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.

Come all you sinners and saints
Just as you are nothing more or less
Rest your weary bones inside for awhile
Just for a moment we can make holy this
basement, hall, or parking lot
No priest or preacher needed for these hymns
Just hearts filled with hurt and souls looking for salvation
Look around,
All crooked halos and broken wings
Serpent tongues and crocodile tears,
Lay down your arms
Surrender for a little while
Make your words worth it
Hold tight to these stories
Remember from once you came
Come and go like summer storms
You saint or sinner
Or someone in between

Sweat out the best of me,
them lessons are bruises on my collarbones,
I am starving, hungry for the answers
searching for the right reasons
and the wrong women to share my nights with,
synthetic synonyms and rosary beads around my neck
kiss your letters off into the wind,
these apologies are nothing but repetitive

You are a simple being,
Feeding your dreams to the mouths of your children,
Wondering how far must the sidewalk lead,
Never have you bit the hand that feeds you,
You are a simple being,
One wide-eyed and thinking,
This was a long way you came,
From the place you once called home

Scars on my knuckles,
too many fist fights,
both eyes blackened
from all of the beatings,
stuck on the rope
looking for an escape,
blue from the bruises,
I can not last another round

How this journey has unfolded
The paths we have chosen to take
I remember back to the beginning
Back to those years in Maryland
Where the coast was my most holy of churches
Those springs filled with cherry blossoms
falling from limbs like sweet cherub tears
I remember the southern chapter
That blanket of a place they call the south
Louisiana was a wild and untamed beast
The songs ran with the wind
as the rains came and went
I fell in love with a woman cradled by the mountains
Solace in the sweat that deep heat can bring
Today I am still writing
Just as I was in the beginning
Penning these chapters like a letter to a future self
Documenting this journey as if every step
was a foot in an uncharted land

Your body royal,
Crowned by ancestors,
Upon this throne,
Make yourself a kingdom,
Invade my heart,
Prosper in a golden light,
Rule ever so softly,
This land of mine

I'll write my sweetest words
My most heartfelt letters
All to the silence in the room
I am tired of bleeding this body
And playing my heart strings
To an empty audience
I'm still hurting somewhere
And my body ain't bleeding
Those love letters no more

When you speak aloud,
Fire your words as nameless bullets.
Without a face or destination,
simply burning through the air
in search of a target

On the night before spring,
All the windows were open,
Curtains billowed with february
waiting for the sound of morning
to trap itself inside

When the soil was ready,
we ran across the lawn
searching for salamanders
to catch with cages of fingers,
Gawking at the zoo in our palms
hoping that we too could bathe
in the moonlight and sleep on the stars

These time capsules
Filled to the brim with colored memories
Each one addressed to a day
Taken at meals or in-between them
I am starting to dissolve
They are too
Seeping into my bloodstream
These little capsules of dreams
Break them open
Breath them in
Maybe I will see the ocean
when the bottle is empty

Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I know about these demons
All of them by name
The vices they have gifted me
Conversing with my addictions
Making plans for the future
And tightening the chains

Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I've identified all the leaks in my hull
Letting the Atlantic rush on in
Duct tape can not fix every hole
That you have left in me

Today I stopped believing I was a good man
I do not care about this body anymore
Wishing to rid myself of it
Liberation will be the song I shall dance to
Once this heart has forgotten it's rhythm
And my blood pumps in tune again

Fate has a pen name
She smiles wide as an ocean
Dances with the moon
She's got the whole world
wrapped in her arms
Fate gives away parts of herself
Sometimes to a fleeting lover
Other times to a silent morning
Fate writes me letters
I'm just trying to figure out
Which address is the right one

Some nights we love silent
Just knowing that these hearts
Exist to call the other by name
Other nights we love loud
Indulging in these earthly desires
The taste of your inner thigh
The warmth of our skin
A symphony beneath sheets
With you this heart knows
No greater joy
With you this heart feels
Time stays still

Such a complicated thing.
I just want to write of how the waves move me,
How I have slept for years to the cricket’s song,
When my eyes flood as the fields did the same,
How my hips move when the horn begins to play,
The feeling when the eyes are heavy and the belly full,
I’ve been trying to learn the most direct path to these complexities
But the roads always blur, and my throat does not know the words

Louisiana drowned itself when those clouds came to stay
All the photographs sank between floorboards
The street signs dotted corners like buoys,
That way we could still remember where our doorsteps stood
The interstates became names of rivers,
And the side streets creeks.
Those iron birds removed bodies with their
Metal wings spinning above,
But the horns still sing
And the people still smile wide and full of hope

White boy afraid of the mirror
White boy hates history class
White boy wears hood up, always
White boy afraid to go outside
White boy is all apologies
White boy prays for baltimore
White boy doesn't talk much
White boy thinks he has no right
White boy ashamed of who he is
White boy sorry for his skin
White boy can't explain what he is feeling
White boy can't sleep no more

It has been a year now
Since my vices ran rampant
I flew like Icarus among the clouds
Saw god or whoever resided there
Fell to earth in a crater of who I once was
Burned for days amongst tubes and doctors
Sweated out the best of me
prayed to whomever would listen
Reminded myself of what I was
And chose to be different

I gave my voice to a pen
It wrote for me everything that I couldn’t speak of
The questions I was looking for
and the answers I already knew
The paper was my only surrender
Something I am still learning to do

Write a poem with a song in mind. The thoughts, people, places, feelings, that come to mind whenever you hear it. #songchallenge in the tags so we can all read and share. Don't forget to say which song it is too! Love this community, hope you all are well.

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.

The open window beside our bed
Welcomes the light of southern moons
Highlighting the shape of your body
The hill of your waist to upper thigh
I want to drink the moon
From every inch of your form
Hold you in the night as if this world
Stands still just for the two of us merely for a moment
As the smell of the wind and the sounds of the magnolias rusting in the distance float on in
My eyes fall heavy in this paradise of a bed

It's been weeks now
The wantings have gotten the best of me
The taste of your skin so golden
Every twilight bares the thought of you
I promised myself not to give in
But that oath is long gone
So I'll retain my distance
Leave no trace behind
The path to our encounters
Remain hidden in the leaves

Momma says to be honest with these
Says all your prayers should be that way
Well I've been burning myself to see the sun
Hoping that the sun will come one day
That one day I will be stained glass
Colors will burst from my insides
And we can call that day sunday
My prayers will be honest than
To the God that forgot our names
to remember only his own
And when that God cries forgiveness
I'll take back the times I cursed his name
For the way he snatched those I loved
right out from between my arms
When that day comes
I will pray more honest like

I've grown tired of love poems,
They are all dried up ink,
Forgotten valentines,
Stale ideas to think,
Upon receiving your letter,
I remembered the weather,
Care package bouquets,
and I hope you get betters,

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.

The brook keeps babbling away,
Telling the stones to hold their tongues,
The water to slow down for a bit,
For these days are long
and the nights feel ever so empty,
Daisies have craned their necks over the sides
Hoping to befriend whatever breathes below,
And the brook babbles away,
Telling all the secrets that sailed its spine,
As they pass by the banks
And wave goodbye to those still standing