A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

White Head Phones
Blue head band
Wearing the shirt I bought her

Golden earrings
Golden wrist watch
As Golden as the sun

Feigning ignorance
In the face of romance
I think I like her

Wouldn't you?

So many strange fruits,
       In the streets.
Black bodies living in the sewers
Africans hanging from the apple trees,
Used needles on concrete,
Blood has a new home build with tears,
It's sad to say,
It's sad to say,
Children are born here.
They wonder why life became so rotten.


©MH

They line the streets
And on every  corner
One "ailment" or the other
A family,  sometimes brother and sister.

Crying in a song
Singing with one voice
All covered up in fake injuries
Lamenting about past glories

They line the streets
Crowding every corner
Always a bother
Clinging to our knees
In their deliberately torn dresses

Keep them away from us
Stop them from touching us
With their deceptive illusions
Appealing to our emotions
With empathetic persuasions
And now our money is gone.

Moving in slow motion
Discrediting the old notion
Standing still
hands on the window sill
Feeling the vibrations
Within the walls
Watching opinions clashing
As Deafening as horns blaring
No decision can be made here

Dusk to Dawn to Dusk
The same noise
Over and over again
Oblivious of the wallflower
The self appointed refree
Now as invisible and the paint beneath the wallpaper.
Who is in the right, here?

Silence, I say quietly
Silence, I shout more loudly
We're in an insomnic haze
Arguing over what we know not
They've made us mindless,
Zombies living on lies.
Wake Up!