You can still be
What you want to
When you first met me

Ever get that feeling of being cheated
Of being forgotten and excluded
Just because of your past?
I'm sure the blacks in this country
Feel the way I feel

Slip out from beneath the covers
Land on the floor,
Be stepped on
Time and time again,
People are creatures of habit
They slip a lie here
Put in a lie there
Hard to tell the difference
Now a days,
I just stick to myself,
Knowing what could've been

carve my body into
your wooden canoe
sail me
like a makeshift craft
into the center of
the storm
i want to chip and fall apart
to the crack of thunder
and your syrupy voice
peeling apart
my insides

tell me something I don't already know
like what is inside
the thousands of books
archived and lost
in the libraries
of your head

gut my organs
with your sharp
unforgiving words
like no matter how much
shit i smother onto my face
I will never be pretty
enough
No matter how much I
starve and throw up
I will never be good enough
and how my writing is too
mediocre.

and when I finally decide
that enough is enough
i'll realize it's never enough
it's never enough for you
taking portions of
my sanity
until there is insanity
holding my hand
with your acid
fingerprints
ghost recollections
of 1 year ago when
instead of you
it was him
and it was ok.

And instead of you it's me
it's always been me
devilish chants
over and over
trudging through thick
hot tar to arrive at
the finish line
but you
I
have bounded my ankles
to the start

I can never forgive you
(me)
for that.

A lusty wanderer,
from life to life; I am a butterfly,
fragile, but my desires take me from,
flower to flower, in search of new flavors,
I often find, myself  in quandaries, quagmires and coal fires.
And at the end I am left with nothing else, but unfulfilled desires,
the nectar, that used to be my bait, I thought would be the end I seek;
but now it is clear, there is a jewel I want to adorn on my crown: Enlightenment it is.
Now I am aware, a seeker I am first and last, my hungers will vanish when I embrace cosmos.
This butterfly's flight through the mist will end when a flower will  feed me with nectar eternal.

happiness
all i want
it's not a front
can roll in a blunt
something i drink
or swish
or sweet
not something to eat
or a quick feel
not a tug on the reel
a new steering wheel

but it's what i want
and i'm gonna find it
trying to figure out where to look
i've read a number of books
to see what in the world
happiness looks
like

i saw it in a kid
he was riding his bike
and another little boy with his father
flying a kite
i saw it in the face
of the kenyan who won the boston marathon race
i saw it in the eyes
of a young couple
and it was two guys
i see it in the sun
in the beaming rays
when it grazes my face

i smell it in the kitchen
mother's cooking dinner
the roast is in the oven
and the dog is by her side
i saw it in her face
in her eyes
when id come home from work
she'd jump off the couch
in a very quick spurt
and start barking
jumping
and licking
and playing
happiness
i miss it
wish it was staying

i'm gonna find it
no matter how hard i try
i'm going to make it
through the world i'll glide
in happiness
i always strive
for happiness

but how do i get it?
do i stop try?
or go harder?
travel waters uncharted
boats not chartered
i seek happiness
i want to be smarter

happiness
i'd rather it not
have a price
can't be bought
but happiness
past present
all i sought
all i seek
just had a dream
and in the future
i see
happiness

and then there are those days

when one minute your smiling
enjoying the gleeful moments,
wishing the day could never end

and then the next minute
you become a gloomy stew of sadness and pain
crying out for someone to hear you,
someone to relate to.

you begin to break down,
piece by piece
you remember the flaws
the nightmares
the torment
and you want it all to end

you dont want to do it
but its the only thing to do
though no one knows your internal sadness
they soon wont be able to fix whats been done

their words
their actions
they all come together
as a deadly force
that can and will take my life
and they call this
society

Do you want to live forever?
said the Gardener to me,
tending to a creeping thought
and watering the sea.

I replied, no, but thanks, you see,
I'd rather be a tree.
And spread my branches out
to
shelter creatures underneath.

A tree? A tree? He whispered tentatively.
Why, I can't remember what it be.
That word. That thought. That memory.
He shook his head and shrugged at me.

(So I scratched a crude drawing in the dirt
and The Gardener squatted there pondering at it a while,
robes lifted up above bony knees)

But I do that too, said He, jumping up quite suddenly.
Pardon me, but I just see no need - No need to be a tree!
Just beg a princely role of me
and I shall fill your fantasy!
I said, thanks, but well, you see..
I'd rather be a tree.

He paused for quite a while.
Then said okay, a little hesitantly.
Then said that he would not be that okay
until he sees these silly things called trees.
And until he sees the purpose of the thing it is
that means so wonderfully much to me
to
want to be a tree.

So He turned me to a tree and put me in a park.
Where couples came and families
and cuddling lovers in the dark.
And colored birds were friends to me
and I sheltered all of them beneath.
And spread new life through little seeds
and quenched the world its need to breathe.
And in the autumn dropped my leaves
to feed the insects in the weeds.
I stretched my roots in
luscious ground and saw such beauty all around.
I was
old and happy as only a tree
could ever wish or hope
to be.
And then one day I saw a face, quite out of place, was watching me.

And He said..

You are very naturally a tree
and have done so extraordinarily well in green
that I will leave you be to live your dream.
And as he walked away, it seemed
he smiled happily back at me.

can you please go away?
i don't need you
you aren't who i want
but you slam into my mind
at the most inconvenient of times
and i remember all we had
lost in a limbo of
memories
of when i was living
in your spider's web