Paint my soul in your colors
Design me
Define me
Until we are one
Creation and creator
Imagine my lines and speak my thoughts
Put me onto paper
Understand me accept me
Take my hand
And lead me to the burning sun
Take me into the new world
Write how it
Scarred me
Jade me
Then fold me back
Into the crevasses of your mind
Close and secure
And then close your eyes
An listen as I whisper
Design me
Define me
*I am yours.

Their violence. Their fire. Their beauty.
Their clenching, unclenching. Their bedlam.
Their silence.
Their toes squirming in their shoes. Their sobs. Their seventy-mile-an-hour fury.
Their eyes. Their glimmer. Their construction paper dreams.
Their insecurities. Their melanin.
Their rapture. Their forgiveness. Their twisted-up mouths.
Their screaming.
Their laughter. Their spoiled innocence. Their decent.
Their wilderness of wit. Their barbed future. Their ineloquence.
Their noise. Their stretching limbs.
Their vigor. Their hair spurting out of their scalps.
Their secrets echoing and singing through low-ceilinged halls. Their desire.
Their chipped orange fingernail polish. Their belly aches.
Their misspelled crayon messages. Their ghosts. Their audacity.
Their fear. Their braids. Their arms tight around each other.
Their torn jeans. Their longing.
Their possibility.
Their harpoon words. Their blood. Their bursting hearts.
Their walls. Their art.
Their endlessness.
Their airplane arms and their shrieking and their streaming outside into the yellow ache of a sinking sun.
Their rhythm. Their nonsense.
Their hands cupped around their mouths.
Their reverberation. Their chapped lips. Their love.

Them.

No way,
Not you,
I know you,
You're not a gangster,
We grew up on the same street
Sure it was not the best place to lay our heads or sleep,
But we were alive,
We played together,
I know you
No way you're one of them now,
You're never home now
You're 15,
You're too grown now,
10 years ago we sat on the same curb,
Now
You're mind is gone,
You got into some dirt,
Those your new friends?
They're way older than us,
We've run up and down the same hill for years,
But its them you can trust,
I guess I don't you
You're a Ganster
Those plastic guns became real,
How could you
We're one in the same still
Do I know you?
I'm so confused,
Now we're on the same street,
But you don't know me
No more riding bikes
No more corner store trips,
No more walking home from school,
Besides you never go,
Shots alarm the neighbors,
Not you,
You never know,
It's true,
The sirens and the lights flash through the windows,
I saw laying there on the cement cold,
I don't know you,
Until its clear to me,
I can't believe,
How loud your Mom could weep,
Held back by yellow tapes and a couple of police,
As the medic covers you in a sheet,
The same old curb ,
The same old street,
I stare until I realized,
And accept defeat,
I know you

He tried to spit out the truth;
Dry-mouthed at first,
He drooled and slobbered in the end;
Truth dribbling his chin.

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.

I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry,
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or today.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare at the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant in enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand in the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

A. This year I will no longer be tangled top sheets,
soiled comforters, or stained mattresses.
My blood runs clear and the extra year made me a little harder to ****. I started kissing boys on corners who had girlfriends, being someone we would never imagine of me and I bet you never expected ***** to run through these sober veins, couldn't handle me after four shots and you are inebriated by the alcohol seeping from my pores.
B. I started the year off kissing a bottle, not you
and
you ruined it, left me behind, a newborn still unsure how to walk unstable and unbalanced on tender feet.
you ruined it, left me to fend for myself among the wolves of the world,
C. It took me 907 days to learn how to love you in the way you needed it, this gestation was the slow decline of everything that defined me.
No one ever told me that each person needs love molded to them
so on the 909th day when you left, i had just perfected the sculpture, didn't have time to show you before you rushed in, knocked it on the floor and were gone
D. that is how we ended, shattered splinters of clay, scattering mosaic beautiful on the floor.
tied tongues and upset stomachs from too much alcohol and too little sleep
E. this is how we ended, strangers lips and foreign bed sheets
we went out like a poem if only I could find the right words

romance is giving me the last bite of your sandwich even though it's the best part with the cheese running down the sides
romance is holding the door for me when your arms are full of books and papers
romance is playing with my ***** hair when i haven't showered in days because you know i love it
romance is patiently holding water to my lips when i'm too drunk to keep my hand steady
romance is giving me your last cigarette when i've had a long day, even though i know you won't be able to scrape together change for a new pack
romance is asking me to marry you with a key ring because that's all we have the money for because we're young and crazy
romance is sitting in the back of the car laughing at nothing because our eyes get so squinty when we're ******
romance is leaving what you're doing to come pick me up when i called you crying for no reason
romance is holding my hand and my head and my heart in silence when i can't find the words to express the chaos inside my own mind
romance is listening to me ramble about the same old ****, and caring just as much as when i told you the first time
romance is the way you smile when i'm sad, the way you cradle my head in your neck, the way you kiss me on the nose, the way you text me good morning and goodnight every day, the way you tell me you love me and mean it
romance is you, and me, together