You are a walking smile
You think too much with your fists
You ask me for advice some days
And some days you choose to listen
I miss you and that city we grew up in
I hope it don't swallow you too.

You can still smell
the summer nights
Warm and wet,
The hushed conversations
through paper thin walls,
It's around midnight and the instruments are singing,
My lips never felt better than
when they were pressed
against yours

For some reason,
After you left again,
My insides painted themselves blue,
The mirrors all stared back,
Searched for the floods in my side,
Jarred up the thought of you,
I'm letting it sit for the summer,
Maybe it'll be ready in the fall

I write about love,
I write about my mother,
I write about the early years,
The flowers and the valentines,
I write about your smile,
Pretend it is something heaven sent,
That your skin held all my secrets,
and that we asked for nothing in return,
I write if nothing to be honest,
For my pen holds every truth I know,
Remember this when you choose to forget,
For I do not know how

The old man with the guitar
Plays 6 strings for a thousand
wandering faces
Plays that thing like he knew
all the kinds of hurt that washed
up when the rain came and went
All for pocket change
Just for the little things we still
had left to give

Your puzzle piece thoughts scattered
around dining room table,
when you click-clacked your
way out of our lives, Bullet in cereal bowl,
was not the surprise buried in the box,
Momma says I look just like you,
Sometimes she replaces my name with yours,
I have to remind her of last november,
And all the scarlet in the morning

Conversations of the islands,
Paper lantern illuminating,
All the glories that you are,
I wasn’t even in the mood,
Just needed to be close to you again,
Watching the rain on your glass,
And the laughter in your eyes

Dear Brother,

Sorry again for all you been through
these past few months,
I know my skin got a lot to apologize for.
That book you recommended I finished last week,
never hated myself more because of it.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like
to live without reflections?
How blissful that would be.

Somedays I wonder,
How it all came out to this
Was it the ring of the chamber
The echo of the glass,
Emptied and dry,
Your wine red as his blood,
Both left oceans of rooms,
They left for fear of drowning,
I have not yet sailed off,
Stuck in this fish tank
With no air left

The linens are still waiting for
you on the bedside table,
I left the window open,
letting the breeze and sunlight
saunter on in just how you used to like it,

Picture frames on the walls are just memories behind glass,
trapped like history in a museum,
no magnifying glass will show me where it all went wrong,

I am not the best at math,
tell me what to do to this equation
so both sides come out alright,
divide me by 2, I am only half of myself without you

There are still parts of us concrete
a sidewalk between our waists,
not yet overgrown with dandelions in the crevices,

Note books are drowning in alphabets,
all the right words, in all the wrong sentences,
rivers beneath my skin, help me to stop the flooding

Everything from this afternoon
1. I do believe that moths are just distracted butterflies
2. Butterflies may also be distracted but in a way others find acceptable
3. Have you ever wondered why stop signs are red?
4. Between all these thoughts, your face and name remain somewhere infused in them.
5. There are so many waves in an ocean, some that swell and break. One day, I hope to count them all.
6. My father taught me always to listen to understand, not to reply.
7. These eyes float full and heavy, I Pray the rain holds off just a little while longer. Enough to embrace you one last time.
8. I wrote this list, everything that was worth writing down. I've been trying to give it to you with hope that you will read it sometime.
9. If you're reading this I hope you see it was never really a list, just trying to tiptoe around the fear of losing you. Honestly, it is the only thing on my mind.

Tell the reaper I don't need her
I can lay myself to rest
Just write my name on my tombstone
and that I always tried my best

I'm sick of all the goodbyes
The letters I never sent
Addressed to yesterday's lovers
with words I never meant

This heart is an ocean
No winds set to sail
No oars to row
This heart is an empty water
An island amongst us
The only oasis
Such a paradise at sea
Love is a gateway
And my dam can not bleed

Today, like most days since you left
my bed lies empty
The summer of this room has faded to winter
your smell has slipped from these sheets
I still think about you when bodies come to visit
Mistaking their longings for your own
and their moans for your sweet songs
Hoping that one day you will be the one
opening the door returning to bed
In the meantime I still have my dreams
all of them laced with memories of you

I flew to Miami in the early of dawn
Watched the sun rise above south beach
Made my way to the bar to take it all in
Planned out the days to come
Felt the breeze against my neck
The sweat beginning to roll down my spine
Quenched my thirst with *** and sugar cane
Fell in love with a Cuban beauty
Watched the moon from a rooftop
Cried the stars
Slept all the next day

All this malice in my heart
so much hate in this spine
these tidal wave to drown in eyes
16 shadows follow behind,

too much ink in these veins
not enough hurt to spill them
no time for prayer no more
stuck with this fiend in my mouth
tell me how to vanquish it,

I miss the morphine
miss her warm embrace
I'm all hate without her

You've got me speaking Neruda,
Sonnets circling around in my head,
Rolling those sweet words from the tongue,
Surrounding this daughter of the seas
So I'd like for you to hold still,
And let this heart dance within me

Place upon my shoulders
your two bare hands,
Bless me like my father once did,
Read to me all the stories from
your umbrella mystery books,
Fly your kites back to my heart,
Butterfly strings and locust mornings,
Neck plucked of its feathers,
Rolling those crystal notes
out from the belly,
Teach me the noose knot,
I wish to rid of the past,
He told me to forget the skeletons,
They are only bones now

I have been walking

On the path that was our story

With a fistful of matches

So when I cross bridges 

I burn them with my passing

Never going back

To the places I once loved

Mother may I tell you the truth?
      That these demons been all haunting my insides.
Mother can I be honest for once?
      Cause the truth seems out of my reach.
Mother How often do you cry for me?
       I know them liquor bottles stopped doing their trick.
Mother why'd it all come out to this?
       Our words still sharp, the scars they left refuse to heal.
Mother tell me when I can come home.
       Winter is coming and I got no more warmth left in me.

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

Rumor has it
The gentle of midnight
Has held this simple bed
Lay me down upon it,
Play a chorus of skin
I hope you read every word
I've never spoke

Raise my hand in class,
Raise my hands at football game,
Raise my hand for hellos
Raise my hands to show my surrender,
Raise my hands for mercy
Raise my hands for prayer,
Raised hands at my funeral,
Raised hands on street corners,
Raised hands across the ocean,
Raise these hands to send a message,
Raise these hands for justice,
Raise these hands for peace,
Raise these hands for the next of kin,
So they may raise their hands to dance,
So they may they raise their hands to laugh
So they may raise their hands to remember,
That these hands were raised to rise.

We drove across the country
Back to that coast you call home
Through the plains where
The sky seems to stretch forever
And the stars shine like diamonds
We traversed through cities of machines
All pumping that liquid gold
To the men in suits who hold too much
Crossing bridges over waters who's
Names I am not familiar with
Back to your small town by the seaside
Where we drank till the sun came up
And the breeze kissed my skin
As if we were two old lovers who found themselves once more

Sometimes I have visions of you,
On occasion you cloud my dreams,
Most days are spent with saxophones
that only know how to sing your name
And most nights are spent sipping bottles
that might just drown all the butterflies
you left in my stomach

The morgue is filled with all
the dead faces I once wore,
I am no mortician ,
The bodies have begun to rot,
The men I once claimed to be
can no long pass for the real thing,
I wore their faces like masks,
Played the role that was asked,
Encores were demanded,
I was not prepared for this,
I am no mortician,
The bodies have begun to rot,
I guess the show goes on,
Even with broken things