You don't need two of lots of things,
legs to walk on, eyes to see
But if this world needed two of something
it would be two people, you and me.

If you're not being fed
what you need,
find a new cook

I'd like to call this anchoring a vagabond,
those blue eyes guiding me home
Leaving isn't easy when you want to hold what you have
With you, I have found the music in silence

It's always the same story, never a true story
These stories of power and stories of glory
They fill me with rage, they fill me with fury

A culture unthreatened has room to grow,
while it beats down others, left with nowhere to go
They didn't "evolve," they were destroyed
Shoved into the crevices of history and into the void

It's the politics of denial,
A nation where those of color aren't even given a trial

I want to one day live in a country where the severity of the crime isn't determined by the color of your skin.
When with equality conquer? When will it win?

I will never forget the night you held yourself above me, a vision I never thought I'd see.
We trembled.
We both shook of the storm to come,
the one that would quench the thirst of the living, bringing life to all that lives.
You tenderly took what I willingly gave and that was the beginning of no end.

All these toothbrushes look so similar.
I don't see this ending well for somebody
Well for two,
the user and the used

Crawling upright
Days days
You think nothing
of
Time
passing you
You're crawling upright,
forgetting the date

You put on the layers I take off
You shiver, I flush
My face begets the commencement of a rainbow,
betraying any coolness of composure, and I wonder if there is a correlation
between our temperatures and temperaments

You demand but you don't know what you want (except for me to
turn off the air conditioner)
It's the claim without the pick up,
an unspoken ultimatum: don't come
come too close, but let me into your bed

In the morning I wake sticky
Not a **** sticky, just a sweaty sticky
While the stars were making their rounds,
a window must have closed– No. It must have shut.
Air stale, covers compromised, last night already a memory

I reach out, with expectation like sunrise,
but a deflated glove doesn't grab back
I blink a few times, registering the significance of flaccidity
My spirit depleted, now unnerved and unsure about
the plan for breakfast

Walking away you leave no comma, no colon, no ellipses
For all the warmth that pools in my cheeks,
it is you who scalds with your minimalist approach
You are not Frank Stella.
And with that, the door closes– No. It shuts.

To make a mockery out of this would be to bump a bruise
that I didn't mind getting; I was having too much fun falling
to see the truth in black and blue–
I didn't anticipate this chill.




I never got to know how you take your eggs.

I'd bring a lot to the table,
I'd even bring the table cloth
But furniture proves too fixed for you.
You write in pencil and you won't sit down.

In the morning your hand didn't grab back,
and this defines the terms of the debate.
It's concrete enough for me to lose the metaphors.
I say, with a bluntness that can only come from being hurt,:
If this doesn't hold meaning for you,
get out of my bed.

I'm trying to keep our breaths in sync
but yours aren't deep enough

Mommy won't be kissing Santa Claus this year
I don't know who Mommy will be kissing next year
or next month
But it won't be Santa
It won't ever again be Santa

So much change,
Not enough growth

Hearts
     The secrets they hold can break their neighbors'
     The secrets they hold are kept in hardwood floors

Stranger-friend, how are you? Where are you?
Stranger yet, I hardly cry anymore
Just at those videos where people who are deaf hear for the first time
Or one I saw today where orphaned children were adopted

I am sensitive to that which I am removed from
(tabs on computer screens)

What are we but what we are not?

It's projection

Confessed and unrequited love
Who am I to deny?
Still, I will sleep sound

I'd shave a few days to shed a few pounds,
I say to my friends
We laugh out of habit?
(Weight is heavy, let's make light)
Jokes are truths and truths are rocks
&
This is why We need feminism

Last night I dreamt of evil Muppets

I'm not in the mood to be funny
I could
But to make light of you
is to make light of how I feel & I
don't see the humor in that
I can't
find the humor in that

Playing fire with fire
does not have to mean arson
There are other ways to employ heat,
namely by being cold

my jubilee is solemn
for my freedom comes as a result
of your capture
(to another)
I wanted this for so long
only now to wish your thumb
was I under once more

I asked which flavor you wanted.
You answered,
*"Whichever one
you don't"

Home is not a place for me
It's not where I have grown
Home is waiting patiently,
somewhere yet unknown

Tuesdays remind me of you
because Tuesdays are arguably
the most insignificant day of the week
And that's how you make me feel

I know clean water and true friendship
My hands are soft,
And I am ungrateful

What a time to be alive
as September gives way to October

Don't.
Because you can.

You breathed your words into me
You shook all you, we, couldn't say
If a hug could speak it would have said,
*"Sometimes, there are no words."

I'm flexing a muscle that no one can see
Put your hand to my chest,
you'll feel its strain

Judy croons Zing went the strings of
my heart and I wonder happened to mine

Honeycomb eyes
I look not at them, but into them
I see one so funny
And so sad

The actors you hire are good,
convincing even, to some
But I see you underneath the show

Pity the fool who does
not believe words can
change lives

Another broken clock
Not a metaphor

Arctos: The product of an affair*
Callisto, single mom to a Little Bear–
Cronusly confined to the night sky,
never kissing the ocean

You were something to do
like cracking peanuts or chewing gum
(Hands and mouths,
not hearts and minds)
But shells are messy,
and flavor is easily lost
You must sweep up
and spit out

In a collision of
pasts and presents,
I think my lips would
remember yours

You see not the flicker,
only the flame
But I am so close to burning out;
                A waterfall of wax
                slipping through
                your fingers

We are obsessed with our own vanity
That is why closets bulge
as stomachs growl

I am colorblind to all
the dark parts of you;
Somewhere over the rainbow,
we still see what we want to see

Maps so often fail to reflect
the little places that have
left trails along our hearts
Like the hill—the hill where
he rested his head in my lap

You sin me sideways and repent
by skimming your hands down my body
Taking your time taking me,
every whispered word a prayer
My body your holy grail
You found me while many could not
I wasn't hiding hard, I wanted to be found
Wanted to be touched like I was made of the most precious metal,
Beheld like silver

My heart is laced with thoughts of you
And when it beats, I come into
A place where we still laugh and play
And lay and kiss our days away
Sunday mornings wrapped beneath
Blankets hiding tangled feet
Skipping breakfast, sleeping in
Hungry for the thrill of sin
You nipped my neck, I licked your jaw
Days turned in to tomor
rows that faded fast and free-
dom you wanted more than me

I am more than just a setting
for small minds to come home to
Ostracized for feeling anything
more than indifference,
Suddenly the antagonist
of this little play
You'll all be giggling together,
while I'll be laughing alone

I crave that which is bad for me
But you weren't bad, just bruised

               *I think I'd fall for anyone
               with a black and blue heart