I pray that in my year of 20 I am slow to love.
Bitter it may sound, but really...
Those moments of euphoria are so deceiving

I vow to stop looking. He'll come when he is ready. Until then I will work on me. Being someone that I can love before I expect someone to do the same.

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.

Full of life
I can't squeeze a word in most times
He can't hear my voice
He's drowning in himself

It's hard to love a friend and lose love without feeling lost. Staring in silence wishing you could find answers to questions you're too cowardly to ask. Afraid the answer can only break you more.
i fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly at first then all at once

Falling out, however, is a whole other battle.

Dear old me

I'll do this for you. You remind me of how far we've come...together. I fought for us to get here and I will carry us on my back to make sure next year the new me will continue the legacy of progression.

I don't judge you, you taught me so much about what I didn't want to be that right now I feel overwhelmed with blessings to be standing here happy with how we've managed to keep it all together.

Can you believe we've been at this for 20 years now? Scares the **** out of me too. But we've done pretty good for ourselves old me. I can't wait to see what we'll continue to do.

I'll write you letters that smell of new beginnings and fear hoping to receive letters of comfort and strength. I'll love you from places you may never get to see, and you'll remind me of all that is waiting for me back home. It will be so hard, but what's a rock to a mountain?

So many poems you've inspired.
The best part of me.
Words taken for granted
Although I loved and wrote them willingly.
I always knew.

I can argue with you more than anyone because somehow you'll show me that I'm lovable beyond my means.
Even in our mess of confusion, we make sense. Not always, but we make do.

Always proving me right. I won't mind him though because soon enough he'll see how ****** up one can feel watching them pay more mind to someone else. I didn't interrupt him, I didn't throw one ounce of shade. i danced, I laughed, i continued my night as if he never had showed up. As if I didn't see him in my peripheral vision whispering in her ear, dancing pelvis to pelvis. nah. It wasn't worth me breaking a sweat because I know I don't want that much. I may not even want him at all. So it doesn't bother me because on the off chance that I maybe would want him, he would be ******* it up each day. Taking advantage of being cared about. It's obnoxious. I throw in the towel easily, and his cockiness does not attract me. It's amazing how someone can look so different in a matter of weeks, and now I'm not really sure what I'm seeing, but I know I'll forget about him once I've left. maybe then he'll be able to see.

Just when I was thinking my crush was one sided, he asked me if I wanted to dance. Usually I only dance with someone when there's enough people dancing that it doesn't really matter, but this time I didn't care. I wasn't (that) drunk, and there weren't that many people there. I wanted to dance with him though. So as he grabbed my hand as R.Kelly played I felt his hips behind me, his hands keeping me balanced, his back slipping lower as his legs opened wider. I saw people looking but I just didn't care, he didn't either. And before the song ended we left because his hands kept wandering to my **** "So you're just gonna keep caressing my *** huh?" "You never said stop". I didn't.

So we snuck out into a stairwell for him to stare at me until I smiled, telling me how weird I am in the best way. And I stared back until his eyes wandered down to my lips, my chest, my hips. Finally.

It is in these moments of utter nothing I know I am not meant to be here. We are only missed when we are far from home, far from others' convenience. Far, I want to be stretched across the borders,  full moments spent exploring. Take me somewhere where my mom can't call me back in a heartbeat and friends can't stop by on their way home. Away. Because I, by myself, do not measure up enough to be missed if I am within distance. By anyone. So only 1 person will call, probably because he's so far... I just want someone to play cards with me in the grass, walk to the park with and talk about life. Breathing with the breeze when there are no words left to speak. People lack compassion, not realizing sometimes you just need to be in someone else's prescence besides your own. They deprive you of this. Leaving you with a solitude that was once so sweet that it rotted before you. Now brown, once the ripest green. One day I will be missed, that's why I always want to leave.

When given the chance,

*Why do you always choose love over sleep?

If I could remember I would.
Remember who you were before this
Find myself in your face
Feel the pattern of my skin in your palms
It shouldn't be so hard to find your memory
Especially since you keep recurring
But I don't want to remember
No point in traveling down that road again because there's no guarantee the destination will in fact be the you I once knew. I won't know if the journey was worth it until it's too late. I threw in the towel early yes, but where did you expect me to go?

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

one of those endings that hurt because it wasn't suppose to go that way

same song different note

except

He's rare.

Yesterday was deemed the day nothing would happen, nothing significant, nothing memorable.
Then I lost you.
Slowly slipping through our fingers, we lost us.
Staring into a stranger, I saw all the memories that were never made,
yet feeling all the hurt I silenced for so long.

Each day that passes, I am more proud to be a woman.
I witness the sexism I face in the most basic of conversations but women I aspire to be more like motivate me, remind me
We hold so much power.
I may not have marched with Angela Davis or Audre Lorde,

But a girl asked if I thought she was pretty today.
As I applied man made make up to her face so maybe just maybe someone would notice her like I did,
I thought of how this response could change her outlook.
"Yes. Do you like your hair and make up?"
"Yes. Do you like it?"
"I think you're perfect."

See in that moment no man could tell me that it's easy being a woman or that I'm too uptight or take my job too seriously because these girls look up to me. Knocking on my door for whatever reason because they trust me. They listen when I'm stern and embrace my humor. As a woman I am able to tell girls they are beautiful as they look at me as inspiration. Moments like this I am Audre or Angela simply because I am making a difference, shaping young women. I hold so much power.

"They'll ask how you lived without things, when you really lived your whole life without knowing they existed. Deprived some may say, but you've made it 20 years without it, and somehow you think it doesn't matter.

They don't really know you before this. That your childhood consisted of running through parking lots, visiting the same park and still finding it like new, now laters hot flamins, peach soda and hoping you'll get to grandmas house that weekend. Brain still being mocked by the Eric B and Rakim your dad always blasted on any road trip.

They've never been to Hampton street or seen the cars drive by with their bass booming harder than ever playing the trap music that invades your house and makes your window shake to the rhythm.

That's where I'm from.
And somehow we both ended up here in buenos aires. Although I never left the states, never made it to the big city. Never got there.
Where I'm from we're hood rich and this just doesn't happen.
Deprived they'll call us, but i never saw a frown even when we pinched pennies.

Mama explained "there are rich people, and those just making it." We always made it and I'm just glad mama got me here."

Lover of black men and all their
Flaws and glory.

19 year old woman killed in fatal car accident on 76th and Hampton.

5 blocks from my home.

I drove past the scene.

It was someone I knew. A someone that always spoke when she saw me, a kind heart. She was beautiful with youth and so many knew her as she will be remembered.

It's scary. It could've easily been me. I'm scared. These car accidents are becoming more fatal, these bullets are losing names, we're losing faces. God is calling us home so rapidly I'm terrified. Is the world ending? How am I still here.

I woke up and prayed.

because i defend you when they can't seem to understand
holding on because i know what they don't
and it's possible they never will

because when i laid in your arms, i looked in your eyes and asked
where did you come from?
wondering how we got here
when just a week ago i was panicking at the thought of not being able to ever go there

because i watched you sleep and my heart sped up at the sound of your breath
and my skin went cold at your every touch
how did we get here?

because even as the sun rose you wanted to stay in that moment
why are you leaving?

oh, but honey

i would never.

Day 2

For a second I felt missed as you yelled what was wrong with me

Then I watched your eyes roam
Then I watched hers watch you walk away.

Maybe you missed me until you saw her again.

Take me where the sun don't shine, the water don't run, the money don't flow, the police don't come.

Tell me about the land where the black boy does not run, does not die, does not hang, mourns are not sung.

Sell me a dream where our magic glows as bright as the sun, although it's dark and you must use fingers and toes to find anyone.

That is the place my love will grow. In unaltered blackness.

An old soul said he told me so.
He said I'd learn. He was right.
I told myself I'd never wake again to tears.
I'd never let someone else be the reason.
Summer's over. We're gone with the season.
I thought things were different.
Now all I can think is how much was true.
I'll never know. I only know how much I meant. How much you meant to me.
To say I'm hurt is obvious.
I didn't intend to get so close.
And when things got real, we were suppose to stick together.
I believed in you.

I'm a servant to the pages
Intruding on infinite realities to distract me from my own
She's always yelling
For a day I can be someone else
Keeping my nose tucked
Serving as a fly on the wall as all hell breaks loose
It's never over
No book between my fingertips shall prosper as long as I'm stuck in this
madness
Saddened as the thickness that once was the unknown dies out until I reach the highly unanticipated author's note
Not five minutes passed before the yelling revs up again
Like a bad engine trying to restore it's life
I want to hit the road too

Day 4
And I missed you painfully.
Laying in bed missing all the times I came home to your face(times).
It became my favorite time of the day.

Then I have to remember that guy on those facetimes isn't who stands before me now.
In love with someone I haven't seen in a while.

So whereas I used to fear giving a person space out of fear of being forgotten, being lived without, being replaced,
Today I realized if I am any of those things, I would be them regardless if I separated myself or not.
I will not love out of fear.
Distance and time and if it's meant to be it'll be.

fall…
crazy hard young all at once
don't let them tell you any different
your love is strange and beautiful
it is your own
claim it and never let go

Naked
Sacrifice your clothes
All those things covering your heart
Give me your body
Willingly I'll accept and feel away any
Blockade that has kept you from me
I want to feel your beautiful

Wanted to read about black girl happily ever afters and the heroine that was and loved her hero.
My pen once itched with sadness and could only bleed tears.
Needed a manual to teach me how to be me
How to love when it was too hard
Because I was too busy scribbling aching stories and screaming for answers
Not noticing the happily ever after was falling in front of me

I love you.

We grow up and fall in love with ppl and things that were never meant for us. We make these things our own and become more alive than we ever were before.

I rather die alone by choice than to feel alone in another's presence.
At least I will always be mine.
I am mine no matter the day, hour, month, or phase.
Any time, any place
I don't care who's around

I am lovely and lonely
and that is better than that nausea you feel when what you thought was yours turned out to be
temporary
Your heart sinks to your gut
I don't want another person to be the reason I feel unwanted
I want my loneliness to be a choice
a temporary emotion
because I am never alone
As long as I am mine
*always

He sleeps so late.
Wake up, wake up
I miss you too much.
It'd be different if I could be a part of your dreams, see what's behind those eyelids that keeps them closed so long.
But I'll never know.
So wake up, wake up
I miss you too much.

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.

Just be you
In this world of us
Doors closed

Trap them all out
Let's just stay here
No one will have to know

Hopefully they'll forget about us
Just for a few more hours
Have to savor these moments of you
And me
Just being us

Breathe. No one to listen.
No one to repeat.
No one to judge.
Just us
Being us.

Stuck like your smell to my skin that reminds me of where I've been and always want to be.

So wrong its right.
My mind and heart disconnect.
They never really got along.
The right choice never really
Captivated my heart
And the wrong choice never really
Left my mind
But he’s more than what I assume.
His flaws are common for his youth.
He tells no lies.
He hides no truth.
And that is all I ask for.

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

He sings me love songs
Even though he can't sing at all
Because he knows it'll make me smile
As he tries to hit that note
Stroking my cheek
As I hold back laughter
Humming the tune as he leans in
Looking me in my eyes
Tilting my chin up
To kiss me at the best part
And get so caught up in kisses
He just lets the song play out without him

Happy Valentines Day

I see lonely hearts and falling leaves.

Falling, but I am not a leaf.

Where do those hearts go?

Trying to find a place for my heart, she needs a home.

Maybe she's best with me.

But she wants to be loved, she wants to be loved*

She's best to be loved by me.

Call me crazy, setting myself up for a
Failure
But, I told him about you today
Better safe than sorry
Because I don't want him to interfere
He always was the extreme type
The guy that forever remains in the dark
Until that night when he texts you while your boyfriend is holding your phone
Or face times you at 3am and keeps calling because you normally answer
He even calls sometimes when you ignore just because its obvious your not sleeping
So yes
I warned him

"You have a boyfriend?"
"No, but I met someone"

Far fetched but
I've felt more for him these past 3 weeks
then i've felt for this man i've known for years
Because he has promise,
It's not purposeless

Not a way of making him jealous
But proving that someone out there
knows i'm worth something besides
sometime loving

Ever had a moment where you forget where you're sleeping?
So lost in your dream that you forget the bed that you're in is not your own?
For a few hours you don't feel them embracing you or the awkwardness that is waking up not knowing what to do next.

I forgot where I was. Didn't feel him. I rolled over and saw his image and remembered maybe this is where I needed to be all along. I didn't have the impulse to flee. I just watched him sleep.

He rolled over and saw my bright eyes smiling. He pulled me in closer, kissed my face as he greeted "buenos dias". An hour before my alarm clock so we had just enough time.
Loving you is too easy. It overwhelms me sometimes.

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.

It is not without great vanity that a man loves a woman. She sits hours upon days, sunsets upon moons, waiting to be missed. He is inconsistent with his efforts, and as her love swells, he retreats back to the mannerisms that exemplify why women want what they can never have. He looks in the mirror feeling so lucky to live in his skin, so lucky to be so loved, while she looks in the mirror wondering what it is about her that does not intrigue him enough to fully commit to a heart as fully committed as her own. He knows his power, he wears it well.
It is with great vanity a man is loved.

keep me

i don't wanna go back out there.
just to be cold and alone.
just as i am here.
might as well suffer with you.
be alone next to you
even if i know someone else was here
will be here
is here.
this spot isn't mine.
neither are you.

but don't send me back out there.
although i'll be cold and alone
with or without you.

Submissiveness:
       give into man. silence yourself. his word is final. rush to his beck and call when he is angered. we are wrong. man is dominant, and woman is soft. if man is the bone, we are the gushy cartilage cushioning his fall. body dominated and composed of bone, but we are the organs that keep the body functioning. forever being transplanted, while our men are broken. submit.

Purity:
       save yourself for man. wait for him with all your white so you are not tainted. innocence upheld. it is all for him, only him. wait for him to take it all, whenever he desires. be pure.

Domesticity:
        the home calls our name. it is our calling. our knees bound to scrubbing, hands tied to kneading because our family needs us. we are to be the slaves of our homes just as we were to the white man. permanency of pressing collars that are not our own. domestic labor.

Piety:
        we come from the rib of adam. without the presence of man we, ourselves would not exist. for this reason, we worship. we worship to reiterate our purity, to maintain our sanity when others challenge our virtues of womanhood. the lord is our shepherd. we uphold our lord. besides our husbands, he is all that we shall want.

womanhood.

worth me walking at 11:30 at night to be with you come midnight just to be the first to tell you happy birthday.

worth the throbbing I feel between my legs when you hold me, pressing yourself against me so I can't think of anything else but this throbbing.

worth early mornings spent watching you sleep. Feeling you feel my back dimples, as if your hands are fully conscious even during your slumber. Pulling me in closer until our legs are completely intertwined and I have no choice but to give in to you.

You're worth me giving in to you.

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.

Hopefully one day you'll listen to you & i by john legend and think of me the way i always think of you.


*out of all of the girls, you're my one and only girl. ain't nobody in the world tonight...you don't have to try.

When those soons turn into forevers and the days seem to drag along because you know someone is missing. You're just waiting for him to come home.

So we left his room the same your honor because we didn't know how long he'd rip the streets because he always came home. He loved us. He laughed at us, we laughed with him. He was my mom's first born, and they had a special bond you see. A bond that showed me that my mother can love through anything.

Believe it or not it was the first time I saw her sad. You just felt her mood dampen when she came to my room and said they gave your brother 12 years today, and closed the door without offering another detail. And I cried in my lonesome. We all did because he had already been gone 6 months and now I was being told the next time he'd be free I'd have a college degree, a whole new life, I'd know things that I didn't know because he was gone when I was only thirteen.

Your honor I don't know why he did it. He was the first born. The first grand baby, the first favorite. I admit I was jealous at his everyone always had a soft spot for him, but then he'd ask me to do something and I'd do it because I loved him. He was my brother, and not a day went by that he didn't remind me how annoying it can be to be the youngest. But your honor we gave him all we could collectively. I don't know why it wasn't enough. You sentenced our family to 12 years, but you let murderers run free. You took my brother. He never saw me off to prom, never met my first boyfriend, never saw me graduate. He never told me how to be a woman because I was only 13 when you took him from me.