I took a walk with life today
and found that we
are all connected.
I took it’s gentle hands and
whispered calmly beneath my breath:

“you are beautiful”

and then all at once-
the constant commotion
unfolding around me
came to a surrender.

I found myself staring at
solutions and all of the
questions that follow.

I am floored
by how simple
life can be.

There are no answers
and this is the
meaning to
everything.

We live and
we breathe and
we hold on until
it’s time to
let go.

This is not a cycle.

This is not
evolution.

This is not aging
just to die
and this is not
the human condition.

This is the experience.

This is the lifetime.

This is what we are
granted.

I long for a comfort
that I will never feel
and resent it
for it never being so.

I wonder how long
I have to go
and even then-

I am wrong.

There is so much
going on
and the cars keep
hauling
and the grass
keeps growing
and the moon keeps
setting and
the sun keeps
rising and

the story
goes.

I am not immortal
and I cannot capture
every moment
as I’d like to
and I know that
this is
okay
but as long
as I’m alive-

I’ll continue to strive
for something
better than
myself.

Even if it’s
not what I
deserve.

Diapers and politicians
need to be changed frequently
and for the same reasons

********

los panales y los politicos
hay que cambiarles a menudo
y por los mismos motivos

Humid August Morning

Packed in my mind lies, all betrayals of my past
It shows on my face like a ****** mask
Over the passing years nothing seems to change
Not even my wore out tattoos nicknames,
I seek answer; I search for peace,
  I am caged, I am seized
 With my innermost thoughts and convictions

What’s my purpose, which one of my petals is going to fall now?
Who’ going to step in and staged an intervention?
I am caged, I am seized, I am so loving ******.
Surrounded by happiness, laughter and some forgiveness
Once again, here I am taking another summer test.

  Open bars, aged faces, cold frosty Banks beers
An islander tradition nothing changes,
not even my tattoo nicknames, Bajan Yankee
Caribbean Queen and Meany heartbreaker,

However, when the laughter fades,
and the music stop in the most romantic setting
A black heart, a broken soul, makes old memories resurfaces;
I see so much, I heard so much and
I overthink so much about worldly things

How can I not go back to the land of the flying fish?
Or where the Bank beers are four for ten
Or where the rooster wakes us up at the crack of dawn,
where humble people just smiling
and saying hello makes a different.

The annoying mosquito buzzes under the protected nets
Till I reach for a can of repellant with anger and yelled who’s next!

I‘ve heard the annoying barks of the neighbor dogs
The unsettling morning news, but nothing as soothing
As watching a black bird singing in the apple trees.
Speaking to the heart of the humans souls:
Once again I am an Island Girl

*See how the nature trees, flowers, grass grow in silence
See the stars, the moon and the sun; we need to be able to touch souls

Collected sea shells
from every shoreline she came to.
Held onto a collar
from every animal she had loved.
Shelved old receipts
from every memory she could cling to.
Drank to forget all
she could not hold in her hands.

Moths stir the windowsill
preparing for her next cigarette.
She had lost interest.
A long time ago.

Agentic gratification:
the sugar hit,
the line of sniff,
the awful ***,
the pin-drop peace,
the loneliness.

Collected tattoos
from every song that saved her.
Gathered dust, the silhouettes
from every trophy of conquest.
Hoarded suitcases
from every time she had ran away.
Stayed inside to forget
all that she could not see.

Moths stir the windowsill.
People are just noise in the streets.
She had lost interest.
A long time ago.

We are not really broken
until we are broken
       and then we mend
and break again
      until our bones
become smashed
to smithereens
mapped into tiny lines
         and cracks
with some darkness
        in between
white matter, crushed
             into jigsaw pieces,
laden with blood, with spit, with silt
until the despair
that fear releases
interacts with self-blame
           and guilt
And how they weigh upon us,
these layers of pain
like heavy blankets
on our contours, in the dark
the maze of our pasts
thick upon us
as we strive to envision
                             a spark
perhaps just a tiny glowing,
at first, a barely felt
shadow of light
a glimmer, a whisper of
           knowing,
a drive urging us on
           to fight
and all of our minerals
rub off in sparkling crystals
as we brush up
against the walls
of that ever-blackened tunnel
as we stumble
and steady the fall
feeling a subterranean rumble
a shifting of perspective
as we battle questions,
spinning thick
into the whirlpool of our yearning
into molten metals, slick
We might think we can snap
                           with the ease
of a lonely brittle star
that tomorrow
could be a tribute,
              in lacerations
to the last trace
            of who we are
but it can happen, as we
sit upon, plan the edge
              of our last breath        
                       deep, subtle beats
                        of truth rise up
                to repel the scent
          of death
and, in pulses of light
                  it drifts
bends in willowy arcs
upon our soul it trips
******* light out
from the dark
and all the sharpened hooks
that kept us chained
         to the abyss
are released as
              we break free
into heaven's rolling kiss
feeling the flutters
of a new, kind breeze upon our skin
as Life's vast impulse
courses through us
     and simply wins
and the only demise
we're mourning
is the death of
          of a dormancy,
a resistance to again
receive and give
as we embrace
those little, precious instincts
that tell us to keep on
and choose
            to live