Does she wonder what I’ll think
when I find that freshly burned
evidence of a habit—I thought—
she dropped long ago? What upsets
me the most is that she couldn’t
confront her weakness enough
to buy a cheaper brand.

I'm driving under the bridge
Gray skies above
Music doesn't enmesh in me
Like heat from the asphalt does
The ground is breaking
And here I cannot see
These leaves I weave between
Are lacking saturation
And I cant feel them breathe
Maybe speed will set me free
Maybe speed will set me free

Spring sunrise at four am.
Ine is what the farmers call
That green, transparent film
Of newborn grain
On freshly sown fields.
Low and red in
Rising, Father Sun includes
Little Brother Moon
In his rays of raging
Selflessness.

Top branch perched,
In colourless contrast
To it all, Magpie surveys
The spectacle
And only
Does just
That.

Soft ****.
Cracked
Concrete. Little
Teacher.

I told you I'm different, you didn't believe
You broke me in pieces,  but I didn't leave
I feel no peace. I feel no breeze
I feel like falling down on my knees
How could you not know me after all these years ?
I'm hurt. I'm lost.
I'm weak like your trust
But all I could do is treasure you
And hope you'd love me the way I love you

                                                         - Gina Hany

Today I look
through sober eyes
and notice Love
oozing out of
every nook and cranny.

Where was this Beauty
which is so bountiful?
My looking glass,
I realize
was foggy--
I forgot to clean the lens
through which I viewed
the World.

I didn't even know
that it was smudged
with toxic thoughts
and simmering resentment;
with seething anger
and devastating fear...

Until I abandoned
myself to You;
Until I let go absolutely:

Today I look through sober eyes.

I cannot recall the moment
that sanity became a working goal.

Drugs are expensive,
sobriety; even more so.
Somewhere between all of this
I will have to learn to live.

The homeless are pushed out of town,
asleep beneath the railway bridge
that sends rain through rivets
like bullets.

I keep punching the clock
as it throttles Eros with slow hands.

“Sometimes just a smile is enough”
reads a cardboard placard.
But I have not cracked a smile
since I started popping these pills.

Forgive yourself
Perfect was never a word suited for you
Love yourself
Everything comes back to this
Love your sister
She has been picked apart, degraded, and has an internal war eating her from the inside out
Love your brother
He has a time stamp of deliverance to a life of incarceration, bullets released from an absence of sense, lack of educated, blind ambitious followers.
Raise your head
You are a Goddess created
with disarming beauty in mind.
Continue to place one foot in front of the other
You are meant and strongly designed for forward movement.
Take no steps back, do not bow down your head, do not close your mouth
In fear that judgment will fall
It will, but you must speak anyways.
Your voice is imperative
to the growth of lost girls who are unsure what real women are made of.
Your voice is imperative to the peaking of the minds of men unsure what to look for in a Queen, show him.
Your voice is imperative to the readjustment of the image of
Black Women with large voices
Black Women with high diction
Black Women with love language
Black Women with literary genius
Black Women filled with nothing less than the peace & love God has manifested within us.
Black Women
Black Women
Black Women
Who love Black men like double chocolate moist bliss
Who love White men like dark roast coffee filled with cream
Who love Latino men like Butterscotch candy dipped in chocolate
The list goes on
Black Women who love like we are bound to implode if we don't give the universe what it is that we need back.
Black Women
Your Mother
Black Women
Your Sister
Black Women
Your Friend
Black Women
Your Lover
Black Woman
Love Her.

We're cooking up a thought stew
A mindful casserole
Compassion the sauce that our hearts impart
sad tales sieved from our souls.

The base of the dish is hope
seasoned with laughter and tears
we stir in empathy to the mix
and we plan to allay crumbs of fear

Our stew has a dollop of knowledge
jugs of experience
ears that are prepped to listen,
Spiced with strength and resilience

But we won't prescribe your recipe
for  journeys are made with choice
your life's kitchen tools, your recovery rules,
empowered and mixed using your voice.

but not alone again.
alone when?
whenever I chose.
I maintained the prose
of lonely men.
I threw my woes at
selfish friends
but oh, to hold
that bad blood in.
outside, pretend,
then inside, again?
insufferable
immense
inner turmoil commence
post-armageddon I make
inner amends
what floods I've ridden
what waters I spin
what swirling singularity
like a drain
pulls me in?
I swim now
in oceans
much larger than those
the blows I have known
have softened the glow
I sit in repose
the universe knows
everything -
it's slowly spinning as we
quietly sing
and I conjure the means
to re-see everything.