I typed out a text to my best friend,
But deleted it because I didn't want her to tell me it'll be okay.
I typed out a text to a lover, but deleted it because I didn't want sympathy to bring him back.
I scrolled through my contacts but each contact somehow foreshadowed an annoying response that wouldn't have understood what I endured in the last 2 hours of my life.
It's as if this night could've went so many ways in so many places, but it landed here happening to me.

I look at the sun and see God
And I talk to him and pray for you
I confess to him "I really did love him ya know"
And I don't know if its sarcasm or not but he just continues to beam
Sometimes even brighter, almost blinding so I squint so I can listen
It's as if he's saying "it's not over yet, he could always come back around"
Because the sun always comes back out.
I pray that you find happiness,
Then I take it back and pray that you find happiness with me.
The sun stares me down until i make my prayer unselfish and I eventually pray I find happiness with or without you.

I look to the sun and see god, and I always remind him "I really did love him ya know"

You mean to tell me that was a year ago?
Seems like just yesterday...
If I could make time stand still
I would've lived that moment forever
Because it was the start
The best part
Being anxious and excited for what's to come next
When things are easy
Yes I could've lived last summer forever
Because this summer is the end of so many things
But everything seems so much easier when we're good, when you're around
I could've lived that first kiss forever
Had I known each one seems closer and closer to the end
Just a year ago...

I'll tell my children about my frozen toes.
How I paced for thirty minutes to bring life back to them.
How I wished it was easy enough to bring back life to those that died in vain
to bring warmth to bigoted hearts

I was cemented on a mixture of grass and ice as we stood in solidarity, in silence.
I prayed as tears welled in my eyes, but I would not let them fall out of fear they would freeze on my skin.

In that silence I heard the sadness, the confusion, the frustration.
I wondered "What are we waiting for?"
I spoke too soon because just as the doors opened, the ridicule began.

We don't have too much faith in our justice system do we?
Follow the laws!
Get a clue, ******' idiots!

Tears stung my ears as I felt my feet dig deeper and by body tighten with shock and anger.
The ignorance that laws define if we stay alive or not.

Ha! Pants up, don't loot!
Racist *******.

I knew in that moment I was supposed to experience those comments. I didn't feel cold, I didn't want to go home. I wanted to show that I am not invisible. All lives matter, and we stood together on that field showing that to some, they do.

Brown, pink, white, tan, yellow.

I watched the hands slowly rise as the people thickened.
We matter.
our silence spoke as it triggered so much anger in so many individuals

*Why am I here?
Then I looked around and was reminded.

Dear Lexi

I've watched you transform from a child to a young woman over these past twenty years, and I couldn't be more proud of you. I've witnessed the first hand glow of you in the morning, I've heard your laugh, your tears, your shoulders as they drooped with despair. I love you Lexi. Because despite all the trials you've endured, you never falter. You make people around you happy simply by your presence and you are loved by many.

They don't know like I do how you pray every night for your friends and family's safety, for guidance, for strength, for courage. You prayed faithfully to learn your worth and now its found. I prayed for you too Lexi, I prayed one day you'd see you were settling and that God had more in store for you, that you'd have to go through hell to get there but it'd be worth it if you just let him in your heart. Isn't it worth it Lexi?

I'm so happy you love yourself now more than ever because you deserve yourself more than anyone. So deserving.

I admire the sensitivity in your heart that conflicts with your motivation. See I understand how much you miss your family, but cannot go home. They are why you're here. They depend on you to be here for them, and they're worth you crying when they say they miss and love you. Stay focused Lexi, it will all pay off I promise.

I admire your love for new things and people.
I laugh at your wit.
I want to hold you when you want to fade away.
I want to be your rock when you cannot be strong.

Changing each day into a better woman, friend, Christian, lover, sister, daughter, student, person.

I love you more than I love myself Lexi.

I'm writing you a physical love letter
Sealing it with the sweetest kiss.
I'm writing you nonstop with sweaty palms
Hoping my words bring you the sexiest pleasure
Writing, writing, writing
Pressing my pen to the paper
Laying your heart between my lines
Letting out a frustration
Creating a cursive you can cling to
love and lust mix on the paper
writing you signing my name as forever.

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

Met this boy when I was 18 years old,
Standing in a line
I'd never forget how he appeared in my dream
I didn't know then that soon enough I'd fall all at once
Fall through the ups downs in betweens
Never forgetting
Even when I prayed to do so
Now I pray to never lose sight
Because you told me you love me like the real kind.
And I knew I could love you too.
Even if it means forever.

I wonder if I even want a response anymore. Because I always enjoy the challenge of being ignored. I'll complain about it, then still call you when I'm drunk, text you when I'm lonely. No response. And I'll go through my day as if I never was rejected. Neglect to tell my friends I had a relapse, that I'd been relapsing for 5 months now with no signs that there was even a good cause to fight for. Maybe I don't want anyone for my own, too complicated, too public, too much effort. So I like to intrude on things already in progress to be everything their missing, that thrill. But thrills only last so long. You taught me that.

"An impossible dream. Others dream that they are millionaires. I dreamt that a woman loved me."

"Cinderella was not written about the ***** woman."

"They would nod at my empathy and rarely point out that growing up did not mean and never has meant the same thing as getting better."

"Everyday she felt herself losing things it was unacceptable to mourn."

"There was love, and then there was suicide"

"She's the wrong kind of pretty, the kind that's soft but not fragile, the kind that inspires the impulse to touch."

I guess I never realized how strong of a soldier I had been until the war was over.
It wasn't until I ran out of ammunition that I looked back on what I conquered.
You were my biggest fight and I fought off the enemy that stood in my way.
But there was always that one barrier I could never surpass.
Each day I tried a different route and strategy, but I always came up short.
I was the last soldier that believed in our cause.
As I stood there on the front line defenseless with lack of ammunition and ambition, it occurred to me I was fighting alone the whole time.
No one believed in our cause more than I did, only I knew what I was fighting for.
Treason was never an option because loyalty to us was everything.
I watched you fall to your knees with your hands raised high giving in.
I was the soldier standing for you, and as I rushed to pull you from your knees,
It hit me.
You didn't ask me to fight, nor did you ask for me to save you.
I started this war, and it ended while the bullets pierced through my heart as you walked away.
I died just as I fought, alone.

Last night I forgot who I was, where I was, what I was wearing, even what I was feeling. I couldn’t feel my face, and there was numbness in my toes. Eyes closed, I heard nothing, saw nothing. But I felt a hidden passion that I knew from once before. My face was being held, with fingers playing explorer through my hair. But my face is numb, and now my lips are too. Disconnected yet connected at the same time. Knowing when this high wears off I’ll be in tune again. Our love will be like the 4th of June again. These kisses will feel brand new again. I’ll fall back in love with my best friend.

class in 3 hours meaning I have to wake up in 2, but I woke up suddenly.
The way you do when there's a streak of lightning or rumble of thunder that catches you off guard. Well, I must've dreamt of you, because I awoke asking Is this really happening? Trying to deny the words soon as they left his mouth. Sitting there with a smile just so he wouldn't think I hated him because he knew the words were going to hurt. Him avoiding eye contact as if that'd lessen the blow. There's nothing that's changed about the way I feel about our friendship. I can't say the same. Because it's 6:02am and I had to leave the room so my roommate wouldn't wake up to me crying, blowing my nose. Just like I had to leave the room and cry in a stairwell last night. I tried reading Warsan Shire, tried listening to Jhene Aiko, I tried, but as I watch the sky looking for something, anything, there's nothing. I'm sick of nothing. I'm so sick of men reeling me in just to drop me off before we make the destination. Sick of me being someone to pass the time with. Something's wrong with me. The tear that just nipped my right ear verified that. I am no ones lover, maybe I'll never be.
I just thought he was different.

*whats wrong love? you look like you've lost your best friend...

Celebrating something you briefly learned and you expect a few dozen people in the plaza, calm and content celebrating the May revolution that happened over 200 years ago.

You step off the subway, walk up the stairs to the sidewalk and it's foggy from firecrackers and grills filled with chorizo. Banderas waving with Eva and Peron's faces. Drums pounded as the people sing VIVA LA PATRIA.

You're alone, but somehow not afraid because even though this holiday isn't yours, you recognize the nationalism they sing of. A nationalism only a porteno could possibly know and love and understand and feel and celebrate. But for that day, you overcame your extranjero and smiled at the kids waving their flags, your friend using two hands to eat choripan, the hunt for locro, and the mosh pit that was trying to get the closest view of the concerts and firecrackers.

When you return to the states they'll remember it as Memorial Day, but you have learned how to celebrate 25 de mayo.

I want a break.
Just a day spent in silence, away from the world.
No one, not even myself.
I wish I could just isolate my mind from my body for just a day.
No one I'm forced to interact with, no one to give a fake emotion to.
For just a **** day I want someone to care about me. To see past the walls I build to meet their needs, and see I'm unhappy too. We're all unhappy.
I'm sick of being a friend.
I want to play the victim for a change.
I don't give a **** about your problems, I have my own. But I take the time to make your problems mine to help you through.
Why can't I just be my own everything?
No one can care about me the way I do, or see when something is actually wrong. But how could they? I always seem so strong. Everyday is a different suicide note that I'm too cowardly to sign.
But lord knows I'm tired of hurting, stressing, settling.
Just tell me why my hurt matters the least when I work the hardest, give the most.
If this is what all of life is like, just drop me off here.
I'm dying in a self preservation society.
There's no one left to care about me, not even me.

He'll want me when my hair falls right above the dimples in my back. Luscious enough to blow in the wind, strong enough that is doesn't fall out when he grabs it yanking my head further back so he can keep his balance.

He'll love me when my silhouette is equal to the coke bottle I sip from in bed when i really should be in a gym drinking water, doing squats and sit ups. So he can play with my lady lumps and compare them to mountains.

He'll miss me when my skin is as yellow as the sun that disappears come winter. When I'm as golden as the sand.

He'll never be able to do these things.

My hair is as coarse as twigs , it stands stiff with curls that he can grasp, but his fingertips will get stuck. They'll remain steady, and although my dimples in my back will never meet them, they'll give him balance. Never letting his fingertips go.

I'm as slim as a twig with 2 oranges attached. No other curves. But he'll fall asleep on my oranges, and watch as I nurse with my oranges. Never letting my family go pillowless or hungry.

I'm as brown as a twig. Never a redbone or yellow one. Just perfectly peanut butter. The in between. A sweet caramel that is a perfect topping to treats. Holding the sun in my skin, brown. Always reminding him that summer will always be in me.

He'll never love me.
Because the media doesn't show us twigs.
The perfectly imperfect that wish we could look like those women our men fantasize about.
Even though we love our smiles, our laughs.
We love our voices, we love holding hands.
They'll never love us.
Twigs get lost in the golden sand.

To Whom It May Concern:

If I've learned anything from this, it would have been my fascination. So easily I become consumed and entranced by those that seem to appear within perfect timing. I manipulate my mind into believing in fairy tales, but ever so often I am reminded that this is Wisconsin. I am not a princess that will one day be whisked into a happily ever after, or so life leads me to believe.

Unlike a happily ever after, my story continues. No sequel to be written, I stumble through trying to regain what is left of this. The problem is that I continue. The easy way out is to stop before things get too deep, but by the time you realize the depth you've created, your heart won't leave as easily.

If someone asked me 9 months from  now if I regretted anything I'd say yes. Yes, I do regret many things. I regret showing weakness that is my constant return. My heart was always more afraid of recovering, my mind feared my sanity. I regret the vulnerability I gave, the secrets I admitted, the loyalty, the passion, my smiles. I regret allowing myself recovery then continuously bringing myself back to the same point.

For a person to give up on you while you still are head over heels hurts. Your pride goes. The second time around, I sit in the exact same position asking myself how I let this happen again. To know that the person you love is giving up on you for someone else hurts the pride more. Knowing that at the end of the day you weren't the person they wanted vulnerability, secrets, loyalty, passion, or smiles from. You came second, and it would forever remain that way.

I was in a relationship with myself maybe. Somewhere along the line I became too bold and asked you to join. I believed things were as you said, but slowly I saw them for what they really were. I fell in love with the lie, but everything I gave was real. So many poems and smiles you've inspired.

These words are my own. These words are my emotions, my honesty. Honesty allows a creative outlet that succeeds past mediocre and catches the attention while captivating the heart. It's my duty to the people to use my story to help them understand theirs.  My story is still being written, and I know there are a million other emotions I have yet to feel. My pen records those moments, each emotion. If its worth feeling, it's worth writing down. From my heart flow, they pour out. My anger, sadness, disappointment, loneliness, recovery, love, confidence, confusion, fear, and most of all strength. My pen is mightier, saving myself from my emotions. I hope my emotions help someone escape from theirs.

I come from pain, but I've worn it with grace for almost twenty years.

I was born to serve my mother
I'm her last hope when she loses faith in all things
I love her more than anything in this world
But the world has made her so cold
It's hard loving someone that sees so much disappointment and
She blames herself, wondering why she's been sentenced to double life
Stress

I want to make her so happy
I want to take on all her burdens
I know my love can't heal all her pain
It can't fill the cracks that the last 7 years have brought along

I'm the only sane child I think
I've heard the same scoldings so many times
I've had my act together since the fifth grade.

She led us down the right path.
She just wasn't there to choose the forks
Thats where some were led astray

I wonder why me?
Why did I make all the right friends?
Why did I do all the right things?
How can being so right feel so wrong?

I feel this imbedded desire to live up to being the chosen one.

He's so tall that I have to decide where my hands are gonna sit when we stand
Do I  hold his waist or stretch toput them around his neck?
And when we kiss I have to stand on my toes so long that my calves hate me for it.
I feel so small.
He's my gentle giant, like my teddy bear after an overdose on steroids.
Strong but sweet and his skin oh so soft.

"Stop breathing."
Is what he should've said when he told me to stop writing poems. He thought they revealed too much, too much imagery, hit too close to home.
It was like I was hearing someone tell me to stop living, stop being myself, someone I had given up so much for already. Hearing this person attempt to abort my aspirations when they were just taking off.

He was my muse, an art written in his honor and I just needed to release the feelings he'd blessed with me whether good or bad. I sacrificed telling the public eye, letting the world know I was in love because he wasn't always sure. But I always was and my art was to reassure him if he ever wondered.

All his wondering just led him to doubt and with doubt the more controlling he became: deleting any and everything related to him in my phone. He'd remind me no was was to know, and would only see me in the darkest room of the darkest hour of the day when most's days were already done. He tried to shake this etch-a-sketch that was an illusion of us, and he never could totally rid the world of evidence because I was still breathing, loving, writing about the love that used to exist. To delete me would be the final step to ending all doubt and stop our legacy He just needed to stop me from breathing.

Healed
The sun looks brighter
With laughter that pours out like honeyed pearls.
With a strut so fierce it almost appears animalistic.
I look without tears
Dream without fears
With a mind and eyes that are healed.
I thank those that saw me through hardships.
I thank those that ignored my pleas of desperation.
I made it through the Himalayas of my lonesome.
I conquered the wilder beast they called Heartbreak.
I sure did.
I beat it ‘til it bled tears no longer.
I stomped the cracks of his heart with a steel heel.
Joyous of this victory,
I stood facing the horizon, vivacious,
Rejoicing of new beginnings and
Potential happily ever after 
My halo gleams in the sunlight.
My back sprouts wings that show
Growth within myself
With a sparkle in my eye,
I rejoice that I am healed.
The war between myself and heartbreak has ended.

For a month a part of me was missing.
At least I thought.
So when I found it again, I was overjoyed.
Life made sense again because a void was filled.
But everything that glitters isn't gold.

You can't miss a part of you that was never there.
There's not a word for it either.
I tried to conquer the lexiconical gap.
So I watched as the petals grew crisp
And his words lost tenderness.
I relived the feelings of before that were  the reason I left.
I questioned why I ever came back.

I watched myself and my movements.
Wondering why I did everything with him in mind.
Just wanting to be seen as imperfectly perfect,
Be any and everything.
To others I was everything and more,
To myself I tried to be more, to be that part he never could seem to find in me.
But yet again the lexiconical gap stopped.
I couldn't miss the part of me I never had
Especially because I never knew what it was.

Summer came and went.
Our summer was the sweetest.
I miss what I actually did have then.
Those constant conversations, that eagerness and anxiety we'd get when too many hours passed without seeing or hearing from each other.
We did have that.
Now summer comes again and I'm faced with the
everlasting gaps that are me waiting to hear from you.
That denial I have when I finally do.

A gap, the lexiconical gap that may never be filled.
Not even Lexi can fill it, not even Lexi can keep you.

Open letter


Dear B

It overwhelms me to write this because this week I've been speechless. So speechless. You've witnessed this as my eyes suddenly watered because staring into your eyes showed me something I had never seen. I always knew, but after five months apart, and seeing that stare through a screen, I forgot the magic that lies behind it and the feelings it stirs in me. That stare alone reminds me of everything I've always wanted and never knew how to get, never knew what it was worth if I ever did. I've been searching for this thing forever. Anxious and needy and impatient. So I apologize to the men I never loved, because I thought maybe "love" was something you speak out loud when you crave their body or just want someone to stay around just a little longer. I mistook all of them for something only you could be, hoping that they could fill the gap I never knew was always going to be empty until you came along. But I never knew until I knew.

Loving you gives me a new life that is lighter, easier, yet fuller at the same time. Being with you, holding your hand, knowing that I am yours and you are fully mine, it cements a feeling of peace, finally. And I just never would have thought as we crossed paths that summer 2013 during soar, I'd fall so in love with that brown boy from California wearing a tank top so boastful of his LA roots. But I did, and each day you allow me to be yours still feels brand new. Five months without you can be described as "it literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs." Well, I'm not Hagar nor you Milkman, and my love is not affliction, but I ached those months to be next to you long enough for pecks to turn to passionate kisses that excluded the world. Waters rushing through me strong enough to erase anyone that is not you from my body, and force my mouth to  refute those who ever visited. "You never had me, I am not who I was then. I am only his, all of his."

It's ironic that you come just in time each time.
Right when the sun comes back out
Right as the seasons change
Right as I'm returning back to myself
It's ironic that I taught myself to not feel you
But I felt you long after you left

So now after a year of stuffing the memories in the back of my cluttered closet, you peep through
Returning despite the spring cleaning
Not washing away with the April rain
My heart pauses, my smile widens,
I can't tell you I miss you
I've become familiar with you not being
around

But it's something in his conversation that lures me in and reminds me
We're different, but for that moment it's the same
Like summer again
The reason I started living on edge I guess
I won't say all the thoughts I wondered in the past year
All the strength it took during the first months
I won't relive the moment I let go
The vulnerability that led me here isn't here.

This is especially written for you.
Out there.
For the colored girls.

The girls that are insecure with their lovely brown tint
in between the deep chocolate and lemon yellows.
you'll never hear the term red or yellow bone
You don't know what color your bones possess

The girls whose hair used to naturally curl but couldn't hold the press and curl long enough to feel like its meant for you to look like that all the time. So you agreed when your mama offered to relax your hair so you could relax too. That way even if you couldn't be as light as the mixed girls and the red bones, at least your hair could be as laid as theirs…

I'm writing this to the girls that weren't blessed with the hips nor *** black women are forever praised for. Questioning why our figures aren't as exotic as society tries to generalize. We aren't fit to be the token when we lack the true characteristics that are associated with our ancestors, right? I'm writing this for the tokens that have lost themselves in the crowds they've tried to fit into. Don't lose yourself forgetting to be you.

I'm writing this for every colored girl that questioned if she was beautiful, as I used to do. Always assuming  everything bad that happened was because you simply weren't light enough for good things to happen to you. No light girl, white girl priviledge. I'm writing this to resurrect all the ill feelings i've ever thought about my blackness before I realized it was okay to be so, in hopes that maybe I can ease a colored girl's mind when she feels like she's too black for the world.

This is for her.
The beautiful colored girl.

I've never really had a boyfriend.
Well I have, but I've never taken them seriously.
Or the title for that matter
Because I've always had deeper bonds with people when there is no title
But I need that certification to know

Now right now
Let me know what this is before you go
If I should expect kisses come the winter
A hand to hold during the last moments of the year

Many dont stay together, and personally from the outside looking in I never encourage it
Then you came along and those miles don't seem as far even if you're half way across the country
The months don't seem as long

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

I can't wait until the days turn to years.
Not wanting to grow up, but to grow with you.
I can't wait to look at you, and feel your thoughts.
Blushing because you'll make me feel beautiful effortlessly, silently.
Knowing you inside and out, master of intricate intimacy.

I can't wait to share monogamy and overcome the challenges the word brings.
Infinite forevers.
Exchanging love infinitely.

I can't wait to find you. Until I do, my everything is missing.

In times of great boredom or great stress
I take a break from my surroundings and find you
My happy place
Always counting down how many more days (27) have to pass
Before I can cuddle with you and PJ.
Counting how many days have passed since I was able to hold you last (23).
Ten days short of two months separating us
although we're only separated by 78.8 miles.
So I daydream
Always recreating what our reunion will be like
They can't take me from my happy place
It's what's getting me through
Helping me wait for you.

Bad habits of waiting around.
Always waiting because no one is ever ready.
I'm the person they stall time with.
Bad habits of always putting up of fight
Just to be broken down.
Because I love the feeling of being brought back up
Bad habits of being the person they waste time with
Then evicted from their minds as if I forgot to pay rent

I'm trying to learn how to be the person they'll never forget.
Trying to unlearn.

I had to come clean with myself last night.
I was reciting the truth I always knew, that I always told, but this time to someone that would tell me the bitter truth. The kind I never would come to terms with.

So I admitted to my friend why all my past loves went wrong and how I was stuck on one. I revealed how i was still pursuing the impossible, making a fool out of myself, but still trying...just pushing aside that maybe somewhere in Wisconsin I'm being laughed at.

He asked me why, why am I so stuck? What's so great about this *****? And I got quiet as I slumped in his dorm with my hands in my pockets, chin in my chest. I don't know. You have to know. Well it was kind of the first time I truly didn't know. I guess after months of defending why you're doing something you lose sight of why you're doing it. I could only say "I hate to lose."

Yeah I added some ******* like "he was my friend. He was my first normal guy." But of course he had to add "so that's all you want is normal? Not great?" I thought about my pride. I thought about my past. I thought about my future. I thought about the paths that led me here.

I had a breakthrough. Now I can start moving towards the light.

his phone rang just as my left leg casually layed on his shoulder, and my right leg over his lap. We were in the middle of laughing or just talking about something he was reflecting on, but nonetheless I listened. I traced the letters on his shirt with my fingers, often running my hands over his tummy and chest muscles. His phone rang just when our conversation was becoming honest and he poured his thoughts into me. He stopped in the middle of his sentence. I felt the mood change. "Who is it?" Although I knew.

Truth be told I always knew, and I wondered if somewhere in her pretty smile somewhere in this world did she as well feel the tugging that was us not being able to share. That ripping that was our hearts whenever we felt he was neglecting his duties, even if he was neglecting both simultaneously. I wondered if she could envision my smile and our laughter, if she would acknowledge our moments to be true. If she'd ever considered maybe love existed elsewhere.

Just as his face consumed wit humor and guilt through the awkwardness, I grew cold. It was as if the tugging had become direct. I felt used and abandoned although I insisted on him leaving. My voice changed as I went into a daze. Maybe the disarray of his belt and pants was unnoticeable, it was possible my smell hadn't smothered him. Meanwhile I sat in my basement branded on my neck. I was stuck with the evidence as he walked away a free man. Nothing connecting him to the scene when 30 minutes before we were connected, intertwined branding each other. Exchanging evidence that would die as it hit the air. Kind of like us. We'd die when reality hit. We only existed in the privacy of my home. That was the only time we could be real. That was the only time we were away from the phone calls, at least that was the only time I tried to be. Then that phone rings and just like that, it's as if we never happened.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that every time I look at him, he's looking back at me. A slight awkwardness, but we never address it. So when he held my hand today I wondered if he could read my mind all those times. I wondered if he watches me walk away just as I watch him ,waiting til his eyes meet mine. He matches my tone that screams "pay attention to me" with a tone that affirms he's been watching me the whole time. That's how his eyes always meet mine.

What are our lives when we leave this place?
Painting pictures to customers
Selling an idea that we have it all together
I wonder what are our lives when we leave this place?
Because we're always here and
When we're not, we complain
It can't be for the money at this point
We revolve around this place
I used to dread heading there but
Now I always say
"I have nothing else better to do"
At least for so many hours I'm wanted somewhere

Then I return home
Feet hurting
If only Blasian was here to rub them
Just wanting to lay
We could play 2K, I almost beat him ya know
Falling asleep in someone's arms besides my own
Wish you could stay longer

Then the eery silence reminds me
I haven't heard from him in 2 days
Haven't heard from my back up in 4
I'm double lonely
Could you work a 2-close instead of 12-5
Certainly.
I'm not wanted any place but here.

When I speak of my past loves my face always lights up because i reminisce to times of laughter,kisses, and bliss. I've been in love numerous times, but I question which exactly was the real one? Because you always want what you can't have...

Sometimes it's like I'm in love with my best friend,
because when we laugh we're equally obnoxious
He's always doing things a husband would do
the simple things
and he listens when I talk about my trivial female issues
and he learns to understand all my mood swings
and he ignores the sinning I do when he's not around
he loves me, and reminds me every time I need reassurance
as to why I am capable of being loved.

But sometimes I just want to live and take risks!
So I've danced with the devil a few times just to try the feel
that they say some men can bring, that feel they say will drive a woman to do
crazy things, and it in fact resulted in me doing some crazy things
like living in the moment
getting so ******* in love you forget what day it is
forgetting there is a whole world because in those moments
the world is you and him
with your legs wrapped around his waist
and your arms around his neck
saying you've missed him when only a matter of hours had passed before you saw him again

I guess it's possible to be in love with two people,
but if it came down to it you'd know exactly who you'd choose
even if he wouldn't choose you.

Long overdue, you probably think I forgot about you all this time. Maybe I forgot how 2pac's Makavelli album was blasting while mama cooked dinner or your smile whenever you cracked a joke. Well I haven't, we haven't. Your room is just as you left it, and in my heart, in my mind, I'm still and always will be your little sister because no friend can fill the void of a big brother. No child can fill the void of a first born, and no man can fill the void of a mother's son. I'll need you for advice, I'll need you for guidance, I need you to be here. We need our smile, our sunshine, our laughter, our prince. So we find it in our hearts each morning to wake up and thank god we're a day closer to your coming home because home isn't home without you.

Far from perfect with a past that's not acceptable, nor lovable, but remember you loved me for a reason. We could make the world jealous if you don't lose faith in me. Faithful is all you asked and all I ask is for a chance to be.

I shouldn't love you like this. I shouldn't remember the thoughts running through my head during our first kiss. But I do. I remember how nervous I was, but how I couldn't seem to pull away when you hugged me and kissed my neck. How cute it was when you laid your head in my lap and watched tv. Like it was normal.

I won't become addicted to the feel of you. The way you try to kiss me when I'm mad. When your breaths become deeper and I hear the faintest moan when I know you're ready for me. 

I can't leave like this. It's only been 4 months and i wake up with my head in the clouds. And to some that's crazy, young, temporary, unreasonable, and a million other negative adjectives calling me stupid. But to me it's love because love is unexpected. You trade in the "I shouldnts" the "I wonts" the "I cants" for the we wills, the we shoulds and the we cans. 

I don't know if we ever will, if we'll ever be able to, if we'll ever get our chance. But I can't regret anything because you taught me that you find the most perfect things when you stop looking.

I never noticed, or thought about him in "that way". Never really took a second glance until I was asked "Is that your boyfriend?" Wondering why exactly she would get that impression. I brushed it off until she asked days later "Is that your best friend?" Where was she getting these notions? She clearly hadnt known. I ignored her until two more said they were discussing how we have chemistry, how we always can be found laughing, the pleasure we have just talking to each other. Always greeting "Hey B" as he responds "Hey Al" .I never noticed because I was too busy laughing at his theory that Vaseline can cure all, his admittance of not showering, laughing at the way he really doesn't care what people say, the way he convinced all of staff I had sharted that afternoon and should be called booboo leg. He always keeps me laughing, even that time I was crying and he looked at me and laughed, just to come back and eat mangos as I cried, saying "stop crying" in the same way he says "shut up".

I never noticed.

I fell in love based on a lie. I never had to face the fact that in the end, when the ashes settled, the clouds cleared, the birds flew back north, that you wouldn't be with me. Yes you're here, but still based on a lie. When pushed against the wall, you took the easy way out. Leaving me here. My love hasn't changed. I meant every word. And I'd like to think if I was faced with the same issue maybe my love would give me the bravery to tell the whole truth. We lie to keep from hurting the ones we love. And you never really lied to me.

God presents each detail for a reason. I never question that, but I question how this will be when the lonliness fills, the hearts mend, the tears dry. But it's my loneliness, my heart, my tears. The only fear of mine is that I will regret the love I gave.

He thought I wrote of fairy tales.
Tales of temptation that would lead to his downfall.
If only he saw that the tales were true and I
Never promised perfect
I never wrote of it either.
I wrote of my passion, and of my pain
Just showing how I felt
I never expected him to feel some type of way
He flirted with my fairy tale
But he was timid with the temptation
He feared the mess our now could make
How it could change, interfere, and influence his forever
Although he triggered it all
He pulled me in for the first kiss
He was his own downfall

You are someone I've never known, but somehow your laugh brings me memories that I wish I could remember. Strangers that have each other's stories etched in our souls before we could be one. Who could you be?
Mine.
BLM.

There's just something in the sunshine.
Something that lets me know things will always be alright, no matter what.
It's the symbol of hope, that there is always a new day, a different tomorrow.
It washes a warmth of possibility over me.
A fresh start each morning, a different forever we're in search of.
Each spring that sunshine saves me.
Something in its rays that gives purpose to my words.
That warmth washes over me and gives me strength to press forward.

I miss you unbearably.
Just take me back to the sunny days where our kisses were long, long and tender.
Moments we weren't together seemed like ages and temporarily the universe revolved around us.
Only us.
We were each other's everything
and a few months foreshadowed a forever.
I never loved like that before.
So uncontrollably, erotically, chaotically.
You were so calm, but got my heart jumping
My body jumping whenever you came to mind
When your body met mine
Beautiful browns intertwining making beauty I'd never seen.
Oh how happy you made me.
That night before I left for St. Louis we said goodbye as if I'd never come back, and I knew I loved you then. Not because we shared a sadness,
But because then we realized that a mere 3-4 days was too long to not be able to breathe in each others works or taste them and doing so couldn't take place without the blessings of our kiss.
I knew I loved you when the morning I awoke in Missouri and you wished me a good morning addressing me as your Mrs, and from that point that's all I wanted to be.

I miss you unbearably. I love you and cannot and will not stop. These memories are our forever.

It's hard not knowing where you stand
Cutting corners
Gluing ends
You never really had to deal with the fear of not having enough
Until you were the first to want more
They never had a child that knew she deserved and was capable of more
There was always enough
Until dreams got bigger than daddy's apartment
Bigger than the tan house on the corner
Bigger than the two puppies mama brought home so each daughter had a cuddle buddy
That's when things started slowing down
When mama started saying no
When daddy's tone started to sound less like baby girl can have whatever she wants to
Calls about taxes fafsas and loans
It's when the excitement about a full scholarship died down and the beginning of why didn't you do more scholarships, why didn't you win..
It's when you start feeling a guilt for wanting to invest in things you've never seen and mama says your money could go to something else and you start getting fearful that she may start enforcing where your own hard earned money goes.
It's when you know it's time to move on.

Noches como estas son las razones me encanta estar a mi casa. No gritando ni discutiendo, no.  La calma de una rutina que ha sido la misma por años, hasta que ser una niña. Necesité esto antes de yo salir para argentina. Necesito noches como estos para recordarme de todas las personas y qué bendiciones ofrecen el mundo. Para darme inspiración y fuerza a hacerme la persona soy destinada volver. Una pieza de la casa siempre en mi mente.