You thought you could spread your legs
to the first stranger who spoke your name,
but even then you were so ashamed of your skin,
the marks and scars of the body you were born in
that you eloped.
You never came back.

You asked what you had to do to be loved.
To be wanted.
It was all you've wanted.

The first boy whom you confessed to smiled, amused,
and asked, so?

It's the question you've been trying to answer all your life.

so?

Your first kiss was at eighteen, ugly and untouched.
He only wanted your body,
but you've forced yourself to think otherwise.

Oh, love.
It is so sad to live in your own body,
to watch him watch her,
watch her link her arm around you and starts
telling you about her problems

Problems.
oh, you had them too.
but you were just a listener,
with ears always, always open.
you felt like a mute. your mouth filled with sand.

Do they know how much you love yourself?
You did.
You had to.
You were trying, but no. You were not enough.

At night he is always there, in your bed.
Your brother, i mean. Whispering how much he loves you.
But in the morning he is gone
and you have not seen him ever since.

This does not make sense.
No, no more questions.
Nothing will ever make sense.

Today, you texted a boy who used to love you,
and when he didn't text,
you nodded to yourself.
it's alright. you expected this. be calm. don't panic.

your friends call you the queen of sarcasm, of loudness.
Some asked why you were always so depressed.

Depressed. Empty. Sad. Vulnerable.
It's all you've ever been since the day
you saw the front door close behind your father.
Since the day you left your own country.

But your days no longer revolve around your mother's sadness, or your father's violence.

And you are too old now. No more lighting candles. No more days of fresh hotel sheets and smells of sunscreen.

In December, a boy confessed he liked you.
You didn't want to choose him because you were lonely.
And when you wanted to choose him
because you were lonely, he was not there.

You thought if he comes, you would give him all your love.
All the yellow light you've been hiding in your heart.

You wanted simplicity. Love and his eyes.
Stop, this is getting too long.

Bleeding into the rain
Crimson ink rolls down
Worn fingertips
Onto soaked pages

Broken in time, this
Moment has yet to end

When all the words
Left to say, bleed through
Years of stories, scattered
In the puddles ahead.

Yellow streaks rip open
The violent violet night
Just waiting for the boom.

Thunder crashing
I'll follow suit.

Today you hung low in the sky,
And you reminded me of me.
With a thin, shadowy veil,
And only a sliver to be seen.

You seemed to reach for Jupiter,
The same way I reach for my dreams.
You stretched across the morning,
Hopelessly, it seemed.

Oh, last quarter crescent,
We are so very much the same.
We hide our many intricate details,
Revealing little more than our name.

You hung your head low in the sky,
With the sun glowing from your seams.
Today, you reminded me of me,
The morning of ten twenty-eight sixteen.

We were never a fan of dialogues.

At the other end of the street I would watch her

Each Monday, carrying a new book every time.

I didn't like to read.

I preferred music, in my opinion
Was the equivalent of a book
Each telling a story.

The cup of coffee in my hand felt as warm as my heart
As I blew the hot liquid from the brim of the cup

And take a picture of her with the smoke that frames her body.

I wrote short poems of how captivating her beauty was
On the greasy table napkins provided for the coffee tables

Producing a different piece each time.

Her mouth would move as she read the words,
Mumbling lines of incoherent sentences I could not decipher.

At times I would see a smile break out on her face
And I would find myself consumed in slight envy.
Would she have smiled at the words I've written for her?

She was a song, I was a poem.

She was first written on smooth paper,
A thoughtless idea jotted in messy handwriting
Soon expanding into a verse and chorus
Written over and over again,
Revised by experts, reviewed until perfection,

Interpreted by bassists, guitarists, drummers, and vocalists
Appreciated repeatedly through the stereos of listeners
As they capture each beat and tempo.
She was flawless.

I was a poem.

I was rewritten in a single document copy
Renamed and revised
From the greasy fingers tapping away on keyboards
Typed and deleted,
Typed and deleted.

Frustrating the writer as they could never get an idea out of me
Leaving me in a file hidden in the folders of an old computer
Unfinished and waiting to be opened.

I was a mess in unorganized stanzas of ideas,

Lines which no one will have the audacity to read,

A waste of time,
Flawed.

She was the perfection in every imperfection
An artwork that you could only love through the eyes.
A piece which I
Wanted in my own.
I watched her again silently and wondered
Is it possible to love someone you've only admired from afar?

Princess 6

In the aching heart of tormented years
he holds a picture
Like scarification of a her face tattooed in his mind
Autumn leaves turn to summer rain
If he could draw her he would with sunshine
and a rainbow halo but all he has are charcoal
Black like his soul without her
If he could turn the page on his story
He'd move on
But sometimes love is desolation
and there is no consolation.

You broke my heart
Shattered it into a million words
I'll arrange them into infinite poems
Until I piece it back together

Almost all my most popular poems
Are the ones kicking Trump’s fat ***.
I know after November sixth for sure
This particular issue will lose gas.
While that will slow me down for sure,
It won’t make me loathe him less.
He’s a charlatan, a liar and a ****,
In almost every way a total mess.

Donnie, Donnie
You are such a creep!
Only fools would elect you;
Good people would lose sleep.
It simply doesn’t make sense
They don’t know what they’re doing.
A Trump-like presidency
Would bring this world to ruin.

So I will have to maunder around a bit
To find a juicier source of poetic satire
Than the Big Cheetoh has often been.
He’d open his mouth and spew hellfire.
He frothed and threatened and whined,
And for the most part the scorching
Ended up being his own big ****.
And never was an *** more deserving.

Donnie, Donnie
You are such a creep!
Only fools would elect you;
Good people would lose sleep.
It simply doesn’t make sense
They don’t know what they’re doing.
A Trump-like presidency
Would bring this world to ruin.

He’s arrogant and babbles lies
One of the nastiest people ever seen.
He only seems to make sure his face
Shows in photographs in magazines.
He has little understanding of the job
He thinks he wants to be chosen for.
He expects everyone to bow and scrape,
To compliment, effuse and to adore.

Donnie, Donnie
You are such a creep!
Only fools would elect you;
Good people would lose sleep.
It simply doesn’t make sense
They don’t know what they’re doing.
A Trump-like presidency
Would bring this world to ruin.

The words went
The Land OF The Free
But apparently that
Did not mean you or me.
The words went
All men created equal.
I think they will want
To change that in the sequel.

The words went
And So God Created Man.
Maybe the Causasians
Saw another way it ran.
It seems the white people
Thought it meant only them.
The rest of the colors?
Their chances were slim.

Those not Christian
Were seen as the enemy.
Change the name to animals
That’s what the Christians did see.
Not all the Christians, true
For some heeded the words of Christ;
Those with wealth and money
They armed themselves for a heist.

They turned their Jesus
Into a trademark commodity
And declared all other ideas
Either blasphemy or an oddity.
They bought airtime and then
Bribed some weak-kneed politicians;
Made laws against the rest
Even if we buried them in petitions.

They put up tents and temples
Like golden bejeweled mansions
And proclaimed as holy
Each and every gilded stanchion.
They bought the best robes
Highly expensive rings and shoes
And claimed they were helping
The poor they chose to abuse.

We are meant to revere them
And their gaudy choice of dressing
And humbly hit our knees
Then pule and grovel for their blessing.
Because they didn’t mean
For us to take that free stuff far.
After all, they are rich
We’re nothing but what what we are.