I left a kiss for you on your pillow in the morning.
You weren't there
And so I decided to give you this,
Just this,
Small piece of my affection.
When you lay your head for sleep tonight,
Know that I am there,
My lips pressed against your cheek.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
Today,
I promise,
I will finally write.
I'll write about the first time I tasted plums,
(Cool and wet and biting)
Or the soft euphoria of house parties and hookah smoke,
(Like cashmere and night in the blood- already heavy with *** and promise- while grinding out hallelujahs to bass and rhythm and cheap liquor)
Or the feeling of my father’s calloused palms when he took my tiny hands in his, my feet atop his own, and sang to me- riotously off key- the chorus of ‘My Girl’ in a tiny kitchen in Camden; Me laughing, hyena howling, and shouting ‘AGAIN! AGAIN!’ echoing until dizzied by the happy noise.
Today,
I promise,
I'll get it out.
I'll take pen to page, and tell you why I sometimes feel oddly bereft at the sight of a trail of some long departed snail or slug, iridescent in moonlight.
Or try to explain why the scent of lilacs remind me of my mother, that the taste of honeysuckle blooms and the feel of summer warm dirt in my hands makes me feel closer to her, and sometimes a taste of **** cherry pie will ease the gnawing ache of nostalgia and wanting of her more than any simple phone call ever could.
Or tell you how I feel scared and angry so much of the time, (Poor thing that I am- all brown skinned, fat and too loud- in the thin white crushing silence that hangs like a humid fog in streets and office buildings.) How I feel so hunted in a world of poachers determined to use my teeth for piano keys, pluck my plumes for gaudy decoration, and consume me, a nameless milk soaked calf, only to complain that all the bleeding I’m doing has soaked the plate and my tears have over salted the meat.
Today,
I promise,
I’ll make it plain.
I’ll be inspired by verses written on the thin onion skinned pages of a Bible my grandmother gave me,
find beauty in crushed glass sprinkled over cracked asphalt and potholes, and taste love – young and sweet – when biting into the soft, ripe flesh of a mango.
I’ll tell all my secrets to you, re-name you lover and villain, and share my most intimate spaces; crack open my rib cage and let you nestle in the pumping chambers of my heart, sustain you with the air of my lungs and food from my own soft belly; invite you with open arms and closed eyes inside of myself to read all the words I’ve scrawled in miles of veins and on sturdy spine.
I promise,
It will be today.
And yes,
The dishes must be scrubbed, my winter coat needs a new button, and the cat must be fed.
These things will happen, like all things of daily realities: new socks and defrosting chicken and late student loan payments.
But,
Today
I am searching for divinity in between the pages of moleskin note books and falling in love that tastes like honey and lavender and sweet raisin challah bread.
I am mapping out dance steps in hookah smoke and tiny kitchens.
I am lifting **** cherries and warm summer dirt in shaking palms as a ward against poachers searching for all the ivory and meat in me.
I am tracing holy verses across my grandmothers soft, thin skin; the scent of mangoes about the words; keeping her safe in soft spaces of my marrow.
Today,
I promise,
I will write.
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 1:47 PM UTC
Today,
I found that sweater you let me borrow.
It still smelled like you.
And breathing in the stale remnants of your cologne and sweet sweat,
All I could remember was the taste of the shell of your ear, and the way your letters slanted in your notebook, and how you loved rooibos and pancakes.
I still wish you were here sometimes.
But,
I didn't love you enough,
And you wouldn't tell me what was wrong.
So I guess it was inevitable.
Someday,
I hope you find some fabric memento from me.
If you do, please find some peace in my faded scent.
Let every breath remind you:
I loved you I loved you I loved you
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
Sometimes I am more than convinced
The only thing keeping me tethered to the wet, dark, autumn dirt
Are the whorls and swirls on the pads of my toes.
Circuitous and tangled, curling up and in one another,
These are the only lines holding me firm to my world of moleskin notebooks, keyboards, plums and tea cups.
It seems such a tenuous connection.
Perhaps,
I will wake one morning to find myself subject to the laws of physics once more,
And feel the reassuring press of gravity on my shoulders,
Secure in the knowledge that I will not loose my self to the cold, black, unknown-ness of space.
Until then, I am here-
Proverbially barefoot, toes digging into the cold and sleeping soil,
Trying to get a grip.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 10:55 PM UTC
Just because I love you
Doesn't mean I wont hold you close
And sink my teeth into the tender meat of you.
I will always need another metal/mango/lilac/smoke taste of your secret heart.
Don't worry my lovely little babe-
I am a greedy monster
And I will gobble you quickly.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 10:11 PM UTC
When the Earth was new,
And darkness was still twinned with the deeps,
I knew you.
Time passed,
And so many years later,
We met in the flesh.
And I felt the same newness, the same dark waters-
I knew you were mine.
I knew, like the ever returning tide;
And the phases of the moon;
And the presence of all my guiding stars.
It is with such fierce certainty,
I knew you loved me.
At night,
I would hold your face between my hands,
And kiss you on the lips gently, smiling.
You would press your nose between my collar bone and the brown column neck.
I was always thankful
For your choice to press back against me.
Even then,
I knew like water
My hands could never really hold you.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:49 PM UTC
I am a lot of things
And chief amongst none is a liar.
Except when I am.
Its not on purpose.
Its only when I need to coat my tongue with a little sugar
to make it sweeter; smoother.
So its all not so bitter.
Only when I believe it
When its close enough to the truth
To be considered genuine
If I believe it hard enough.
Lying is a sin.
Except when its not.
When you need a small half truth
So you’re easier to love,
Or prettier,
Or little more righteous,
Or better.
Just when it makes things softer.
When it sands down too sharp memories
And keeps things from hurting so much;
Too much.
It is only then I lie.
Except-.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
Sometimes,
When I am troubled and alone;
I make my way into the kitchen
barefoot and naked
And pull out a steak from the freezer.
I boil a *** of tea while it thaws.
When it has,
I sip my too hot tea- spiced with cinnamon and vanilla,
And season the meat.
With pepper
and garlic
and salt
And then cook it in butter
To barely passed raw.
I place it on a plate of fine china
And set it on my dining room table
With no knife or fork
And sit in front of it.
Picking up the hot, soft meat in my hands
I tear into it.
Gasping against the heat,
Groaning at the taste,
Letting the brick dust colored blood
Spill down my chin-
Speckle my breast.
Sated and wet with beef blood,
I shower, braid and curl my hair, put on make-up and jewelry
And wear something soft and alluring.
I feel wild.
And the taste of vanilla and blood
Mingles on the back of my tongue.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
I don’t know you
Its hard to
With a body -
Our only connection
-standing between us.
I think I like you.
You remind me of laughter,
The deep kind-
With belly rumblings like thunder
And lightening flashes of teeth-
Like storms over rough waters.
I am caught off guard when I think of you.
Sometimes,
The taste of sea salt
Or a certain shade of blue
Will call your memory forth.
The suddenness of it
Rocking me like a violent tide.
I don’t know you,
But I find myself content
With the surface and sandy shores of you.
I think that’s okay.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:41 PM UTC
Vanessa was here-
Lying in your clothes,
Trying to catch your scent
And remember the taste of you
On the back of her tongue.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 5:38 PM UTC