My father was always one notch on his bedpost close to hypocrisy
and my mother was a couple notches shy of getting there-
she never dabbled in multiracial relationships like my father did.
You see when I was growing up
I had a crush on the little mixed boy down the street
and I was afraid of telling anybody
but it wasn't because of his skin-
but because ew, feelings. Right?
I never saw just black and white,
skin color was never a forefront
it was all just background noise-
to me it was all just gray.
There's no handbook about who you connect with
and there's no color scheme that's gonna show you who to trust.
I realized that because before I had a boyfriend
No black people where allowed at my house
not because they didn't want me hanging out with black people-
but because they were afraid I would end up with one.
Segregation was my father's second nature
and I would like to blame it on the era he was born-
even though I'm really not so sure.
And now that I have a boyfriend everything is fine...
It's like in their mind the more melanin the more sin
I'm sorry father and mother but there is no color coordination
to this thing we call life-
I never grew up afraid of colors because I loved rainbow-
I never grew up scared of the skin that wasn't like mine
just because of all the stories these white folks like to tell-
But the funny thing is
it was a white male, and a white female that molested me....
And my parents probably would've warned me
about the mixed boy down the street-
so really? who should we be afraid of?

Everyone. Equally.

Take it away-
Every emotion and strong-will I possess
throw it out the ******* window, as you jump-
wishing your insides would rot in inverse
as you yell back at me to do something-
but you're already falling to your death
and I can't stop the car because its leading me
to my future and I can't stop time
because I'm not ******* god
and I can't take away the hurt though I wish I ******* could.
I. Can't. Do. Anything. Anymore.
It's funny because these words kiss the page
like an abusive uncle that kissed your mother
against her will but you can't tell anyone
because you're trying to keep what's left of your family together-
It's ink, it's permanent and other people have experienced it to
but not like you, oh **** never like you.
So I take what was mine from the ******* start
and hope I can turn something so tragic
into this thing we like to call art, and poetry
but it seems to me I need a ******* lobotomy
because I don't know what to think or feel or do anymore..
All I know is that I had something once,
held it close to my heart like a pistol
and let everyone witness me playing russian roulette with myself
as the clock strikes game over and the gun is fully loaded
they watch as I pull and pull the trigger until I have nothing left
until blood shed is all over the kitchen floor
and you start to wonder how you're ever going to eat there again
But everyone around you is watching in awe
and saying "let me try".
But little do they know the bloodshed is staining those tiles now
and you're having trouble getting back up....
You left a bloodstain on your new t-shirt
and it kind of represents your blatant disregard
and my foolish naivety thinking things would turn out different.
"Maybe this time, I can help"
but as my face hit the floor and my memory left me
I woke up in a cold sweat, shaky and hazy
and I realized this time was different-
I was shaken up for three days after that
not knowing which house was mine to own
not knowing which words I always chose-
my mind blank on a page for the first time
in weeks, and months and days
you subconsciously shook me
paralyzed with fear, I was crushed by the weight.
So I come to the page that has been my pistol
and put that to my chest once again
but everyone thinks this is just a trend
just something we all do for pretend or therapy-
not me, this is somewhere between mourning and the purgatory.
So take it away, I never had it anyway.

I'm tired of written apologies you don't have the guts to speak-
Poets use words and letters and metaphors to explain how they feel
but you, you use a paint by numbers
and it seems to me I've ran out of every color
so now you're just a blank page staring back at me
tempting me to write my own apologies
because I somehow feel bad for you having to say sorry.
These days can become the flat tire on your car on the way to a funeral
but I will always be there to bring you light
even when you take your lack of apologies
and use them to knock out the lights on the ceiling fan-
I will wait in the dark until you decide to change the bulb.
But you never do-
so I'm left there picking up shards of lightbulb
as my hands bleed and spell out your apologies
and I look up at you and ask for help
but it seems you are stuck inside your own mind
your own world until the mess is cleaned up
and the light returns and then I'm stuck here apologizing
for getting blood stains on your t-shirt.
I understand dismay, and the ability to be distraught-
but I don't understand being someone else's peacoat
there to keep you warm until its no longer needed.
I just want to be appreciated.

I want to trace sonnets into your fingertips,
because it's like poetry when you touch me.
I will let your smile be a blueprint
for the outlines of my heavy heart
so you know exactly what's been broken from those before you
so you know just what only you can rebuild.
I want to watch our world burn
and then rise again from the ashes at our feet
making rose gardens and hydrangeas out of the rubble
until the world that was once just ash and dust
becomes forests, fields and valleys of what can be-
I want to grow with you.

I try to speak through the silence
try to make a sonnet out of all the eulogized soliloquies
but all that I can seem to muster are endless apologies
and I keep asking myself what I could've done better
to make you want to stay longer
but I can't give myself an answer when I am choking
because the air in the room is being harnessed
by the elephant in the room
that's weighing on everyone's chest-
I want to say this is for the best
that those words you spoke to those you love
were just a cry for help and not an earth shattering insult-
I want to be sure
that the body you have made for yourself isn't empty
that you didn't spend your days trying to hollow yourself out
with full bottles that you made empty because they seemed like home
because you thought they resembled who you were
until they were all down the hatch and you realized
this is who you are now, empty empty empty.
******* why didn't I do something?
why didn't I wrap my hands around this insanity
and use all my strength and give it to you
because I would rather be empty
than have you laying helpless and alone
to where you feel like the wrists you possess
are your only logical way out of this ******* mess.
Please, don't leave me here.
Lord knows I have spent my days writing my own obituary
thinking about the things my mother would say about me
and maybe even my friends would write about me
when they were done hating me for leaving them
but I never thought the script would flip
and I would be sitting here writing this
and thank god this isn't your obituary
because we've all made mistakes
we live, and we learn from everything we do
and this has taught me what a precious gift life is.
How you can be hanging by a thread-
wishing in the dead of the night
you were dead like that night
and how it all comes full circle again.
My mother tried to **** herself once-
end her life like it was a shirt string you didn't care for anymore
but little did she know that string connect to a bigger picture
and when it was pulled everything else just fell apart..
You are a delicate piece of cloth
wash in cold water on the days you feel low
so you don't shrink yourself any lower.
There will be days when the spin cycles
you find yourself accustomed too
will become tornados and hurricanes-
but even at the coldest of times
you will find warmth again.
There will be warmth again.

When I was younger,
I always wondered why my mother was so easily scared
even at the slightest unexpected instance-
She jumped.
Jumped like her bones were no longer her home
and she was running away from the skin she was hiding in.
As I grew older she told me the tales of how
men had made her skin their throne
and took turns making her body their own-
bruised eyes became her routine
as the Xanax she didn't even realize she was being fed
filled her bloodstream, it became her heart-strings.
The heartache of many men filled my mothers eyes
and I realize now why stability isn't in her nature much.
So now as I enter a room I make sure these feet
hold steady on the ground to make a bold entrance
so she hears me coming every time.
I make sure these hands never grip hers too soon
so she knows I'll be there when she needs me too.
I still realize how she jumps when I forget
that her bones are still trying to rebuild themselves.
I still realize how her heart stops-
and how she went through hell to find the home in her own bones.
I still realize how even her own child
can make those bones feel like breaking again
as the paranoia of a troubled past sets in..
Even nowadays her bones will still sometimes shake at the sight of me-
I realize now, how it feels
to be a ghost.
And that's okay,
Because she believes in me-
Even on the days no one else does.