I used to be scared of you
Too much of a good thing,
But now you are a building block
To help it all to sing.

You are bold and bright and brazen,
While you compliment so well.
Once I understood you
In love is what I fell.

I know there’s magic in you
I knew first time we met.
You’ve always held me tight,
At times, something I regret.
But in the end it's you
You’ve always been the one,
To love me when I can’t be
and lift me like the sun.
I barely speak your language
Our love can be the gun
To shoot you with the sadness
Like a needle, take the plunge.
Dive deeper to the bottom,
I’ll be with you the whole time.
Don’t know if it’s darkness, light, or love,
Either way we’re going blind.

You are my whole world
All that I do is for you
Your doors are always open
So that when I get inside
I go straight for your red cart.

I have jumped off
Ran in the rain
Took a big breath
Talked through the pain

I’ve sat on the beach
Purchased a home
Said nothing at all
At times felt alone

You’ve been by my side
Asked me to leap
We’ve been high in the clouds
And in water so deep

I don’t know if I would
Have pushed myself there
I take a big breath
And fly through the air

Your hands always close
Your comfort is round
I’ve never been so happy
When my feet leave the ground

When the moon first met the stars,
Did she question
Whether or not
The
Amount
Of
Stars
Surrounding
Made her brighter?

I’ve always known it was the water that connects us
Not just the waves, soothing, rolling
Not just the community built within,
Not just the rain falling quietly in the thick breeze of the Florida afternoon
But in all of it
Even the new water
Frozen and pristine and soft
the kind that surrounds us now.
You are always with me,
No matter where I go,
Seemingly intertwined with my existence
But I have always been afraid to write about my ocean
Because with the written word
I am compelled to search through all of it
The beautiful coral that lies just underneath the surface
And the hidden depth that’s a secret to most
For how can I express my love for you
If you are but an ocean partially explored
The fear is cold
Unspoken
understood
While great revelation might be a few written lines away
Scribbled down with a simultaneous effortlessness and unrefined stimulation
I am afraid that like a snow flake,
While I continue to explore you my love
You will but melt away in my palm

I once met a seahorse at sea,
She came up and swam next to me.
With her baby in tow,
But I had not known
That that mommy fish; she was a he.

The seahorse said how do you do?
I said “I am well, how are you?”
Daddy seahorse replied
“With my babe by my side,
How could I ever be blue?”

I've been calling it a ping recently
carelessly labeled like a home movie
or a sound effect without a title,
named out of thin air to solidify.

This ping does not toast with cheers or any joy,
No champagne bubbles in this type of ping.
This ping does not involve shared embraces
Though it is silently shared none the less.

This ping, instead, is similar to the
feeling of being impossibly lost.
It's like pin pointing the ambiguous
emotion of helplessness to real time.

This ping shows up in the physical realm
even though it is but a feeling felt.
You can see it when you look at their eyes,
Refusing to come up for air, look up.

This ping exists because there is so much
that goes unspoken between all of us.
Felt it when I found your old notebook, ping.
Felt it then too but tried to smile, ping.

This ping expects me to ignore you there,
pass by without a glance or a hello.
Feel it when I see red and your sign, ping.
Feel it when I pass you and your stuff, ping.

People often question weather humans
are ultimately good or if they're bad.
I usually just laugh and look down, ping.
My eyes, they shout "Isn't it obvious?"

It was like a scary dream
Childish fear brought to the surface,
Flush faced, wide eyed, the unfair advantage, still yet smoking and dripping in evidential residue.

The river singing it’s roaring song
Still the same.
Up above, the birds still perched,
Viewing the slaughter from above, with
A sort of grateful unexceptionalism.

How the world could continue
While this occurs, answered
only with boredom and indifference.

And when the flies began to gather,
The foresting neighbors began to collect, only then was left,
The fur still warm.

Horns the size of trees, yet
Gentle and innocent like a child’s swing.
Now sentenced to remain in the limbo, the
air, neither moving forwards or back,
then gone.

Only the body remains,
Unforeseen potential wasted with your intent.

The dance is beautiful
The rhythm of the universe pulses throughout
Intertwined with the sun and the moon and the stars
It is slow and elegant, without measure but limitless
The growth lives in a place intangible to the physical realities’
One in which dreams go to bathe in lush admiration and the whimsicality of existence
The  growth can be dangerous but worth the bloom
The slow movement like a ballerina with a lover
It is us, both existing and not
Dependent and singular
But it is the growth that we all depend
For the flower is beautiful.

Apparently, being alone all the time makes my blood boil
It give me time to stew
Become a shrew
And release all my wrath onto you.

Tiny little reminders
Clogging my confidence
Defining my self

Just tuned up enough
to tune in.

It spread equal through night
as it did through the day
cholera choose victims
the lottery way.
For it's little to matter,
if you lived upstairs or down,
like the air that we breathe,
the threat always round.
It grabbed hold of the cities,
it's grip tight, unforgiving,
no wall could deter it,
no way to stay living.
While some of your neighbors,
stayed put, kept inside,
when cholera stuck,
they would not survive.
Normalcy gone,
with the rest it had fled,
to live was to say,
you're just not yet dead.

All at once
They rush ahead
simultaneously graceful and sinister as their piercing emerald movement bellowed below
A warmed sense of urgency and rage pulse through them
It is not safe,
Out here or up there

Yesterday you began to share with me
Quick shrieks from their tapping shoes shouted as a slight reminder we were in the real though this recollection is dripping   In lethargy.
Your chip began to shimmer in the dimmed, shared air
Your pain and strength barreling against one another for a place to burn in your eyes
I saw it then
Different than any other time I had seen it before
Softer
Quieter, yet somehow more powerful than ever.
I understood it then.
We are the juxtaposition,
The cool, supple texture from the rawness mocking our conversation.
You fought to be here and ****** to hell with the rest.

make sure nothing is left outside of its boundaries,
which are both restrictive and comforting
like the love of a mother.

Add a little weight so that it is not only concrete in its existence
but its understandable
its executable
its a nice little pill we can all swallow and digest
a little burn in the stomach means that it’s really working

it is important all air pockets are filled in the box
we want no space to wander.
fill it with war
fill it with peace
the only box the two could ever coexist

When it’s totally full,
close the lid quickly
the longer the box is closed
the sooner you can put it away and reminisce.

store it away so that you can find it in twenty years and remember the feeling
the burn in your belly
the slight rose colored memories
when you wipe the dust of the box
it’s easy to remember what it all was
because the aged letters still read
the word for it all
“love”

I ate the notes of music
as they exit speaker holes,
I grabbed them out the air
to feed my hungry soul.

I ate and ate and ate and ate
each note it was divine
I ate so many music notes
my soul danced the rhythm line.

Now I'm full of music
to keep me satisfied
but if my soul gets hungry
I'll press play and open wide.

It’s a rose tinted nightmare now,
Dripping with fictional residue.
I don’t know how I ended up there,
Though I remember my soda perfectly.
The glass bottle gleamed in the sun light,
Thick smoke wrapped its way around my whole
And provided a freedom, cut off from reality.

I know you as a stranger
I know me as a stranger
But it didn’t matter at the time.
I needed the kind of release you can get
Only with a stranger,
No context
No future
Just that moment.

Sadness flowed down my cheek,
My anonymity was stripped away in an instant.
Props held the weight of my world,
Shifting, searching,
I tried to stay in the room.

I don’t think I’ll ever return
Though I know sadness will.
Because I took away your softness
I unloaded my weight onto you without permission
And for that, I am truly sorry.

When I was walking in
I couldn’t tell if falling
Out of the sky
Was snow or ash
It seemed logical that
The small bits
Slowly flaking through the air
As if both heavy and weightless
Would be snow.
But given the circumstances
Blood still wet on the classroom floor,
Ash seems more appropriate

I was told once the brain is our biggest enemy,
Thinking; the down fall of a species.
At the time
I couldn’t have disagreed more.
For the brain, as I thought, was what makes us feel,
See, understand, move.
But then I felt it
Certain and instant
The sound escaped my mouth
Without hesitation, without any thought what so ever
Instinctual and unrefined.
It was a pain I’ve felt emotionally,
Tried to describe though poetry,
Brought to a physical reality,
Throbbing with tangibility.
The welt began to grow
the brain took back it’s rein
leaving me with only a mocking pretense of black and yellow stripes

And a feeling
With which too over think.

I’m kneeling at the alter,
The black cloth covering my face moves passively as I breathe in through my nose and quietly out my mouth.
The breathe of a yogi but out of context, out of noise, just trying to be there, for you, in that moment.
The pain over takes your body constantly, it has seeped into your blood and is throughout your existence now.
Empathy is where I stand, comfort is what I try to be. Warm, inviting, beautiful, like the wind in the trees of the spring mountain air.
But time passes, my head still bowed, in silent hope disguised as a prayer.
How long can we remain on our knees, they too grow tired of the kneeling.
And just outside, past the soft pallet of the stain glassed Windows, there is laughter.
I reach for your hand silently, look hopefully from you to the outside world.
Let us go enjoy the laughter, the breeze, we shall drink the lemonade and it shall quench our thirst.
But you are not yet ready to leave, your knees have taken all the kneeling they can, but your body is too weak to move.
How long before I go outside alone.

Where do you go
In your mind hole
When you slip Into the oblivion
Thick like the frozen mist that surrounds our mockingly warm entity

The smoked expanded into the wind like water color,
Rolling as it disappeared into the moon.
“Nothing is permanent”
Your voice whimsical and airy in my memory now.
“Even when it feels like it,
Even if you lay down roots and start a family.
You can always change,
You are free to be whomever you want.”
Your words spoke to me last night, my dear friend.
And reminded me.
So, I close my eyes and jump.

Just there after, the lights dim down to a nearly indiscriminate fade.

The hush falls on the crowd like a falling line of dominos.

It’s the same reaction every time it plays

The nostalgics movies’ nostalgic rerun

Where one might be able to separate the self

But the memory plays heavy none the less.



We are standing in the kitchen

And I can see the sun catching the horizon

Just above the mountains and just before

The sun slides into the night.

Water boiled rapidly on the stove and

The air was drenched in steam and shame.



I wonder if you think about saying that

Or even think of it at all

Replay it, dim the lights,

Replay it, quiet the noise,

Replay it, and find your answer.

Your words repeat in mind without fail



In sips of quiet spaces, in moves of loud pockets.

The movie reel continues on

But is never without the clip

The lid of the boiling ***

Idles between stable and not.

I let go of my breath right after
Hadn’t even realized I was holding it
It mattered like it mattered what you wore to the first day of school
At the same time
It was already done and just because it didn’t get excepted didn’t mean it wasn’t a success
I submitted it
Already put it out there
Everything else was hearsay

“Hey Malcolm”
she said with a sort of sweet indifference-
“You want some water and chips?”

His reply-
Incomprehensible sounds that hung heavy
With the thick humidity.

Any other
would have not bothered but her altruism
shone like the surrounding brick.

“Water, chips?”
spoken with a familiar neutrality.
Her kindness did not waiver.

Not deterred-
By the state Malcom or his sour taste
or even the heavy heat

“Chips” he spilled.
The unrelenting sun laughed at his choice but
Her kindness did not waiver.

Door ajar,
She disappeared into the shadows to retrieve
her promised gifts to Malcolm.

Her building,
Glistening red squares that had been bought and sold
Many times since the 80’s.

And Malcom
was just one of the many casualties
to fall in the pure, white cracks.

“Drink water”
She had returned and handed him both drink and chips.
Her kindness did not waiver.

She did not
Ignore Malcolm or pass him by like most-
Her actions small but fearless.

Her kindness did not waiver.

Did you know?
That when you turn the lights off,
Your room comes alive--
And everything begins to dance!

The couches prefer to tango
And your clothes prefer to waltz.
While your shoes all do the salsa
Your books do summersaults!

Appliances like ballet
And the art just kind of sways.
Yes darkness can be scary
But do not be afraid.

Because your room comes alive
When you turn off your light-
So wish them happy dancing
When you say goodnight.

If you looked in her purse,
what a world you'd find,
Sugar packets, tooth picks,
the purse itself was a shrine.
Cheddar bay biscuits
wrapped in paper napkins,
Those were her favorite,
doggy back wins.
Ketchup and creamers,
things to dip, pick, and ****
Nothing ever got wasted,
howbeit how strange
howbeit how odd.
You see it never much mattered what there was to take,
Depression era babies procured without some much as a shake.
I think about you when I see Sweet N’Low,
I miss you so much Gram, just wanted you to know.

The air was thick with rage and heat,
the steps were covered in cries.
Our mouths were masked to ward disease,
but did not cover our eyes.

The gray steps, with heat illuminated,
Bodies spread in clumps about,
The signs and shouts echoed one another,
as the collective emotion continued to mount.

From below we heard the plan,
Spread our message, bodies, and cover
we lay down our fronts and faces
to mimic the tragedy of past blunder.

With arms a top our backs
we all began to shout
"I can't breathe" came out our mouths
louder and stronger each time it came out.

For eight minutes and forty six seconds
we all continued to chant
Both heat and sadness swelling up
the seed of reality and the word "can't"

Because we couldn't breathe
and fear overwhelmed
Gone was the distance
from the feeling of hell.

And as the tears rolled down,
the sun acting as the knee
you could feel the fear
that George must've seen.

But when it was done,
because "after" was indeed a time,
we were all able to get up
and breathe in as a sign.

The sign was that we were all still alive
The simulation of that moment was gone,
How lucky we are to rise up when we know
George and many others cannot just get up and move along.

Like the ocean, you will always remember
The crisp layer of salt-
baked into your skin by the sun’s assault.
A part of your DNA now, you do not exist without it.

Sure, it’s both vast and secretive,
But your questions can never be answered
So many unknowns- your wondering cancered.
They too will rise or sink with the rolling of the waves.

Perhaps there is no storm that turns the tide
And your lips lose their briny bite
Maybe you learn to harness the power the seas invite
But the quiet of your mind sets with the sun.

And your skeptical sirens sing at night.

The smell of cheap coffee reminds me of you
Reminds me of your grit
Your rough hands
It reminds me of how delicate you are
How guarded and misunderstood you have become
The glass of the French press still catches the light similarly
I think of you when I see an old car, when I hear an engine rev
You’re everywhere and no where at the same time

Read-a-book, Share-a-book, library,
That’s how it goes from you to me;
Read it, love it, put it on the shelf,
Then it can be read by somebody else!

I cam to drink a beer last night

after work was done,

I came to to blow off some steam

and just to have the one.



But then I saw my friends

and beer began to flow.

I drank a few more after-

how many I don’t know...



Because the details start to haze,

so let me settle the score.

When you go in for just the one beer,

You’ll end up drinking more.

Tell them-
Tell them to take the property,
it's all their's to have.
Tell them to enjoy the bathtub where I birthed my first born
alone, in pain, and saw it go down the drain.
Tell them to soak in the morning light of the spare room we slept in separately all too often.
They themselves can have the windows closest to where the drive-by was.
Your greed and your wants have blinded you like the fresh coat of paint that illuminates the house.

But give me a moment to savor my land.
Let me breathe in the lavender I planted all those years ago
and spare me a second to watch the breeze dance with all the ivory.
Let me walk around my first garden and admire the bulbs,
brush against the lemon balm and the small batch of mint I planted in the shade.

I, too, want to live in peace but cannot scratch out the land
for my nails are still ***** from working my land.

The apocalypse brings cotton candy skies,
it is more beautiful than once supposed.
There is terror in the state of the world
But with it, the beauty, juxtapose.

While fires still rage down below,
even as day begins to fade.
The sunset stops you in your tracks
and takes your breath away.

The street lights buzz mid afternoon
intended light in the darkness of days.
but like the sun in the sky above
it only stands to illuminate the haze.

The apocalypse brings forests of snow white corals
it is more beautiful than once supposed.
The ocean has begun its game of chest
Death's strategy played unopposed.

Marble statues line the oceans' hues
Life and color have already fled
What was once a thriving coral reef
lies stagnant and desolate instead.

It's elegance is like fresh snow
A quiet field of white
It's hard to turn your eyes from God
though you know it's not quite right.

The apocalypse brings protests in the street
the people's message is well known
United cries for justice and peace
Interrupted when tear gas is thrown.

Say his name painted all around,
Harmony is the peoples' dream
A commonality of hope
bounce off shields of the swat team.

It's a wonder to see the united rise
Love kissing us all awake
For the betterment of all that live
shot down by fear and hate.

The apocalypse brings with it the beauty of life
Right before the end
At least enjoy the majesty
Before we all descend.

So it seems
Any new space that is taken up
New voice spoken louder than before
Comes at the cost of you.
More than ever,
You feel alone
With only the castaways and stranded
to keep you company.

Instead, stand with us
Let us be your partners.
For you too, your sweet blue eyes,
Your charming ways,
Those too are not to be taken advantage of.

My space does not mean less for you
My voice does not mean your silence
Together, we can stand united
For a better, more equal land to roam.

You have two lovely children
A new puppy too
(Probably a Doodle or something close to)
Those are the things
That make you- you.

You check all the boxes
You love Target and honey,
Who wouldn’t love perusing
And spending all kinds of money.

When his friends come around, you shuffle right off
And chat with the others mom’s in the loft.

The kids run around you and the other ladies
After all, you’ve got the motherly instincts, their your babies!

Dinner is shared because he has his grill
But cleaning up later requires your skill.

But what do you do for the social injustice,
What happened to your dreams?
What do you do when your life’s in a rut?
What if it’s not a man she loves?
What about the state of the world?

I guess I didn’t want to write a poem,
I just wanted to ask you how your priorities became what they are on instagram?

Touch me often
Hold me close
Let me feel your love
beyond this poetry and prose.

I crave your heat
Seek your hand
Long for your presence
And don't always understand

Why I need you close
even at times of turbulence
your soft quiet contact
reminds me of your presence

And even when our
conversation's unknown
your sweet embrace
makes me feel less alone.

She moved here in September
In some ways, the wild west is still wild-
hidden behind brand new shields
bought off the lot,
reflecting the new murals as it passes by.

She'll never forget the fear that lives
one block away from the hip new brewery,
the ross- security guards suddenly not off beat.

"Shut that dog the **** up" he said with the aim on her dog
Real guns, smacked dab in the middle
of the attempted 40 west arts district.

What is it about governments that missed it
and try to make every poor neighborhood an arts district?

So then what?
The answer seems too easily answered
while the reply hangs empty.

And this place, Lakewood
nah, that's nothing.
You only get help if it's declared as something.

But mostly it's the words you said
when the smile faded for a brief moment
That changed me as a person.

And she is just one.
Humanity is layered in trauma
with the worst of it going to brown and black mamas.

I think this is my list so far:
Kate Chopin
Jack Kerouac
W.E.B. Dubois
Harriet Martineau
Sue Monk Kidd
Nancy Isenberg
John Steinbeck
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ernest Hemingway

During this whole pandemic,
I didn't even think once about you.
When I get scared at night,
I don't wish you were near.
When I long for touch
It's not yours I desire.
Because it was never you, or you, or you.
I have been birthed of the barrier
of a small summary in history.
I can see in both directions,
nothing but untold stories mixed with endless potential.

But I digress.
Because the point is not about the past or the future,
It's about a hopeless feeling,
Strangling your heart beat,
consuming your mind.

Life, as it is, as it were,
moves and you have always been stagnant.
So it is in the past you shall remain.
But a mere smudge in my colorful life.

Chocolate, sweet chocolate
How was I to know?
When I ate you yester-
where it would go.

Your crunchy dark square
I ate all in one bite
but little did I know
your powerful might.

I saw all the colors
and heard every sound.
That little sweet chocolate
did not **** around.

So if you're like me
and sweets call you name
beware- this could happen to you
all just the same.

It’s idea is preconceived that the
suffering is reprieved-
Those that deserve the burn in turn
eternally lie with others scorned-
That hell is earned.

But I see flames here on earth.

What does my sister think as she buries her child from the latest bombing?
What does my brother think when he is being pinned down?
Are we to believe the devil is not present in that knee?

And what is my sister to think when she awakens to gun shots entering her innocent body?
What do we call the place that allows my brother to die at the hands of another?
How do I explain to the child that hates himself there may be something worse waiting for him?

Where are the rules with which to live by that I can give to the little boy that was touched by his pastor?
The very same pastor that informs him of this place called hell-
What should I tell the mother who buries her child without knowing why?

I see flames here on earth-

Perhaps hell is not a place to
go but instead-
It is a place we know.
And the devil that we fear-
is here.

Just the other day,
you laughed so hard your eyes
almost completely closed and the tone of
your laugh peaked into it's highest octave.

It was one of those uncontrolled laughs that happen when
you are being savagely tickled, the kind that
escapes from deep in your body, gasping for air,
for life.

But my hands were not on you, the laugh
happened anyway. I am Jack's overwhelming sigh of relief.
It was reassurance,
it was nice, that you still laugh that way,
that I can still make you laugh that way.

I can stop holding my breathe.

I can see it when you look at me
Dedication, love, a commitment to be
The kind of mommy you’ve always wanted to be
I see it- when you look at me

I notice all the things you do
All the places you take me and the beautiful views.
You do so much for me and without I’d be nothing
The love that you show me goes above all things.

When you look at me
Your smile and eyes light up the room
While they ask for attention
But it’s me you consume.

Im the first place you look
In both morning and night,
The hours we’re together
are such a delight.

It’s a tragedy when I die-


But you always bring me back
Never mind those other moments
Did I mention I’m back?

So post the best pic
Hope you took more than one
Arn’t you so lucky
Your whole life is being written down?

Tell your child to hush-
They are being to loud
But make sure that you tag
Your friends in the crowd

Make sure that your cheers
Has the boomerang on
Ignore your partner
But make sure to take a mirror picture at the salon.

Starbucks is great,
That a picture of that
And make sure you get some thing documented
With a caption reading “coffee with bestie, great chat!”

And if the sun ever catches your eye
And makes you wonder if there is more
Make sure you put up your windshield sun catcher
Before you enter the store.