I want my words to be beautiful.
Beautiful like yours.
I want to see ordinary things,
Find the magic in them,
And put the magic on a page, for everyone to understand.

I want to have a way with words.
I want every poem of mine
To become a masterpiece.
Just like yours.

I am not broken.

But you are.

You see the world through pain,
And pain makes the colors brighter.
It makes the value of feelings
Climb higher.

Sometimes I wonder
If I should be broken like you
If I want my words to resonate
Like yours.

Sometimes I wonder,
If it will be truly worth it
In the end.

I wonder what it will be like,
To cut myself up to pour out the beauty inside me.

Just like you.

I imagine that you
Raise the blade
Slice your feelings open
And write your masterpiece
In red.

The silence you clothe yourself in will become a second skin. You will work hard to remove it. You will scrub yourself raw until the sweet scent of orange blossoms replaces the lighter fluid that has seeped into your pores.

When you finally tell someone, you will be drunk. It will be 2 a.m. You will tell your parents, it will spill out of you as you hover over the toilet. Your secrets mixed with ***** and something sour, something burning, something permanent. It will feel good, to flush the pain out of your throat.

It will be hard for you to be intimate. When you talk to that boy in your English class, you will feel butterflies for the first time in months, those same butterflies whose wings were clipped that night last July. You feel the butterflies, yes, but you will cringe when his hand brushes up against your own.

When that same boy asks you out on a date, and he opens the car door for you, you will want to run. You will feel the air in your lungs combust when he kisses you. You will think he is trying to draw blood when he bites your lip.

You will wonder if he can he see the bruises and fingerprints that still stain your nakedness

You will not believe him when he says “I love you”

When he asks why you never want to touch him, why you talk in your sleep, why your chapped lips are a graveyard eroded from the salt streaming down your cheeks, you tell him everything.

You do not cringe when he tries to hold your hand this time.

~

There she was chasing a rabbit
with 1 am coffeecakes and weak tea
She didn’t notice I was watching
from the branches of an olive tree
A lone smile hidden amongst
swirling smoke rings in a foreign accent

To the gazebo she ran
with its straw grass tables
and pleated cushions in hibiscus
print fabric no one would sit on

My eyes followed her as she
darted around manicured boxwoods
and cherub statues spitting water
onto sleeping lily pads

She came upon a dandelion
and asked politely, “Pardon me,
but have you seen a…”
The **** interrupted,
“Didn’t, don’t do drama dreams
dancing deliriously down
donut distracted ditches”
“That’s dumb” she replied
with a giggle and a snort  

This must be her fun, I think,
trying to catch a white ball of fur,
big, then small,
then smaller still like a
thimble seeking a thread,
when now she is stopped
in her ziggy zagging tracks
by a June bug singing,

“I see, I see, in front of me
Dessert, dessert, set out for free
A chocolate pie, a chocolate pie
in menus written on the sky”

Perplexed she climbed upon its back,
red leather shoulder pads
with black dots changing shapes,
ducking winged arches that
covered the vestibule they
soared through when a sharp turn
pitched her to the opposite side…

Landing with a thud,
her new dress now soiled
between the wrinkles in time
that had ticked away
on a clock faced sun named Ray

She cried carrot tears,
orange sherbet streams
on peach tone cheeks,
marmalade miseries
and mango miscues
piddling on her patent leather shoes,
ready to give up

When it appeared hopping happily,
jumping into her lap
and licking her face
She caressed its fur, removing
sticker burs and scratching
just the right spot, as its right rear leg
thumped with joy

Then lifting the bundled bunny
to her face, she kissed it tenderly
with wild cherry gloss lips,
or should I say…kissed me
for you see, all along, it was me

*And you thought I was nothing more than a pretty smile…..

Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Stood for the rights of all,
Thumbing their noses
At the iron fist that crushed
Their people's heart,
Giving voice
To those rendered mute
And heart
To those without hope.
Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Stood while bullets ripped
And cannons bellowed
Until they could stand no more,
The word surrender
Unheard and unspoken.
Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Lay at peace.
They lit a spark
That ignited a revolution
And the dreams of giants
Were realized
With the sacrifice of
These young men,
Boys,
Legends.

So many things are presented to us pre-analysed,
Ready for immediate digestion by the mind;
We are primed to respond, inclined
towards specific riposte.

Critical thinking is anything
but timing is everything,
Always be reckoning;
Examine the ingredients
of pre-packaged information.

The food we feed on often has an agenda
cast unto it
yet we must blame the people who ate it.

So serene, so blissful…
So pacific, so liberating…
The only sounds that drench my ear-
The drops of rain,
The gush of the wind,
The flow of the river,
And, the sound of me, breathing.

it ain't none of my business
but still breaks my heart
dropping my spare change
into your empty cup
no idea how
all this went down
it's none of my business
so i move along
as it sets me to wonder
how many of us
are one paycheck away
from our own paper cup
hoping above hope
that there is enough
change during the day
to at least buy some lunch
no it ain't none of my business
but still breaks my heart
dropping my spare change
into your empty cup

Say you're on your way. The wait is unbearable.
Say you'll cherish me only. Say your heart is unshareble.
"Say you'll be mine.
Say we'll be fine.
Say we'll be together.
Selfish of me to ask since I'd be the reason we don't last forever."
I hear your voice in songs. A voice that's never blessed my ears.
I feel your hugs, mild hugs I've dreamed about throughout my coldest years.
Where are you? Please Send the location.
****** the keys to my heart, free my soul & and rescue me from this emotionless probation.
Have you been hurt like me? Is it weird The most beautiful things on you are your scars?
Could I grasp you admittedly close to my being as we lay on our band-aids & gaze up at stars?
In Dreams you're all I see. Fantasies of a we. Prematurely feeling something that has to be.
I've paid the price for happiness, I've handled the heaviest of baggages & I wait patiently for the day God ships & delivers you to me.

I see your call for help
I see your cry for assistance.
& unlike your past friends
I promise not to miss it.
I see your tears fall into the seas
I hear you cry and beg please.
I see sharks surround you
Through your heart, out your soul bleeds.
I will offer the last of my will.
Give the last of my strength, anything I can do.
I'll save you & say goodbye.
& when you open your eyes to my memory you'll know you always came before anything else because I was drowning too.

It heavily burdens my heart when I see people neglect and disrespect their parents.
Do you know the pain you'd feel if you were forced to live without them? No? Let me share it.
In a hospital that feels more Siberian than the rest, you feel your chest flood with boiling fluid & it feels like the entire world is sitting on your shoulders.
A pain you are coerced to endure, at the time of introduction the idea of it eventually passing seems impossible & you begin to wish your life was over.
That's pain because I'm absolutely petrified of death, I have panic attacks of my eyes closing never to gaze at daylight another day.
At this moment all fear vacates your core because you realize there is no greater threat in this realm greater than losing a parent this way.
Parent, Parent, I stress parent because this is someone that didn't just conceive you but raised you, structured your essence and identity with love poured into hard labor.
So when you're yelling at your mom for some foolish petty thing, earthly things in life that don't even matter, imagine staring at her with pain thriving in her soul and knowing there's not a thing you can do to save her.
Imagine having siblings, Seven older than you, all criminals and the worse of badly influenced adolescences. Imagine them all dropping out, nobody older than you graduates high school.
Imagine looking up to this at the age 13 & 14 selling drugs, carrying pistols and walking over people, inviting violence because to you this is what the ones you looked up to made seem cool.
Imagine how disappointed a God fearing father is of his sons, that they aren't off to colleges to glorify his name & bring joy and pride to his heart.
& imagine all of your siblings on the streets poor or in the confinements of jail, and you yourself gang affiliated when it's time for his soul to part.
Imagine staring into their eyes and regretting every argument, every disrespectful phrase, & you would give all these things up you thought you wanted just for them to have one more day.
Imagine your savior, your angel laying decaying and they feel no pain toward their own existence but the only thing that troubles them is will their babies be okay?
Imagine God stepping into your life, placing you in a better environment, purifying your heart, you become kind, loving, respectful, intelligent, everything your dad dreamed of, you bust your *** to be it.
Imagine being the first of his kids to graduate, imagine signing a division 1 scholarship, imagine being the first in the family ever to go to college & becoming an
All-American and your biggest supporter, biggest fan, the person that gave you the life you live isn't even there to ******* see it!
If all this isn't enough pain for you to realize how much you should cherish your parents, how you should appreciate any day spent with them over some meaningless party, how disrespect should never be catapulted in their direction, & how if it is you should immediately apologize.
You'll soon wake up and look at life different & cherish every single person you care about, cause on top of the pain you're experiencing at the loss of a parent, your pain will be oh so amplified when you have to hold the other parent for months and years whipping tears from their eyes.

"Losing a Parent" -Dash Pinder

Cuts heal & remain visible
At times you may not even feel kissable.
Latch on to faith.
in the line you're last so that it lasts, just wait.
truth hurts, but lies don't heal.
is it still a sin if it's your heart I intend to steal?
I'll gladly bite the fruit for you
you badly fight the truth, poor you.
Accept the pain, welcome the deceite.
To let them continue to hurt you is to accept defeat.
Stare at the angel in the mirror.
Release past demons & be born again purer.
you feel damaged. I see a soul seasoned.
It's usually the pains in life that come with the heaviest reasons.
stress no longer, ache no more.
Pack up the tears, & walk out the door.
One day you wake up & your hearts no longer sore.
I know this because ever since I've laid eyes on you, mines aches no more.