I screamed at my mother
until my voice hurt 
I knew I was crazy
but I was so scared
she looked at me 
like I was
her cup of coffee 
that had spilled
I’m afraid
I can get in trouble 
for being afraid
following the dog days 
when you dogged me 
in all ways 
nothing kept me grounded
I forgot about the earth
heart was electrified
need for sleep unrecognized
I walked towards 
who I left for you 
hoping that if 
I slept with him 
you'd hear about it 
you’d be jealous
when you called me
button 
you were really saying 
you couldn’t join two parts 
without my help
now you can only
text me when 
you’re alone 
unlike when
you needed me 
to keep your hole 
from tearing
apart

~

Winter’d wind doth cradle
O’ the daylight glow
Found to bend of spilling fragrance
Filtered o’er the earth below

Why the birth of seasons green
Claim yon saplings cast a’ ground
Brought o’er lonely sacrifice
O’ the whistling autumn’d sound

Splintering amidst the bands
Needles o’er the pines they seed
Following lo’ destined path
Of this earthen soil to feed

Days of time, o’er shortened length
Fell defeat O’ final stand
Feel the grasp on captured breeze
*Deeply held in autumn’s hand

The Girl who reads.
That’s another name for me.
 
The one who is kept content
By reading fictional lives.
 
From Harry Potter to Cather in the Rye,
I read.
At the parking lot. At home.
Under a tree, or in the library.
You’d find me,
The one who reads.
 
Call me a bookworm,
Since I am.
Infinite words captured in my mind
Caught in the neurons,
Waiting to be known and learnt.
 
I read within reason:
To dream. To imagine. To hope.
 
I read for the emotion I won’t get in reality no matter how much I plead.
 
Reading builds up tension
And the urge to finish.
Not aware what’s on the other side of a page
Can **** someone within.
 
To be engrossed in a book,
Shutting the world outside,
Hearing nothing but words,
While patience is on the edge
Waiting to fly.
 
The despair that fills you
When you realized a character died.
The one you loved, the one that was fun-
The one you wished existed.
 
Or maybe the romance,
As you realize who your perfect one is,
Your “meant-to-be”,
Doesn’t exist either.
Never will.
 
You cry, you scream,
You sigh, you dream.
 
When a book is not found,
You are in a Trans, a pensive mood.
A profusion of questions bundled in  your head-
Who? What? Where? How? Why?
And all you can think about for the rest of day,
Is going back to bury your nose in a book,
To find the secrets it refuses to tell you.
To find the treasure between the lines.
 
Call me a book freak,
I won’t deny it.
I’d be complimented, actually.
I can’t help these numerous words
That keep spilling out.
 
But I know I’m not the only one.
Heck, I know I'm not crazy.
 
I'm not the only one that sees
The irony of life,
Innumerable paths,
The alternative
And countless paths.
 
Reading helps you learn this, not only academics, not matter what people say.
 
Reading, to some, is to live.
Reading, to some, is to learn.
Reading, to some, is Cloud 9 when things get really bad.
 
To me, it’s my everything.

I keep digging and digging and digging,
     trying to dig myself out of this hole
But it seems everything is collapsing around me
      burying me with my soul.
      This small shovel
  just doesn't seem to be enough,
     No one thought to tell me
         how life could be this rough
Now,
    I'm just getting deeper and deeper
        and deeper
    with my unwanted thoughts
This shall be my grave,
        but don't put any roses on top,
      I prefer **forget-me-nots

He looks down at his bruises,
The bullies they do this.

She looks down at her scars,
The bullying went way to far.

He smiles,
But the bullying has broken his heart.

The bruises, scars, and broken hearts,
Show nothing in comparison,
To the mental scars.

Why can't they like me,
Why do they hurt me.

These questions come to them,
Daily.

Have you heard these wretched names?
Ugly
Fake
Or even,
Clinically Insane

Have you ever stopped to think,
The pain has made them this way?

No they are not,
Ugly .

No they are not,
Fake .

Never have they been,
Clinically Insane .

But this pain,
Is more potent ,
Then red wine,
On white sheets.

Causing them not to,
Laugh,
Smile,
Or wish to breath.

Bullying,
Don't you see what you have done?

This pain,
Cannot be undone.

"What's wrong?"
"I'm just tired."
I'm just tired of hating myself to the point of self-destruction.
I'm just tired of being in so much emotional pain that no sobs escape but gasps for air.
I'm just tired of having to hide under hoodies and long pants.
I'm just tired of drawing on myself with metal, losing my inner ink every time.
I'm just tired of not wanting to wake up the next day.
I'm just tired of not being able to sleep.
I'm just tired of the ****** noses and wilting hair.
I'm just tired of the stares and rumors.
I'm just tired of being too weak to stay.
I'm just tired of slow suicide.
" What's wrong?"
"I'm just tired."

Rise from smoldering ashes, bring forth new life in a outward burst of flame, and holy cleansing fire. Like the phoenix, I have been given another chance to live again; You to can rise from the ashes of a world that is too clouded to see, take my hand, and begin to fade until there is only an ember glowing among ash, and erupt into a fiery flash blinding all who witness becoming a new you rekindling the flame of life, and beginning again. You have done to me what I cannot thank you enough for. You have given me a reason to rise from these ashes, I will in turn give you a reason to rise from your own ashes, or I will burn out with you.

I.
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-***** sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in the house of Lord's
your hollow voice changing down a hospital corridor
     yea, though I walk through the valley
     of the shadow of death
     I will fear no evil.

II.
I rummage through the deaths you lived
swaying on a bridge of question.
At seven     in Barbados
dropped into your unknown father's life
your courage vault from his tailor's table
back to the sea.
Did the Grenada treeferns sing
your 15th summer as you jumped ship
to seek your mother
finding her     too late
surrounded with new sons?

Who did you bury to become the enforcer of the law
the handsome legend
before whose raised arm even trees wept
a man of deep and wordless passion
who wanted sons and got five girls?
You left the first two scratching in a treefern's shade
the youngest is a renegade poet
searching for your answer in my blood.

My mother's Grenville tales
spin through early summer evenings.
But you refused to speak of home
of stepping proud Black and penniless
into this land where only white men
ruled by money. How you labored
in the docks of the Hotel Astor
your bright wife a chambermaid upstairs
welded love and survival to ambition
as the land of promise withered
crashed the hotel closed
and you peddle dawn-bought apples
from a push-cart on Broadway.

Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?

When my mother's first-born cries for milk
in the brutal city winter
do the faces of your other daughters dim
like the image of the treeferned yard
where a dark girl first cooked for you
and her ash heap still smells of curry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one?
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load     whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense conversations
were you practicing how to tell me
of my twin sisters     abandoned
as you had been abandoned
by another Black woman seeking
her fortune     Grenada     Barbados
Panama     Grenada.
New York City.

IV.
You bought old books at auctions
for my unlanguaged world
gave me your idols Marcus Garvey Citizen Kane
and morsels from your dinner plate
when I was seven.
I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw
the free high school for gifted girls
no one else thought I should attend
and the darkness that we share.
Our deepest bonds remain
the mirror and the gun.

V.
An elderly Black judge
known for his way with women
visits this island where I live
shakes my hand, smiling.
"I knew your father," he says
"quite a man!" Smiles again.
I flinch at his raised eyebrow.
A long-gone woman's voice
lashes out at me in parting
"You will never be satisfied
until you have the whole world
in your bed!"

Now I am older than you were when you died
overwork and silence exploding your brain.
You are gradually receding from my face.
Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm?
Knowing so little
how did I become so much
like you?

Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.