Frustrated with the
public allowing this
blindless tirade continue.
Dehumanizing my people
at three o’clock in the morning,
proclaiming to the free
that the poor
are steps away from returning
to the roots of what might as well
be the oppressed,
the enslaved,
the broken.
A penny a day.
A quarter a week
A Benjamin a year,
But in the twenty
four hours a day,
four weeks a month,
twelve months a year,
three hundred and sixty five days every
twelve months.

Multiplied by countless
years
the next individual
surpasses the
age expectancy
number.
My parents never received
a nickel.
My people never held
a dime.
And there is only so much
a country can survive on
single bills a day.
The money failing to
dive into nonexistent bank
accounts for those in need,
Rather swimming in
Paychecks and
quest cards
welfare and
christmas bonuses
Of the namely
and disgustingly
proclaimed
sick bastards of the nation,
“in-between jobs”
Popping out more problems
than children
Because too much time is wasted
In the bedroom and the streets
And not in enough clocks
In classrooms.
Inflation.
Inflation exists
because the nay-sayers
refuse to stand up for something
more than a pair of Jordans.
We do not need a term,
are far less interested in a definition
or state of origin
to try and label
what we have endured,
what life has been for us.
You call it poverty:
We call it survival.
Because we are not aware
of any other way.
Hard work is not a pay off here,
it is an obligation,
it is a necessity
it is the only chance at making it.
And
i am sick
and tired
of television reporters
sticking their microphones
in the faces of those who don’t
understand the concept.
I’m frustrated
with the idea of
producers
poking their two-senses in
the lives of the
undangered.
Struggle is not foreign to me,
but if I could,
i would break-up with the concept,
Move far away from the idea
Until it could no longer catch up with me,
And hope it cut ties with my friends and family.
Against the matrimony
And declining the vow of its “I dos”
To simply enter the church of my country
And remain bethrowed to an ideal
Allowing the government to provide it
A green card.
Illegalizing the theory
And deporting the notion to the origin
Of its departure…
Your guilt.
Unneeded and unnecessary
and of an economic response
to namesake the struggle
Called life.
Found in the lost bowels of
hungry mothers
Concerned with what to feed
their children
While trying to remain strong
and drained
Without food
in their system
Bearing the next generation’s
unacknowledged geniuses
and
low accustomed fetuses
sheltered in empty shells
of naivety and
worry.
In the dirty waters
Infested with disease
Rotten with illness found in
The burnt melanin of the child
you longed to meet and
only greeted on drunken
Football Sundays
After a long day at the job.
Fast forwarding or changing channels
At the lost eyes of brown
Of a certain red sea’s port
In the third world country
Of black, red and green
Covered with branches
Of possibility,
but drenched
in leaves of progress
and development.
Harboring the
Difficult tongues
Of passage
All to end up at
the same destination
Of one common core
Of different
Dialect and clicks
In the foundation
Formed by ancestors
That survived the brutality of
Travel
And enslavement
And instead
Endured the fight
Of survival and
Sacrifice
Found
Generations back
In the same acre of
Land and same
Family of goat animals
The herders of your forefathers
Surrounded themselves with.
Struggle is not foreign to me.
Second-generation life,
But first-generation comprehension.
And the scars of my people
And my country
Run deeper than the blue blood vessels
And the red blood cells
Found in the history
And pastime of my grandmother
And my great-grandmother.
Stricken with the silence
Of government
And whipped with the deaf
Of civil liberties.
Thrashed with the spoken
Of escape
And afflicted with the numb
Of neighbors.
Wifed to the game of
Hope, mistressed by the
Ideal image of faith,
And fantasized by the girlfriend
sitting just below the
Trinity of three,
I will walk down the aisle..
To travel until my feet give out,
To provide my children and children’s
children
With the knowledge
And patience needed
To understand to them
What history and his story
Allowed for them
To live in the free land and braved home
That our people never dreamt about, because
Dreaming was for the wealthy
And possibilities were limited by the imagination,
And no imagination existed if reality was the only downplay…
I give my “I do’s” to my people,
To stand for everything they could not
Because their knees buckled with torn promises
Of tomorrows,
If tomorrow came.
I vow to the country
That bore
My mother
And my mother’s mother
And my mother’s mother’s mother
Of a lifelong battle of courage
And pride and dignity
Only found in the newer generations
Of the naïve stomachs too full
To digest the truth.
I shall remain bethrowed
To the culture
Forever, until the day I die,
In my sickness and health,
Through thick and thin,
To the memory of impoverishment
To the stories of struggle
To the endurance of betterment
And the hope of tomorrow.
I vow to the family
To the people
To the country
That bore me,
My voice has
Full freedom.

Out of everything I saw, I remember
the thumb.
Swollen and lopsided.
There it was, conquering the wires--red, blue, and green,
commandeering the clear tubes coated with stomach bile.
And the nail. What a healthy nail.
A pink rosebud with cuticle trim. Piqued with a white crest, curling.
Prime for at least fifteen more back scratches.
A drawerful of button-ups.
Pockets of heads and tails.
You can do it, Grandma.
One, two.
Heads, tails.
Up, down.
Up for braid, down for bun.
Braid? Yes. Braid.
And then there are two small thumbs bumbling through foreign terrain.
The braidee now braiding. The baby,
aging.
Tucked in, lulled by echoes of strange mothers. Bleeping pressures, sugars, drawing lines and colors.

But you have me.
And I have this thumb,
hidden under mine.
I’ll keep it safe for you, here in this shadowed palm—sanctified, secret dome.
I’ll protect it from the unhooked jaw.
From placid flesh curtains, over a damp backstage.
White light hanging over the insect—splayed on a lightning-gleamed car windshield.
I’ll hide it away.
Intermission.
Hush now.
Quiet, you. The show is not yet done.
And damnit, it won’t be. Not with this thumb.
Not on my time.

I bite it.
At you. Skyward you.
Elusive and slippery. Shiny, rubber-like, all but new.
A blank belated card, lost in the mail.
What it might have said,
had I left a forwarding address.

But we’re here now in this dark hand cavern.
Tucked away, safely in lines.
Those of the palm.
Of tree rings.
Of love songs, and
Pretty things.
Lines, like wires
red, green, and blue.
They bring me closer
And closer
To the thumb.
Fat, with shiny aged skin,
stretched new.
And suddenly, I’m
Old.
Numb along one side.
Useless and dumb.
A limp puppet
plunked down
during intermission.

I asked my friends to look after my house
while I was away.
I left a forwarding address
and nothing else.
A few asked how long I would be gone,
and I said I wasn't sure.
I don't know much more than my middle name.

My mother called,
breaking the silent drive I was enjoying.
She asked if I was still with Schyler.
I told her I didn't know,
and that she would have to call him
after his date.
I've heard she is a respectable woman.

I checked into the Chinatown motel
and tipped the bell hop after he retrieved my mail.
Not that I appreciated his services;
I hoped he would save his earnings and leave.
No one deserves to grow up here.

One letter was from my neighbor
asking for a postcard.
I sent my bill, hoping that was enough.

The second was from my brother,
his letter of resignation and a simple request
with a time constraint:
You have two weeks to make everything right.

While looking for a black pen
I found a green answer,
and the returning question of why
blue and red make white,
and not the beautiful purple hue
Schyler talked about so often.
I wondered if he had forgotten the color of my eyes.

I ran out of time and spent all my money
with no souvenirs to showcase back home.
Schyler seemed hesitant when I gave him
a date of my return,
and I lied when I said I missed his embrace.
I left a note on my pillow
appologizing for the mess
and said that I would be back next year.

My excuse to return the stolen towels.

Sleep it took you
The sleep that is eternal
Into the darkness from the light
I would of joined you but..
Fear you are already gone !
And didn't leave a forwarding address ?

p.s.. Kitty says " Bye !"

We were meant to be, darling.

But only for a little while.

Long enough to discover our artistry, but not long enough to create together.
Long enough to know each other, but not long enough to forget all else.
Long enough to learn of love, but not long enough to be lovers.

Not long enough.

Not long enough.