***** with brownness that I can't wash away.
Born into a filth that made me unhygienic before my feet could touch the ground
Before my hands could grasp objects other than my mothers hand or chest or face
Guilty before the gavel was struck
Before the cell was locked
Before the siren rang off
Guilty of brownness that is not innocent until proven guilty
Rather brown until proven worthy
Brown until the grave
assigned to us before we have a chance to see the world and become who we're suppose to be
Graves are becoming just as crowded as those ships they brought us here in
Stuffed and cramped like the cells they keep us in
Piling bodies on bodies while blood cells fill the avenues we march in
Graves over crowded
Hearts over hurt
Innocent with a guilt I can't wash away.
Our mothers can't hold us now.

And I'll never get used to hearing "I love you" each time feels like the first, and finally I can say "I love you too"

And when you say "tell me you love me, I just need to hear it" I'll always mean it. Each time meaning it more and more.

I've loved you since summer hellos and winter goodbyes.

my black arms
black enough to be infinite
all colors combined to create blackness
the darkest of all things

these black coils that sprout out
sprout slowly
sprout curly
sprout insecurely
bouncy like the wires that we find under trampolines
bouncy bouncy bouncing
on these springs that sprout of my head
she pulled one and watched it spring back to its original position

lips brighter than roses
pink with the kiss of illumination
radiating with fullness as they sit on the blackness that is my face

"está es tu replica"
my twin whose skin is the blackest
her hair made of wires
lips pink as carnations
her dress the color of the sky
I find irony that her dress is day and she is night

A figurine that is my twin
A reminder this is what she knew me as before she knew me
This is who I'll be after she's known me

I am black the infinite night sky that is infinite enough to intrude on day

I find you over and over
Your face in my palms
In the walls
In the windows
I daydream of you when Spanish becomes romance and romance is you.
I twist this ring until it's so fixated on my finger a weight is lifted when I take it off. I feel light and strange because each time I twist this ring I am more and more yours than I was the minute before. Wondering how can I love you more than I already do?

I've loved you since before I knew what love looked like. But I had faith God wouldn't bring you if I wasn't ready. So I've loved you ever since because God kept us in touch and when I asked you what your story was you let me in and every night you beared a new piece. I've loved you since our intimacy was merely behind a screen and before we both knew what chemistry could grow to be. Ive loved you since you taught me how to be bare, fully clothed and still naked from all the things I thought I needed to be to be loved. When all along I just needed you.

Of all the things I dreamed for,
I never knew you were one of those dreams.
Somewhere hidden in my cranium behind reality, could've been, and meant to be.

I'd do it all over again
if it guaranteed each time we'd end up here.