How was I supposed to know
I thought loving wasn't possible, you coax the words
Fingers down my throat
I've been real
Really faithful, love made was intense but tasteful
When we was dead broke you were all sugar and magnolia
I was beyond grateful
Got a lifetime to waste
I always make it home
For home grown beauty I say grace across the table
Thank the gods who stopped production mode when they made you
Broke the mold
Long legs and living proof that falling comes graceful
When you fall for the soul
Always on the bill withers tip every time you gone
Thinking this explains the blues
So I wrote you a song, you always said Sunday's are best spent best dressed I said we should drop it all
You should share, cuz you so blessed
Playing the players role was hopeless, you had it like a bird in the hand
But refined
Compared..to what?
Woman know she finer, I was grinding when she met me letting the street speak for my pride
The stop signs in eyes shine when they stumbled across my bride
Compared..to what?
She know she shine, touches the very edges and softens it like the coastline
How was I supposed to know
I thought devotion was another word for impossible, I was defied in my youth
Abandonment until I came across you
Mixed intrigue with want too
You were a Phoenix from the projects
Well known dance major
In bostons college of art, I was just starving and posturing hard
You broke or splintered the mask and designed the new facade
Unequaled
Compared..to what?
You are the light that rose just to blind
That's a far cry, long way from where my father told me marriage is suicide
But that's what you can expect from absence
She said, she'd like to take my name
I said
You can have it
Keep it for the rest of you're life

icarus—
curiosity is a fire,
roaring inside your ribcage.
you wonder, and you want,
and the tips of your fingers
stretch themselves
towards the sun—
warm, then hot,
then scorching,
and finally, you plummet.
icarus—
they call you a tragedy,
but tell me,
did your blood not run
liquid gold,
in that moment
the sun’s heat
embraced you?
didn’t the touch
of pure, pure opulence
leave stardust
and embers
embedded in
your skin,
a heavenly dust
adorning your burns?
icarus—
in the sky, as you
dive towards earth,
you glimmer
like glory.
icarus—
charred angel,
did you not feel divine
in the seconds before
you fell?
icarus—
wasn’t the warmth
worth what followed?

I felt like smooth sweet tea
poured into brittle porcelain
it was a sense of, I would say
a guilty, blue satisfaction-
of being consumed by others
I'll be gone, as the empty cup
hits the table, 'ting!' as the
sound strikes the white noise
the windows to the noisy world
all gone, shut again, no more
to my eyes, to my ears, no more
I have become the bitter stain
left on white beautiful porcelain
easy to spot, and wipe the last of me
as I sink into the terrible drain
I shall never be seen again
this time, this is the last change
life is lost to peace, that ends pain

-Kaya

Grizzly bear lay on the library floor.
Just his skin, really.
The bratty kids spilling red fruit punch on him.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the taxidermy shop with its formaldehyde odor
And jars of glass eyes.
A fat man with a dull knife
Ripping his flesh from his bones.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to when he was heaped onto the cold metal pickup bed
Piled crossways on top of two dead deer
His large head flopped on a cooler of smelly fish,
Exposed to the wind and snow
For hours.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the moment when bullet hit bone,
When his crystal clear vision darkened.
When his mighty roar was silenced
Forever.

He didn't like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and he dreamed back.

Back to the crisp fall mornings
Standing in the river
Feasting on salmon
Tall and proud
The master of his domain.

He liked being this way.
He dreamed hard to try to stay there.

My heart starts beating
when I think of your name.
It beats even faster when I
think of your husband.

Forgive me it's been too long since I've seen the face of another man.
Kissed new lips or held foreign hands.
I can feel your heart racing, I think mines stopped completely.  
Fight or flight tells me to run, or fall for you so deeply.
You hold my face, stare hard into my panicked eyes and tell me to relax.
Not two hours ago I was leaving my home, bags packed.
My mind races with thoughts out of my control.
I'm overwhelmed, drowning as my kiddie pool of emotion reaches an overflow.
Throat tightens, breathing quickens, I open my mouth wide to cry out.
He holds me close, stroking my hair, he tells me he'll show me what "real love is about".
Do I leave and tell him goodnight?
Do I surrender myself to him and feel unknown delights?