So, what if I do
This
?
I woke with these words
Upon my lips...

Ask you
What does it Mean?

When will we Stop being
Slaves to our feathers
...

The truth is,

        I'll never find someone
        who despises me
        as much as myself

        and I'll never be able
        to let someone love me,
        'cause they said

        "you have to love yourself first,
              before anyone else does"

But what if I'll never do?

My brave pen
valorous pen
it can reach
where my voice can't reach
one day would make me rich

a wrinkled ocean
the blemished face of the moon
making flawless love

It is impossible to give what you do not have,
Therefore,if you do not have love. You can not love,
If you do not love yourself,you can not love another.

What do you think is more painful?
Reliving other people’s pain,
Or, retelling your own.
?

Your skin was flawless, I'm so pale
My life is a mess, yours was a fairy tale
Your voice was perfect
While mine sounds incorrect
You used to shine so bright
I run from the light
I'd still could make you like me, I bet
It's such a waste that we have never met
But you went to a better place in two thousand sixteen
And I keep living here, where people are so mean
Yet, sir, wherever you are
You'll always be my favorite star

in three words alone
you could either destroy my life
or build it

If it is
an illusion,
why do
i feel it
so deep
in my heart.
I'm dazed
with this
illusion
as if
I'm drunk.
Is this truly love.
I'm so
intoxicated by
it all.
But I
don't want
to get out of it
It's tremendous
sweetness,
so powerfully
encircled me.
Now I'm a
prisoner of love.
There is
no escape,
for i am done.
I need to
come out
of this prison
and be free.
All you see
are illusions
of magic
hidden within
the heart.
But yes,
it must be love.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.

a thousand brilliant lies
(Hafez, Iran 1320-1389);      (L.F.P., USA 20~21st century)

- Hafez -                                 - Left Foot Poet-

“I have a                                  if only, in my meager posses,
thousand brilliant lies,          but one lie when easy asked
For the question:                    the simplest damning of,
How are you?                          are you generally happy?

I have a                                    what is *** you ask,
thousand brilliant lies.          no lies required,
For the question:                    many answers upon my face visible,
What is ***?                          unsure if any worthy of believing

If you think that the               8 centuries separate us, yet
Truth can be known,              you lie; we poets - you, I, all believe

From words                             in the divinity of words

If you think that the                a thousand brilliant sparkles
Sun and the Ocean,                 when Sun loves the Ocean,
Can pass through that            each one a poem passing,
tiny opening Called                my mouth, my wide eyes,
the mouth,                                uttering a Cohen's hallelujah

O someone should                 So we gleam, mirthing in glorious
start laughing!                         and gleeful delight at ourselves
Someone should start             for your brilliant happy lies easily
wildly Laughing Now!"         **unravel into a thousand laughs

I wont stop you
Even for a minute
From breaking me down
Piece by piece.
You just take your long
steady frozen glimpse

       at the cheek that you once
       adored with kisses
       Now dry from lack
       of your wet kisses.
       At the lap you once
       sat on every dawn
       Now shivering so
       In the biting cold of dawn.

Indeed just take
A long frozen glimpse
But in time you'll see
We're one and the same
That your long frozen glimpse
Turned to a long weary look
           Into the mirror
And that we need not pretend
    that we dont need each other.

Clear, always in hiding.
They will never recognize.
He remains see-through.

A window framed with memory
  lets in the brightest light

Its lock and hasp long since removed
  a journeyman’s delight

Casting off the millstone
  the rock of age has come

As darkness hides beyond the sash
  —to greet the rising sun

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2018)

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

Your innocence
makes me
want to
sin

The tick of toothed gear
Gives handfuls of a surprise
Mike & Ike tasters.

by some galvanized dance
grab in each other by the hand
we  grouped and whirled until by exhaustion
by our great revolution claim
nothing is impure or unclean
you are my unforgettable physical trance!

my friend once told me
“most people cannot sleep
because sleep requires peace”
and to this day
i still cannot meet his eyes

I let different boys touch me
Because I wanted to know
Even for a second
What it felt like to be loved
Even if that love was cheap
And it tasted like ***
Like the punchline to a joke
I never got because it was me

I let different boys have different parts of me
Parts that they didn't deserve
But I offered up willingly because I couldn't give anything else
Because you broke me
And I was looking for different fingers
To place different pieces and hoping
That the outcome would be a masterpiece
That maybe one of them would find a way
To cover up the handprints you left all over me

I let different boys touch me because I had to prove to myself that you wouldn't be the only one
That the scars that mark my body wouldn't define my worth to be loved
I am still not entirely sure that you aren't the only one
Who could ever touch me

I let different boys touch me because that is all I have been taught
To be a joke
To be silent
To be ready to give until you have nothing left
- I am hoping one of them will show me
- they keep leaving me and I am to scared to offer up anything more than my body to get them to stay

He writes poetry
But no one knows

He writes poetry
He writes about love
And loss

He writes about smiles
And frowns

He writes about sorrow
And forgotten towns

He writes about how lost he gets
Caught up in his own mind

He writes poetry to
And about others

But no one knows

Know one knows the depth of his soul
Because they all choose to see the exterior
And that exterior screams

Preppy
And preppy
Don't have souls

Or so they thought
Until the day he was consumed
By his own poetry

I am a book
Your favorite story
But you are illiterate

the sun always sets.
it always leaves me.

i'm afraid that
i'll have all the words
to a love poem in my head
but no one to give them to

I'm fine,
I'm just not fine at all.
I'm happy,
I just can't feel it.
How weird my emotions are,
messy and unapologetic.
Maybe that's the beauty of my soul.
It shines like anything,
but is dark as coal.

©rajgomes

Everytime I see you
with your new
My heart aches because of you
and now I no longer have a value

I have no reason to be sad.
I have food on my table,
I live in a luxurious stable,
I’m not disabled nor financially unstable.
Everything I want, I had.
So please explain to me how I went all bad?

How can emptiness be so heavy?

Tears streaming
I'm screaming
Nonstop flashes littering
My brain
The ground
Me
Remind me why you think I'm fine?