I mourned the loss of a lover,
I drank away the Mississippi
Flowers grew between my teeth,
My nose was bloodied
My eyes bruised,
I know not the music to dance to
I only feel the sheet music in my bones,
Last week I jumped overboard
Tied anchors to my knees
Sunk between the floorboards
I know now the difference
Between the currents and the tides

I am mending this heart of mine,
Sewing together the parts torn away,
The distance I've put between
us was intentional,
I can not move forward
with you on my horizon,
You've made your decision,
Your own path to take,
I am headed for the south,
Somewhere for solace,
Somewhere to rest

When I think of the south,
It’s Coltrane by the river,
It’s the sweat on my neck,
How her arms hold me
like a mother with her child,
The smiles of strangers,
It’s not knowing where to be
but welcome at every door,
It’s the music in the breeze,
My warmest of beds,
Oh how her sweet songs
breath life back into my chest,
All of her bridges,
The waters beneath them,
Carry me back to the beginning,
Back to the orchards
and the light between the leaves,
What a wonder this place is
How could I ever flee.

Your golden frame which I once held so dear
Trickled between my fingers like the unlucky prospectors
Me, cursing the wind, never saw it coming
For days I could barely breath,
Ive been trying to bring myself to the arms of another
But every time I get close enough I’m reminded of you
A scent carried, or a crack in their smiles,
What a fever this is, this thing called love
Hopefully the right prescription will do the trick,
Enough liquor to drown an ocean,
and rewatching Barbarella for the 10th time
is just what the doctor ordered.

I rode my veins like the highways
Got off at the nearest exit
Somewhere to rest these bones for a little while
I stayed too long..
My body felt heavy,
My shoulders didn’t know up from down,
I was searching for something more than what was inside of myself
Maybe that thing I was searching for was
the arms of a woman who knew enough about everting
and not enough about all the little things in life
I tried to teach her those things.. I still am.
Maybe I am the ocean and she was the seaside
I kiss her like the tides, over and over again,
All I am is a mere observer to her love
And I watch the tides roll in, how she calls me by name
Oh how I love her dear,
Oh How my heart sings with ocean songs
whenever she enters a room

Distance is defined as:
"an amount of space between two things or people."
yet even though you are less than a mile from me,
I feel everything and an ocean between us,
The choices made were our own paths
The destinations have always been known
I do not blame anyone for this
But the expanse of this space is always on my mind,
Some days I wish I could stretch my arms back
to a time before all of this, and shake the sense right out of my bones,
and relive those golden memories we once held so dear

The clouds grew heavy
Their bellies swollen with rain water
They stared at me as I glared back,
My gaze split the sky like a knife
It poured for days.
    
   *  I was a mess,
     I was soaked,
     I was a sponge.*

I tried to ring out all the excess,
All it did was leave me drowning in a puddle
of the parts of myself I no longer needed,
My air tanks ran dry
My body felt heavy
I was sinking for years.
It was hard for me to watch the ones I loved
lowered 6 feet beneath the soil,
It was even harder to look in the mirror
and see a breathing corpse stare back,
My insides were withered like the winter,
All I craved was the heat,
The south was a distant memory,
Fluttered away so many years ago
on a night with the full of the moon and the big of the sky
The sweet song of the willow in the most humble of tunes,
Oh how I have grown now.
Look how these bones have changed.

I showered in the storm
I drank the nectar of a dream
Feathers grew between my shoulder blades
I took flight with the angels
Let the sun burn its embrace upon my skin
I once believed heaven stood above the clouds
That if I flew high enough the gates
would be somewhere amongst the birds
Now I wait for the clouds to come
Their figures hanging heavy
Something to give the earth a drink
I’ll collect the left overs in water glasses
And pour them out for all my dead friends
So they too can be content in paradise

I know sometimes I do not meet expectations
I know sometimes my voice quivers when I speak
I know sometimes these words can not fix all the broken things I have made,
I just want to patch the holes in the ceiling
I want to keep the storms away just a little while longer,
So you can dream of all the good you have left to give
And I can watch as you share your joy without a worry.
The song we sing is one that reinvents itself as time goes on
As long as the instruments stay tuned, than this song
will be the only music that I will listen to

Reaching across your side,
you lay your head upon my chest
We rode back home in the back of my parent’s car,
The night hid our quiet displays of affection
I still feel the warmth of you body up against my own,
The street lights passed one by one
A kind of metronome to the hum of the engine
My limbs went numb hours ago but i dare not move a muscle
Because the silhouette of your face resting peacefully was
all I needed to feel like myself again.

The months have come and gone like public transit bus stop mornings
I hopped on somewhere last july and haven’t gotten off since,
My legs wrapped around the faded yellow seats,
Hunched over the rails ahead of me as I rest my bones a little while longer,
The cities have passed by one by one, the breast of the country lies bare and wide before me,
I watched the birds soar as the wind carried their wings from place to place
Relaying the messages between the two rivers,
Both dreaming of the other, so many miles between them, how they swell with longing,
Graveyards bloom with wild flower memories, every one addressed to a lost lover,
Ive traveled so long now that these demons stopped biting at my heels,
So long it’s been since I stretched these weary legs, so much distance between now
and who I once was.

Ive written my best poetry
When my arms were wrapped around your body.
I didn’t even have any words to give
It just simply was.

And my spine has been an out of tune violin for so many years
That when your fingers ran themselves across it
I didn’t even recognize the sound.

Faded white brick
Potted plants
Crooked door
Wonderful rain,
You bring life to this old body
Taking the noise out of my floorboards
Putting the meals back on my table,
So long it has been since life has
flourished under my roof,
So long it has been since this
rickety frame has felt loved.
The rain forced their faces back inside
To this place they claim to be a home,
I smile on as my colors peel with every grin,
Thank you for this.

Glory be to the morning
Amen to the rhythm in every breath
This life has gone and made music of my body
Faces come and go all carrying the same song
A hymn of forgiveness,
Sunday ran over into the rest of the week
I still hear gospel choirs on thursday afternoons,
What a world this is, what a life worth living,
I’m not one for prayer but the concept of god intrigues me,
Still asking the questions with answers I know will never come,
Still counting the days since the people I love have passed,
Praise to the children who are searching for their names
Praise to the ones who stared into the abyss
Praise to the wise
Praise to the poets who spoke words as great as myths
The ones who built cathedrals in the empty of their palms
And glory be to the night as she lulls the world to sleep
Awaiting the songs that we shall sing in the morning

More than anything
I want to feel your touch
To taste your remembrance
This powder on my gums
I miss your simplicity
The tremor in my hands
The longing in my throat
Speaks only of you
I've sold my wanting
For a love that holds me dear
Remember my temptations
When the lights start begging to fade
And my heart starts to tremble
This ignition in my bones
Burns for the thought of you
And the love for her.

Weeping at the strings
Plucking away these fears
Ive climbed the steps
Knocked on the door of forgiveness
Broken windows,
****** floors,
****** me on the stoop of god
Someone needs to know
That we have bled too much
If we are all his children
Than why haven’t these deaths counted
for some salvation of sin
I watch as more bodies show up on the news,
Boys laid out on the sidewalk
Arms spread and bleeding
Crucified to this concrete
Hoping for some kind of remembrance
Who’s side are you on lord

I placed the sheet music against my side
The hot iron of the notes beat their way inside
Every strike of the mallet crushing it’s way in
Such a sad song, what a terrible tune
It hung in the pit of my stomach
Held by the fluttering of two song birds
Both with wings plucked from their bodies
They read aloud the music like an anthem
Knew every tap in the ivory and stroke of the clock
I dream now with earmuffs,
Anything to lay to rest their somber songs
Watch the ceiling as it spins and shakes
The eggshell cracking with every blink in the night
I’ve forgotten what it is to breath, the taste of a sunlit shoulder,
All I do now is play audience to their noise
No longer can I even hear my voice

I'm washing my ribs
Trying to wipe away this ink from my bones
These weeks numbers count down like some kind of bomb ready to break of its hollow shell
We lit the fuse the day those "I love yous" flew from our lips
I don't mind dying a martyr for your affection
All the shrapnel in the end  will be worth every second with you in my arms

These late nights and early mornings leave my mind wondering,
Examining the complexities i leave behind when I wake again,
Something about where the birds learned their songs
Or how the rivers knew which direction to run in,
I've dissected the smallest parts of myself,
Cut them open end to end to see what contents they held,
Hoping that somewhere inside myself held the answers,
I am learning the ins and outs of the thought process
How one triggers another, what a shotgun conversation,
Playing target practice with paper and a pen,
Writing in ink so I can't take back the past outbursts,
Rambling is easy when the mind is alive and the body is deceased.

what will it take to finally understand
the pattern in my lungs
and the reason for the air

6 months without you feels like forever
You are a burning ship, destined for drowning
Watch as you take the ones i love along with you
Trying to shout my way through the trance of your voice
The messages you keep leaving remained unopened,
Ive rerouted my veins, changed my direction,
But the thought of you clouds all my conversations
Its been so long since my blood has held you like a child,
Since your embrace has wrapped itself around my heart,
Some burning fever has left me with petty thoughts
Is it the bits of you that remain?
Or the knowing that this fight will and has always been
A back and forth between the rights and wrongs of my conscience

This blood fat summer has swallowed me whole,
Gulped down my body in one swift inhale,
Living with this pair of fists battering my surface,
One resting on my jaw, another on my gut,
Sleeping under shingles and tin roves,
Waiting for night to settle itself in,
While the others dreamt in their beds,
I wandered twilight streets with a bottle and a question,
Saw my reflection in a puddle under streetlights,
Wondered who’s face stared back at me
An alien memory clawed its way out from beneath my skin
Left a scar for me to remember
The boy I once knew

Ive sailed seas of letters,
Oceans of consonants,
drank from rivers of vowels,
I know that the depths of words
lies far beneath the surface,
Somewhere along its floor

Where has your heart gone?
Did it flee with the rest of you?
Fit inside your carry on as the
wings caught air beneath them,
Im tired of speaking in check points,
Ive been waiting at your gate for days now,
Hoping for you to round the corner,
Back to this most timid of loves,
I'll even hold your bags,
Come home soon.

After the towers fell,
My father went off to war,
12 months later he brought back the battlefield
We didn’t talk about it much as it just hung there,
Afraid of the left over land mines, we would tiptoe
around the room, through the kitchen, back to bed.
-
My mother is a bottle,
Empty now but the glass corpse still outlines her frame,
4 years sober, going on 5 after her brother click-clacked his way out of our lives,
I tattooed the day he passed on my arm,
1. to remember him and 2. to know that today is better than what my life once was,
-
I read somewhere that conversations are like knife fights,
Ive chosen my words carefully like dull blades,
So if I am ever to strike a nerve it won’t leave anyone bleeding,
I am afraid of blood.
I hate the smell,
the taste, the color of the stains it leaves,
The consistency,
I am afraid of bleeding,
I am too vulnerable in this world to hurt anymore,
Every breath closer to the minute i’ll break,
I am afraid to break and i worry about how many pieces I will leave in my wake
and if anyone will be there to pick them up and glue me back together,
Today I am happier than most days in these past years,
She has taught me patience,
All I worry about now is losing her warmth

Head in his books, Mind fluttering elsewhere
Floating back across the atlantic
The breeze rustles the crowns of their golden heads,
Taking what they’ve learned back to the place
from which they once came,
For hours now they’ve stared off into the distance,
Her touch introduces itself to my side,
Our sails carry southern winds,
Making our way past foreign lands
The lights of the mainland have dulled in the distance
And the vast of the ocean is all that remains

My flag is raised white
This field of my chest
Covered in boot prints and gun smoke
Avoid the shrapnel, the left over explosives
I know I have lost the battle,
Ive lost the war,
Take me back to your golden kingdom,
I am yours, do with me as you wish
My heart could not have it any other way

I just wanted to feel again,
I knew the properties of space,
Stayed within my borders
Held colors in my hands,
I know nothing,
I want to be held by the world,
But now I am silent
I’ll probably stay that way,
It is hard to express some feelings

My body is an orchard
Pluck the fruits of my labors
Feast on the life i have grown
They were raised with water and light
And the cool of the earth
Waiting for someone like you
To steal from me like a child
Wide eyed and searching
I have no remorse, all i can do
is grin wide from cheek to cheek

When Baltimore was burning
My body began to shake
When Baltimore was burning
The roots of my father were unearthed,
Unsure looks from classmates
I promise I didn’t want it to turn out like this
I promise my children will be raised proper like,
I promised myself that my voice will be one to sing
the most caring of hymns.
When baltimore was burning
Parts of myself were charred and forgotten
The white of my skin was a question of a lightbulb,
I still haven’t gotten the answers
to all the problems I’ve thought out in my head

You were an architect to my fears
Knew the walls that would cave in on me
the corners I sought shelter in
Built cathedrals out of my vices
Monuments for my shortcomings
Raised cities, lined the streets with my body
Named the neighborhoods after the parts of me
I wished to forget
All the good in me is timber inside a burning building
Making ashes of the man I once took pride in being,
You hold all the blueprints,
Know my alleyways and sewers,
The backstreets and corners that make my chest,
I have no more steel to make this foundation stable again.

There is this thing
Some kind of shadow or cloud
It hangs behind me
Wraps around me as I sleep
This fog of a noose,
Wanting me to whither
Weep with willows
Cry myself rivers
I've been steadfast for years
Fighting off the best of me,
So that the little of my spine
Will one day sleep sound
And that this fear of defeat
Will flee from my chest