So much love inside of me
I don't think she could understand
Because she doesn't know how to love herself
So it's like explaining being rich to a poor man
It's something he just don't know how to be.

I stood in the mirror and looked at everything.
Everything that makes up this body of mine.
I claim as mine and fall in love with every inch.
It's liberating
It's sensual
It's healthy
Because I look at myself,
I take the time to learn this body
Love this body
Own this body
Unapologetically
I stood in mirror and looked at everything
And loved everything

And I sat.
In his bed without a person to share it with.
I filled his room and saw it in a new silence.
It isn't as romantic if he's not here.
So I sat.
In his bed waiting for the door to open and he walk in glad I'm waiting for him in this peach gown and yellow socks
Hair still curled lips still purple
Laying just waiting
Sitting in a silence that's unfamiliar and doesn't feel like home.
My belly hungry for him to feed me
I'm a bad wife
I don't cook or clean
But I have the sitting pretty and just waiting down to a t.

I laid on his chest knowing it was the day.
I breathed deeply trying to cope
As he rubbed my back when he felt a tear hit his neck
I closed my eyes and held tighter
Wanting to take him everywhere
Red eyed and runny nosed
I was so sadly in love.

forehead to forehead
Eyes peering over the rims of glasses
Arms around waists
Hands pulling your shirt as I whispered through tears
i really do love you ya know

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'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.

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?

Half way across the country
And he couldn't find the time
For me
To say goodbye or see ya later
But maybe it's for the better
Because then I would've had to believe it was going somewhere
And we all know when you care about someone you find the time
Until next time sirr...

Fifteen year old Alanda got a boyfriend over the 4th of July weekend. "His name is Snow."
I marveled at the pride she had in saying his name. She might as well have had "Property of Snow" stamped across her forehead. And I knew if the opportunity presented itself she would.

"Awe, how cute. I was your age the last time I had a boyfriend. Wow that was almost 4 years ago."

"What!? But you're so pretty, and so nice!" She said it as if that was the recipe for being with someone. As if pretty and nice equals never having to say you're single.
I tried to explain that it's difficult finding a black man on this campus when black women outnumber the men. I tried to explain that many of these men know they are capable of many women. They know it's okay to love selfishly. The same way I know my worth.

"So you're gonna go on
blackpeoplemeet.com?"

Sitting on a bus wondering where I'm headed, not location wise, but where with this fellow I came all this way for. Slowly doubting if this could really be it. If it was just another instance of me not wanting to be alone.

Then the crowd parted ways like Moses parted the sea and there he was.

All for me.

And each one reminds me of you.
I think you had me at hello.

No guilt the morning after.
No evidence of what I’ve given.
No one to know
But the two of us.

I knew it when I woke up today.
It was something in the way the sky seemed to droop
The way the rain was barely there, but it was.
I knew it when the sweat gathered on my neck as I rolled over, wondering what the point of leaving my bed was

I felt it as the image kept replaying in my mind as I tried to scrub myself clean of it
It was in the way the notes in the love song didn't have their usual meaning, but seemed to be the explanation as to all the reasons I didn't want to leave my bed.

I knew it'd be one of those days I'd put myself on autopilot
Trying to silence my emotions from the world
because they wouldn't know exactly what it felt like
They wouldn't know the nausea that is this recurring image
the droop of the sky that makes my heart sag along with it
The barely there rain that brings with it barely there tears.

I knew it when my eyes peeled open today.
Another day passing without you.

I only thought about him once last night
I was too busy dancing
Trying not to sweat
But it was inevitable
The tequila wine Hennessy and Amsterdam just made me forget him
I was too busy not being slept on
It was hard to remember him as I was just stumbling trying to remember where I left my phone last
Just to check it and notice he had once again went ghost
So he'll never know that I let someone grab my *** or my breast...
He's forgotten that I'm a smooth talker
So I smooth talked 3 guys into rubbing my charcoal stained feet
And I giggled and thought **** I hope they wash their hands after
He's so sure I'm somewhere staying put
But I really just wanted to **** someone other than him for the first time in two months
And I tried, but I fell asleep
That's just God telling me not to be spiteful

Once a good girl goes bad, she's gone forever

She wrote her feelings out for you.
She wanted you to know how she felt at every minute of every day.
She needed you to see the pictures she painted of life so you'd never be left wondering
No matter where you or she went
Her poems would remain
Her art never revealed names
But you knew because the words always spoke to your soul
Whispering memories you tried to escape
She wanted to be able to leave this earth with no what ifs or doubts
She tattooed her feelings in a notepad and published them to the world.
Even the naked eye could see her heart on every page.
But only you knew where her heart was, only you knew the pictures she painted because you painted the picture with her.
If she left this earth today, she'd be at peace knowing a piece of her lies on this earth still
The piece that was written for you.

exactly a year ago, i was here.
reflecting..packing
feeling as if i'd outgrown these childish bedroom walls
anxious as to what the following year would bring

its scary how all the problems i had then seem minor to what i face today.
so very few people that remain consistent then and now.
looking in the mirror
weight gained
along with experiences
people
knowledge
and healed wounds

i left these childish walls striving to be great
today my goal is the same

i won't try to fall in love
i won't try to make someone fall in love with me
i won't fake what i can't feel

i will let go and let god.
as always.

he doesn't know that the only reason I'm smiling is because talking to him, no matter the subject, causes me to do so.

*got me lifted, shifted, higher than the ceiling, and ooh wee it's the ultimate feeling. got me lifted, feeling so gifted. sugar how you get so fly?

I'm dark because I couldn't say no.
Letting him kiss my face, my shoulders, my arms, wherever place his lips could meet, I let him have it.
Those kisses keep me warm, make me illuminate as if I am a reflection of him.
So when you tell me I'm "black as ****" while I used to flinch, now I do not stir.
But now I realize you my friend are the lonely one.
The sun finds me, loves me down all over, leaving traces of his prescience as if he doesn't mind if my daddy comes hunting him down.
You search the sun out, maybe he'll squeeze in time, but my sun. Oh my sun.
My sun has a way of seeping deep into my skin, leaving me marked each time he comes and goes. No matter the season, his kiss remains. Tan lines that have marked his territory.
My friend, you fear for that real love that has no limits. You search out something more temporary such as the seasons,
While I open myself for all love he gives.
"Black as ****" you may exclaim when my pretty brown brown drives you wild.
Well, the sun and I have an eternal love affair.
Each kiss just adding more beautiful to my brown.

You broke me, but I am not broken.
I am better.
One day we'll cross paths
And you'll see that I am better
Than you
Than us
I am evolving.
You broke me, but I am not broken.

she said she proud of me, and I wonder what for

Get so lost in all this I forget who got me here.
And she told me I owe no one anything,
But I owe everything to those who share my blood.

See, this isn't only about me.
This is for Thomas, Joann, and Louise that grew up eating peppered hay because they couldn't much afford anything else.

This is for Madeline, Miss Maddy, my yellowbone grandmother with eyes that change with her mood and hair as thick as her love. My Tennessee native that was a lover of molasses men despite the blue eyed blood running through her veins.

This us for cousins that never left me without a laugh or thought. The siblings I inherited because they would never go away, still haven't. Even if the streets have gotten the best of them, when I look at then I remember the times they rushed to my rescue no questions asked.

This is for my siblings that lost their way, but always pushed me to keep going.
  
For my father that was bold enough to use a whites only bathroom.
For my mother that is the only black nurse in her department.

This is bigger than me.
we love you, and are so proud of you.

She walks in five minutes late and no one budges to make room for her into their group.
She knows her five minutes late has set her behind because no one wants to help, especially not her.
They see her and don't trust her intelligence, it doesn't show across her uncomfortable face.

So in 45 minutes she was confused because no one wanted to take the time to explain, they didn't hear what she was asking, brushing her off with a quickness as if she was ****** either way.

She woke up thirty minutes early twice just to attend office hours that left her more clueless, and her aid more frustrated with her lack of comprehension. So she gave up.

She went to the bathroom and looked at herself questioning her intelligence just as those around her already do based on her brown skin, her big hair, her bright lips. She wiped tears from frustration and grabbed her things and left. She knew her peers saw her bloodshot eyes, her TA knew that she was giving up. She just couldn't be the dumb black one.

She was alone and helpless, fending for herself.

It's like a fantasy world.
All these amazing people in one place
Connected because they have 1 thing in common
They are diversely brilliant
I'm in this place
And as I sit in a chair marveled by everyone speaking of their goals ambitions and interests
I can't help but be proud that I equally am as diversely brilliant.
He knew my name before I said it.
She did too.
Another interrupted me as I introduced myself to brag about my accomplishments.
We are young and gifted. The rare breed that is not so rare when we are in this place.

A playlist of all the songs that remind me of you.
In constant rotation as the days pass.
They put us into context.
Music to your ears whenever I seem too far
Whenever you need a reminder

Press play

Tears so warm
And thick
That you have to catch them with your tongue just to make sure you're not bleeding from your eyes.

"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 need to break free.
All these commitments I didn't sign up for
Can't leave people behind because they
Need
Me
frustrating
The best word to describe the feeling
Someone pulling you back as you try to break free
They don't notice the strain in your voice
The resentment in your eyes
Because they're too busy belting
"Need me, want me, love me
Stay with me"
And all the while you're thinking
What if I don't want that?
But that's not an option
Because they're pulling everything out of you
Just for you to stay around unwillingly.
Experiencing misery
Feeling lonely in a room full of company
All the while just wanting to
Break free.

"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.

Sun-kissed skin kissed so many times.
Each kiss softer than the last, creating a million different shades. .
No one exactly like the last. Each worth caressing.
Hair worth grasping, curls that preservere.
Hair as thick as us. Curves worth remembering.
Dark chocolate eyes that melt your heart to stone.
Glances worth noticing.
Flavored sweetly to the core.
Lips as full as our hearts. Kisses worth feeling.
A heart that loves like no other, a mind stronger than barriers we've broken.
Brown all over. Beautiful all the way through.

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.

It's not easy.
We want our daughters to be women that respect themselves.
We want our sons to be men that want their freedom, that respect their women.
I remember in my social problems class two suburban white kids fixed their mouths to say
"Parents don't give them enough attention"
Well, what exactly can a mother do once her child leaves the house?
Once they step foot into reality they are their own person.
My mother has raised a son, and I swear it was the hardest years of her life.
She warned him, she punished him, she helped him, she medicated him, she isolated him, she nursed him, she wrote him, she visited him.
A mothers love can only go so far.
She wondered where she went wrong when she handled everything perfectly, but she never gave up on him.
But it's hard for a woman to raise a man, when all the men around him have been in the same situations he's tempted by, and somehow they've all lived to tell the tale.
The streets have a hold on our black men.
And as much as we want them to learn to love their lives, they never know until its taken away by a bullet or a sentencing.

Just 3 months ago I thought I was falling in love, my neophyte.
Ha.
Now when he tries to talk to me, I'm annoyed.
Where was he three months ago?
Busy.
So when he asked if he could see me before I left again if felt good to say
Too busy

I think he's getting the hint that maybe it's really over.

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

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.

I can't wait to hate you.
The day you don't come to mind
The years that fly as my heart mends
I'll stop reading the poems you inspired
I'll stop daydreaming of the infinite possibilities I once saw for us.
I can't wait to despise the thought of loving you
To be sickened of how you knew me so well
I'll stop singing these **** love songs
Stop writing about how you were and scream about what you really are
Our memories will  vanish with the sunset.
I'll forget the last year as if it never happened.
Because it wasn't real, my everything is still missing.
I can't wait to find the real thing.

So many promising things the future holds, but something always brings me back to you.  Scared of going on knowing forever would exist without you. Everyone's so excited for the new change and growth that's bound to come, yet there's a fear in me that breaks inside when I picture a day without you becoming normal. I guess I'm more afraid of it not phasing you. You don't even realize the effect a person that comes so last minute into life can have until they're being taken away. Im not looking forward to missing you,  staying up all night wishing you were next to me, wondering if you feel the same way. All the change that's happening, but it can't change my love for you.

My departure wasn't a great enough reason for him to break the silence.
I wonder what his reaction was when he saw my number pop up,
I wonder if he sighed from irritation as he read the message and just erased it from the phone and his memory.
I wonder if he felt tenderness for a split second.
I guess I thank him in a way because he never wanted to hold me back, and I know if I saw him
I definitely wouldn't want to leave him.
So he forces me to let go of yesterday
And dive into tomorrow
Hopefully forgetting him one day at a time
Until I can look back and say
Thank you for forcing me to let go.

If we know what pain feels like why would we want another person to feel it?
Why would we be the cause of it?
I cried for you, you watched, you heard.
You saw my eyes light up in your prescence,
You saw the lights reflect in my tears.
How can you pull me in time and time again?
just to let me go
To treat me as an extra in your movie, to cross me out where I no longer fit.
How can you decide what's love if you don't know my heart?
Why would you bring me this far just to drop me off here?
We all just need someone to be there, and I was there, whenever, however you needed.
I was a friend.
I showed compassion.
I sacrificed just to bring you happiness, I showed compassion to your heart.
For some reason my feelings lost value. I lost that compassion friends usually give.
I lost you, but really you never wanted to be found.

Fill those blanks in with complaints
Those silences
Something to be unsatisfied with

"Forever alone" we say
So we fill our minds with the idea that
No woman is complete without a man by her side
No matter how many times he's lied, or made her cry

"I just want someone to hold me" we say
So we let them fill our legs with their bodies
Our heads with love songs and insecurities
Stain sheets and interrupt functional thoughts with impurities

"He's no good" we say
But we answer when he calls
Faithfully
Responding
Always egging him on so we can have
Someone
Worth complaining about

"I love him" we say
When we really we just love the thought
of WE.

I have a craving.
Just for that chocolate boy that left me back home.
I can't seem to let him leave my mind
because when I close my eyes he runs rapidly
through it, me just reminiscing.
Four times I've tried to find someone that is born with the
knowledge of my body's combination,
but they come up short, in more than just one
I didn't appreciate the relief he gave, until now.
Sitting here craving those hands, those lips,
that smile
Ugh
it's frustrating
a blessing and a curse
experiencing you, the best of you,
now i'm in withdrawal
just craving...

You remind me of being 13.
That immature crush that takes centuries to progress because I become too shy. So we catch each other at random, and I'm always excited to do so. Always planning what I'll do and say next time, but when it comes around...
My eyes just look or I turn away too fast. Somehow your arms always open at the same time each day though. And mine always fall right below your ears. So soft those arms are around my waist...
Those hugs I used to pray for when I was 13, except now I'm wearing a nightgown and feel this hug more than ever.
Maybe one conversation a day.
Always at least one hug.
Thirteen again.
Yet it's fun, secretly so intrigued.

I am a **** good woman.

I may not be perfect, but I am. Does that confuse you? I love the way my smile shines when I see my reflection, chip and all. I enjoy feeling my hair blow with wind, or wet upon my back. I can stand **** for hours, gazing at every curve, or lack there of, that has graced my silhouette with its presence over the past 19 years and 7 months. Content.

I am not curvaceous nor too thin. I stand before myself. Just a body that did not ask for it's formation when it was sent from heaven, still holding hips that will bear children, breast that will feed villages, hands to uplift the child.
I am a **** good woman.
I come from a womb of the strongest woman I know. I bleed blood from her veins, bared skin that she's given me. I am molded from great women. Their features arrange themselves on my face, their vocabulary runs rapid across my tongue, memories madly through my mind.
I am a **** good woman
I have loved fiercely with compassion. It is without vanity I have compromised myself to love.
I am a **** good woman.*
How dare you think I am not enough?
I came from your rib! I am a part of you.
I have walked miles for mankind, cried for those before us, hurt from wounds you thought were long healed.
Still, I rise.
Impatient to be loved by a man worthy of my greatness.
A man worthy of the long walks of lonesome, sight seeing of chauvinists and fools gold we mistook as lovers.
However
With or without man I am woman.
A **** good one at that.

April 6th: Our first time

July 6th: Our first I love you.

August 29th: The first time you said I was you everything, forever.

December 7th: The first time I tried to say good-bye.
                           It was too painful, it scared me.

May 2nd: The first time we spoke after a month apart, and my hands were shaking.
                  I missed you.

July 10th: Our last time.

July 15th: The last time we had a conversation.

July 16th-Present: Missing you, loving you, thinking about you.

All I have are these dates, and I find myself staring into space just thinking...
With your face committed to memory.
Wondering if any new dates will come..

Relapse

I laid in darkness for hours, tossing and turning last night
Thinking and overthinking
Rethinking all at the same time
Coming to conclusions that I make myself believe

Then I have a bad day and nothing can quite ease it the same
And for that conversation I could forget everything that's happened and it's just like August again.
Relapse.
Lawd help me.
I know Rome wasn't built overnight.

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.

Day 1 of 365 Happy Days
Summed up with a song by Sara Bareilles


I live here on my knees
As I try to make you see
That you're everything I think I need here on the ground.

But you're neither friend nor foe
Though I can't seem to let you go.
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down.

Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.

It's like she read into my heart and let the cries reign.

Dear

My dear friend.

It's hard not to think of you all the time when you're constantly blessing my ears with your laughter, and my heart with your warmth. I daydream of you often, waiting for the day our mouths will meet, until then, I'll just breathe next to you. Inhaling your smell, feeling you as you feel me breathe. I'll tense up when your knee grazes mine, and over think if it's meant to be there because you never moved it. I'll get through my weeks by knowing there is someone out there whose hands can remove all the stress that piled on during those hectic seven days, whose words can temporarily remove me from them as if he worked the miracle of time travel. Your presence turns my stomach in knots as I can smell you before I see you. "You smell nice." "Thank you mama."

Dear Rosie

I wonder, what kind of black woman are  you?
Because as we discussed various -isms, you refuted your womanism, you refuted racism, you refuted sexism. You are "Rosie"

Dear Rosie
I want to know where you come from. Who taught you to tear down women that look like you, that came from a black woman's womb just as you did. Where did you learn to silence us in that confused mind of yours where you said our opinions irritate you and are worthless to your education?

Dearest Rosie
Tell me how the oppressed became the oppressor. Because as I look at your dark chocolate skin I am curious what you see when you look in the mirror. A reflection of privileged whiteness? You say oppression does not matter. You asks for facts. Well, statistics show us that people that look like you are dying whether you acknowledge your blackness or not. Women like you are being silenced and underrepresented in the public sphere regardless if you take it for face value. Women like us have lost sons to officers, husbands to cells, brothers to jails.

Dear Rosie
Wake the **** up. Each time you slice our tongues from the black reality that black women may not matter as much as they do in this safe space, each time you preach of your humanist kumbaya resolution that separates us from race gender and sexuality, each time you say our opinions do not matter, they win. The system wins. Because they'll use some token like you to represent our mass majority and say "She agrees with us so all black people do too." I refuse to be represented by a peer that denounces my womanism, my feminism, my black nationalism because it's not white enough for her (black) skin.
Not inclusive enough to a white population that has excluded people like me for centuries. It is not my duty to make some ******* feel comfortable with my blackness ,to relieve them of guilt when they've perpetuated guilt on me because of my blackness.

Dear Rosie.
Don't let them win.