It rained today in Roanoke;
I got some peace of mind.
It cleansed the headache and my heart
From all I’d kept inside.
The rain today in Roanoke,
It seemed to ease my pain.
All the anger and frustration;
All the work I’d done in vain.
The clouds, they wept in Roanoke.
I’m happy with the grey.
I can’t dance in the sunshine
If we never have some rain.
Thank you, sky in Roanoke.
I’m ready for this fight.
I think all that I needed was
A little time to cry.
-k.c.
Mar 29, 2020
Mar 29, 2020 at 11:15 PM UTC
I want to write a poem about you,
but all the words sound good in my head until they get out on paper.
I can't make anything out of the slur of words I wish I could say to you.
There's a sentence for all the years I want you to have back,
and words for all the days you spent waiting for probation in a cell.
You are still just as much of a man as you were before they stripped away your sanity.
They say that people make mistakes,
But you had to give up most of your life for just one of yours.
I like to think you spend so much time in the company of a bottle
because somehow, in your mind, you'll find the years that you lost at the bottom of every one.
I want you to know that Alcoholism is not a choice,
Nor is it a death sentence.
I want you to know that I do not bow my head in shame at you;
You are not a monster.
You are a child,
One that never got to experience innocence before it was taken from you.
You are not a trophy to be on display,
You are not a spectacle to be snickered at,
You are not a John Doe to be left lying in the cold,
You are not next week's breaking news,
You are not stupid,
You are not broken.
You are not a statistic,
You are not a stereotype.
You are sick.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
When I wake at 5am,
I no longer am greeted by tufts of blond and brown.
Instead I am greeted by a pillow
With an empty indent where you used to lay
And it is then that I realize
When I wake at 5am
you will never awaken with me.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC
I love you.
When I say it, I want to laugh at myself
Because "how can someone love somebody they have never even met?"
"How can somebody love someone whose hands they have never held, whose scent they have never smelt, whose arms they have never been encompassed in?"
They say Skype doesn't count,
That video chatting doesn't mean you've really met them.
That talking on the phone doesn't mean that the butterflies you get in your stomach are real,
That the person you love is a mirage of pixels
and let's not forget the, "he could be a serial killer"
or "you don't really know who they are"
My personal favorite is "he's probably a forty year old *********
But I love you.
They say that "love isn't based off appearances," but even so, I know that your eyes are green somedays or blue the next,
you hate the way your hair flips in every direction
and falls into your face because you can't make out the words on the screen behind the curtain of brown-
I know that your left shoulder blade protrudes more than your right,
And that you get breakouts on your cheeks if you sleep too often.
Love is based off "personality."
I know that you're funny,
you love football,
you hate to see a woman cry,
that you're rude all the time, except to your grandmother
that you only joke around so much because you're afraid of being hurt,
you love pizza,
your dog is your pride and joy.
Why can you be in love with someone the same gender
or someone a hundred pounds heavier or lighter
Or someone ten years younger
Or someone with a disability?
Because you love for personality,
because love is blind.
But why is that when I love you for your personality,
I am the one who is blind?
You don't love your partner for the way they feel or how they smell or how much they weigh
You love them for the words they say to you.
You love them for how "I love you" slides off their tongue like molasses,
For how "you're beautiful" isn't just a compliment, but a promise.
You love them for the way they make you feel, not for the way they feel to you.
I love you because you know more about me than people who have known me my whole life,
Because you've made me feel more alive in the last three years than I've ever felt in my entire life,
That you, someone I've never met,
has stopped me from suicide
and kept me from burning or cutting
yet people in the same house as me haven't noticed that depression is even a problem.
When I say I love you, I want to laugh at myself,
Because we still live in a society where love is only real if you can hold it in your hands.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
Trot beside me before I start at a run,
Trying to find someplace new to be shunned.
The two of us, we’re surely a pair,
With my dark brown skin and your snow white hair.
Surely, in past lives, I was just like you,
Knowing no home but the one I’m used to.
Accepting of this just as constant as they are,
Never knowing the pain of self-inflicted scars.
And maybe, at some point, I too relied on senses,
Knowing nothing of the world beyond large wooden fences
Yet somehow being able to bring myself pure joy
By carrying with me the simplest of toys.
I bet that, perhaps, you’re some version of me,
That our meeting was more than coincidentally,
I know that, without you, my other half would be gone,
Forever lost in the form of a fluffy white Bichon.
I wonder if, sometimes, you wonder about what’s beyond the yard,
Or long to be in tales worthy of songs from the bard,
I wonder how often it is you feel alone,
Whimpering protests when my footsteps are gone.
It’s far beyond your simple comprehension,
But because of you, my life has a mission.
To see you excited when no one else cares,
It brings me out of my lingering despairs.
The small things you do, like lifting your leg
And using the restroom on even small pegs,
Things that, to you, are what life’s all about.
But things that, to me, I’d rather live without
The small things like the way your ears flop when you run,
A small little hop on four legs; I poke fun,
Somehow even the smallest of things bring me joy.
Like when you run away, come home, and attempt to play coy.
You measure life without regards to time,
You only know moments by how much you waste of mine.
I measure life in the future; I live years from now.
Yet the two of us manage together, somehow.
To my parents, caring for you is merely a chore,
Something to keep me busy or occupied when I’m bored.
But to me, caring for you, it’s much more than that,
I’d stop all I’m doing at the drop of a hat.
I refuse to dwell on reminders that you,
You’ll one day be just a distant memory, too.
I can’t imagine you one day not eating or old,
With black claws wrapped around you in a vicelike hold.
With you, I know someday we’ll travel the world,
I’ll give you all the things that I couldn’t before.
And if, there comes a day when to death I concede,
If I’ll be with you, no convincing I’ll need.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 7:37 PM UTC
You know me better than I know me,
or perhaps I don't really know myself at all.
Maybe I only I liked the way the burns felt
because the heat marked the place of where your hands should have been,
and the pain reminded me of how bad it hurt that they weren't.
And you know my fears before I have to face them;
that racism is no longer a war of picket signs and water hoses,
but the way your father will look at you when he sees the way you look at me,
and the way your mother will look at me when I look at her for some hint of acceptance
and only find disgust in the shadows where her eyes should have been.
I know you better than you know you,
because you don't really know yourself at all.
Maybe you only inhaled crystal grains
because every shard of glass that shredded your lungs reminded you
of the times you tried to take a breath but realized that you were suffocating.
Because your pockmarked walls had holes that matched the ones in your heart,
one for every person that falsely assumed that abandonment
only created wounds that were self inflicted.
And maybe that's why we are like two jigsaw pieces from different sets,
that somehow managed, by chance, to match each other's jagged edges
and create a whole new picture.
A one in a million chance, that we both took.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 1:38 PM UTC
The best thing about having dark skin is that the scars camouflage themselves,
That you don't fit into the pale-skin-dark-clothes-slit-wrists stereotype
That you're more likely to be profiled as a criminal than "emo,"
so no one ever bothers to check anyways.
The best thing about having dark skin is that my burns heal,
they leave barely noticeable discolorations in my dark skin.
That only I can make out the slight change in shade from brown to browner.
And maybe you could too, if you squint a little.
Maybe, just maybe you'd see the dark brown stripes
painted permanently against my even browner wrists.
The best part about having dark skin
Is that no one checks your wrists,
because everyone is too busy looking at your curly hair,
your big nose,
your big lips.
"are you on welfare?"
"do you use food stamps?"
"do you eat watermelon and kool-aid
with a side of fried chicken?"
Because no one ever stops to think
that black girls
would ever think about hurting themselves, too.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
If I even began to try and tell you how much I love you, this wouldn't ever end.
I love you more now than when I was your best friend.
Despite what people may think about the love that we both share,
Its something that I'm proud of and unafraid to declare.
Right now, its 3:40 and I'm unable to go back to sleep,
I'm thinking about you and the promise I just can't keep.
I'm sorry I can't seem to stay up to read to you as I said,
I'm sorry that you have to face these thoughts within my head.
But baby, if there's anything I know for sure is true,
Its that despite my actions, I'm hopelessly in love with you.
You've been here for me since day one and you've never let me down,
You talk and make me smile when all I know is how to frown.
And if you couldn't see it, or if you doubt its truth,
If, like other people, you start to doubt such love for youths,
I really just need to tell you, as I lay awake in bed,
All the time, its mostly you that resides within my head.
I know that this is cheesy, writing a silly little jig,
Its as though we're both little, passing notes just like we're kids.
But it seems that, for some reason, the words, they flow tonight.
Its the first time in a long time I've been able to just write.
I feel that now is perfect, to explain to you these things,
That make me feel worse than the worst of all my dreams.
You see, if there's anything I'm good at, its writing things like this,
The words, they flow much easier. It kind of brings me bliss.
Baby, let me tell you of the things that make me cry,
Like when I get alone, sometimes I wish that id just die.
Or sometimes, out of nowhere, I just stare and fight back tears,
Because I think of silly things that happened through the years.
Sometimes, on occasion, I even think of you,
I know that its upsetting that sometimes I doubt what's true.
And even still, there's more to tell.
Some things that make me yell.
Like people like my mom and dad,
Who make just living hell.
But baby, if there's anything I've learned now not to doubt,
Its that this love is genuine; you, I can't live without.
And baby, if that's not genuine or if you still can't see,
Think of how you see me, and multiply by three.
That's how I feel about you, although its much much more.
For you, Id be your everything. Id be who you adore.
What makes this thing that we've both special and unique,
Is that we can love each other without kisses on the cheek.
At our age, it seems silly, stupid or naive,
That's what people tell me when I say when I will leave.
But they can't seem to see you in the way that I just do,
They can't seem to tell that I'm desperate to be with you.
Baby, I love you, of this I'm extremely sure.
Baby, you're my everything and still you so much more.
So now I've told you everything, of why my mood just drops,
I've told you of what I think of when I'm crushed by rocks.
I've tried to tell you how I feel, the words aren't flowing freely,
It seems that for now its time for my talent to start to leave me.
So baby, keep your head up now and smile all today,
Don't forget about the words that I always can say.
Baby, I love you, don't forget, now, I'm heading back to sleep.
Thanks for being the only one who doesn't scream "black sheep."
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:29 AM UTC
I typed in your name into the "To" box,
the same as I do everyday.
I started to send you the familiar hi,
but forgot the promise to stay away.
I now remember the words that I'd screamed
when I told you to leave me alone.
I thought it'd be better for the two of us if,
I'd expressed my need for you to begone.
But now I'm here sitting, regretting those words,
although what we had was taboo.
There never was meant to be what we had,
there should never have been me and you.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:27 AM UTC
There are chips in her armor, like a porcelain doll's face.
Her eyes are dull with a heartless sort of grace.
She's falling through the cracks like a little blade of grass.
She's falling through the cracks, oh, she's falling very fast.
The girl has a name that she wishes to be called.
She has a personality that no one can recall.
Who was she really, truthfully? Did we really know?
And why was it that no one knew just where it was she'd go?
This girl's been crying quite a lot, her eyes are proof of that.
She criticizes her imperfections and tugs at baby fat.
"Why can't I be pretty? Why can't they notice me?"
"Why can't I be the girl of which he is so deserving?"
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:26 AM UTC