An open letter to my mothers boyfriend,

When you blame millennials for the current state of our nation, you are disregarding the environment we've learn to survive in. Cookies hanging over our heads, blindly following the sound of people celebrating empty dreams. Dreams recited by our fathers.  I am not trying to place blame on you, as I know you too have been infected by these unspoken rules. You too had a cookie hanging over your head. But I want you to know that our cookies just look different. As time passes recipes’ recalibrate and cookies transform. And I feel for you, maybe you’re still chasing the cookie, maybe it’s getting harder to chase, or maybe you ate the cookie and still felt hungry. But if we really want to have this conversation, about the current state of our nation, I’m gonna need for you to stop talking about cell phones and 20 something year olds and start talking about where these cookies came from!

How many times must my fists smack your stiffness until you soften?

I don’t want to use my fists, I’m not violent.
Even in defense, words raised to take the hardness,
silently, repeat, repeat.
Raised to repeat, repeat.
I never wanted to be violent.

I don’t want to use my fists, but your stiffness is contagious.
I don’t know how to look at you without them,
smacking every corner, separating hard shells.

I don’t want to use my fists.
my hands,
They’re raw and dry, too sanitized.
and my shell is colliding, oozing, fermenting
into juices of the berries you forbid.
I don’t want to use my fists anymore.
My hands want to open, softly.  
Sweet unfolding fingers
offer demons blessed darlings.

There are days I dream and feel like an imposter

until I remember we’re all imposters living in unrealized dreams.

we wish to wake the shadows we don't own

the sun don't shine in places unknown

you've put monsters in our heads
monsters in our beds

come home

our eyes may hide but we still see the lie

our hearts are meant to sing you deny

you've got monsters in your head
you're the monster in my bed

go home

What an insidious dance among your
tone teeth and tongue. Words not formed to be heard, just flashing the flags you claim.

All actors acting the leads in roles of plays they don’t write.

Moving tongues become obsolete on stages build in concrete.
And as I watch
I wait
I listen for those words of choice to sound less like a noise and more like voice.

What colors will whisper around the crack of old silhouettes? What words will soak me in light and dark? What eyes will I meet? Can you hear my thoughts calling your name?

Sometimes right before my head hits the pillow
my teeth start to ache
my eyes dry up
and my hands start to shake.

I never remember why I can't sleep
until those shattering thoughts remind me of the
chatter I made to keep you awake
the signs I'd seek and hoped to make you stay
the thighs I'd grab to tell you it's okay
to be broken.
To think that the world is unholy.
To think the rain only comes when your shining smile starts showing.

Just don't forget that you can't control the weather
and maybe your smile needs to sleep for a while.
Come out when the storm resides to a spot in your heart.
Maybe one day you'll remember the rain is not only a time that
tore you apart,

but a horrible storm that gave you enough water to grow flowers.

I sleep soundly now
my teeth don't ache
my eyes aren't dry
and my hands don't shake

I sleep because I know this small body can't control the weather.
I simply stopped trying because I don't have the power to grow flowers.

My love for you is like the first slice of chocolate cake.

I keep eating more thinking it will feel as good as the first.

But I'm down to the last and I feel nothing but sick.

I want to eat when I’m not hungry.
There’s something to feed and I know
that there is nothing I can feast off of to satisfy the
empty heart that heavily hangs in my chest.

Sometimes food helps me forget
that I’m not hollow,
it helps me remember
that something can fill me up

As I walk to the kitchen and look
in a fridge that has nothing to offer
I grab another coconut icicle pop

It’s sweeter than my father was growing up
I eat it even though I’m feeling cold
I eat it even when I’m not hungry at all

I saved a spot in my gut
for another huff
another snort
another sip
as they whisper sweet nothings in my ears,
it sometimes tickles.
the way my lover makes me feel
when he breathes down my neck
and there are days I forget
that he crushed my heart
i never remember those days
i fell apart
because those whispers are so enticing
so inviting.

There are some days where I think I've had enough.
I looking for my out because I fear the loss of lust

I'm still afraid of letting go.
Letting go of the bed
I only know how to sleep in
with the AC roaring.

Afraid of what my life will look like
without the seductive smoke
and twist off bottle caps.

I'm just as afraid of walking out the back door,
keeping me inside,
holding me together.
Afraid of the weather
my body has not yet adjusted to.

There's no harmony in heat and some days I think I'll never stop sweating.

To say that it's complicated is
under the water where you can't breathe.
it's under the bridge where it could be me.

Even that white girl wearing white pearls
with her beige bag because black
was a place she'd never admit to be

But yeah, she smoked crack too.

To say that it's complicated
is to say "just calm down,"
"take a deep breath and relax."

As if your simply stated words would
relieve me from the concrete that
sits at my feet up to my knees.

As if your teeth can utter the
importance of how it feels to
have a hole in your chest and
blind spots in your eyes,
the inability to cry because
you don't care anymore.

I put down the whiskey
but picked up the menthol
because some buzz is much better than
nothing at all.

To say that it's complicated
is to say that the
puzzle pieces don't connect.
that the picture on the box
resembles regret.

I don't think that my life is a broken tune,
but I think there are some things you can never
explain.

I'm done getting faded
My dream's vindicated
Your eyes don't have to waste time on me

My words keep on falling
My mouth hits a wall and
My pupil pin point prevents
Me to see

I just can't stand for this **** again
Walking on water
With weights on weak knees
Without the dope sick
Dream trip
I can feel the breeze
Right beneath my cheeks
Where the wind used to blow
Too high to know
The difference between
Free and
Let be

I'm done getting faded
Fake friends getting wasted
More time to find how I can please
The mind that's been on a grind
To forget memories

I'll give you my sleeve if you take my heart.
I know how to please,
not fall apart.

I am an individual responsible for my beliefs.
Responsible for the way I wear my hair or if I brush my teeth.
Individuals watching me, judged by jobs I can't keep.

Kids responsible to read, get good grades.
Even when ma and pa weren't there to praise
preoccupied with their financial raise.

So I raised my hand and asked to go to the bathroom
where I fixed my hair to avoid disastrous measures.
Nobody wants to get the wrong answer.

I am an individual responsible for my beliefs and the habitual liquor I drink.

Responsible for the way I phrase my words.
Regardless what they heard won't make them think about
their own decisions

and the tinted glass we all look through the
sinking depositions in court accusing a man as a monster
whose really a victim of the system.

american predisposition.

I am an individual responsible for my beliefs.
Disregard all opportunity to challenge what I think.
We all woke up on a road where
Signs said this way goes home
Said this way isn't wrong
Said look around and see where you belong.

I am an individual responsible for my beliefs but my individuality is regurgitating the messages around me and I am having a hard time taking full responsibility.

i am no poet. i am no writer.
I am an aspiring intellectual

But not in the "educational" sense.
I just want to find a way to
Express these thoughts that
Slip through the moments are memories

so do they really exist?

Are my insights just grasps for straws
To explain the logical
Pain from memories
that don't exist?

Or do they design new rules
becoming predisposed tools to advance
because we don't always have to get the short stick

Reasons why we should study the birds,
a species that's outlived humanity.
Seasons try to tamper feathered herds,
humans hamper their vacancy.
Wonder why they've survived?
it's pretty obvious,
birds can fly.

Im feeling confined by
lines leniently lighting the way.

The ******* I bare
constitute
the clothes I wear

So the curve in my line carries cat calls all day.

i am the colored leaves cascading from autumn trees onto concrete
where you don't know below greens used to grow.

i am the pupil of your eye standing before a judges' sentence
without knowing the consensus missed evidence.

i am the rain drop that falls on your forehead
forgetting umbrellas don't matter
until they do.

At the age of nine he wanted to die
which was something I couldn't understand
because I knew our mother loved us.

desperation so

doctors drill diagnostic decisions down his throat.
I pray he won't choke on the
shallow pills he has to swallow
hollow dreams he has to follow.

Sedating's seductive for families who can afford it.

The Founding Fathers have forged my future,
they've mocked my freedom and cashed in on humans.
America likes to revive our problems with the quickest fix, money solves it.

My brothers become another lab rat
to solidify the fact that these pills are legit.
Simply because his name appears on a list.
Ignoring the fact his original pain was nothing but a claim

against all of this cultural *******.

You sit on the holy hollow thrown in my body.
Calling for salvation, claiming camaraderie

The internal tick I tend to mend,
sits on my chest, sinks into my irises.

A sip, a snort, a huff whisper safe promises.

You are the thumb I **** singing lullabies to sleeping peace,
the knife I carry down dark streets.

You are the doctor I call when I break my arm,
the scarf I wear in winter storms.

But too,

You are the *** hole in main streets,
and a broken belt in the drivers seat,
the sour milk in my fridge when I make English tea.
You've put salt in my sugar.

You are the feet that fall asleep in a moment of danger.

You are a beautiful thought waiting to unfold on black paper.

You sit on the holy hollow thrown in my body.
Commanding toxic tensions, comforting ill redemptions.

But

The kingdom we live in is drinking resilience,
mind stepping back into its brilliance.

You still sit on the holy thrown in my body.
But I too fight for survival
and you still dable with devils.

But the battles I face are no longer hollow,
and sometimes I miss the comfort of denial.

I cannot express myself
Not the way letters have sounds
And the way words have means
Because means have ends.

I cannot find a way to define my experience
Because definitions have conditions
And every definition is defined
By one mans minds eye.

I cannot find my voice
Because the keys are in the Kingdom of my choice
And if my choices are made in duty to the words you say

How can my words carry voice?