I have this broken hour glass mind that is perfect at wasting time.
But every once in a while, there’s a writing in the sand.
I found this picture today and it reminded me of you, I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s because I assume she has a walk like night sky, with moonlight in her heels and stardust in her footprints.
Maybe it’s because I assume she has a laugh that haunts the hallways of memories.
Maybe she leaves lipstick stains on the hearts of many men.
Or maybe if she were alive today, she would be over a hundred and twenty years old and still look as beautiful.
But I do know this
I know that the fact it’s a portrait, with nothing to distract me from her face, reminds me that women are more than what they can offer from the neck down.
The marks on her cheek remind me of goodbye kisses, the ones you never forget because they’re from people you’ll always remember.
How every strand of hair on her head seems to have a voice, maybe that’s what gives the picture its thousand words.
She isn’t smiling or frowning, she doesn’t seem happy or sad. Just plain, like it was meant to mirror peculiarity before prejudice, like the picture was taken right before the world made all its assumptions about her.
I know that the picture is black and white, not because it’s old, but because the moment lacks the complexity that comes with colour, it is just simple and uncertain.
This is how I see us my darling, uncertain of what the future holds. Maybe it is full of promise or maybe I’m just a broken hour glass, spilling sand, wasting time.

I met a girl once, she had french fries for hair and she was pretty legendary. I’ve been trying to explain her in words for a few days now.

But I don’t know how to write that kind of poem, that explains that it’s the smallest things about her I find the most amazing.

Like when she laughs, and her whole body becomes a wind chime, both in sound and sway

Like her walk, how it seems like her ankles are two old sagacious birds that  know some secrets about the ground that no one else does, so it seems like she’s almost flying.

How she has basquiat fingers for hips, and every time she moves it’s pure art.

How do I explain that every time she speaks, her lips become two ex-lovers that still have a thing for each other, constantly touching and stopping.

If I could, I would capture her smile in the ink of a pen. I would write sonnets and ballads about the arch in her back. I would write nursery rhymes about each line in her palm, let me read your future. Are you kissing me in it?

I guess sometimes words fail even the best of poets.

Sometimes,dreams don’t do reality justice.

For those that will never hear the wind chimes in her laugh, that will never see the feathers on her ankles.

The best I can say is that she’s pretty legendary.

When the sun starts snoozing its alarm too often, when autumn leaves are corpses under white caskets and the memories of her are nothing but distant car horns. I’d always remember french fries.

what happened to you?

your mind used to be a cemetery for boredom right next a maternity ward of inappropriate laughter.

you spoke like an owl was perched on your ribs, your wisdom was profound.

but what happened to you?

I named your lips nectar and honey and mine were two butterfly junkies trying to get a sugar high.

I could have sworn I heard  your name in the winds whisper through the leaves lips, but autumn came far too soon.

and when it seems like things want to get sweet again, time becomes a rehab for relapsing diabetics.

you were a beauty among beasts, a rainbow on an oil spill.

But even rainbows can't be out when the sun is not.

My mother, is my reference to everything that is beautiful in every single way. She has a smile that powers butterfly wings and heartbeats.

My mother, carried a sunset belly for nine months pregnant with stars, because she understands that stars are just far away sons. And God has used her as a garden to grow supernovas.

My mother, has helium balloon pair of arms that always tend to lift me up when I fall. With leather belt extensions to hit some sense into me when I’m wrong

My mother, taught me that the journey is great, but the destination is legendary. That God comes first and everything else next, so I put my best foot forward and look towards heavens gates.

Real life superwoman, my mother has a cape made of hope and silver, constantly flying into dark clouds so we have silver linings to hold on to.

My mother, made sure that in a black and white world that is more tiger than zebra, we saw things through shades of grey. That nobody is just bad or just good, and once in a while devils can be good samaritans.

So give everyone a chance, with pennies for their thoughts and just maybe they’ll have two to rub together.

So I promise you this mother. That I would love God and love you.

And if I’m lucky enough to find a woman half as amazing, God willing, I will call her wife.

I promise to be the man that you raised me to be, with titanium spine, a gold heart and glass eyes to see past what this world has to offer.

I promise to stop making eggshell promises that break too easily.

My mother, is a vast blue ocean, with a shoreline full of the whole world, watching her son rise.

I’ve been walking backwards into my footsteps trying to find my way home

But we’re all barefoot in the desert of lost souls

So if you end up at the house with the red door

Where the street lights illuminate the night life of familiar faces in dark places

Please tell them of me

I heard that home is where your heart is, so for now I’ll listen to my chest hoping to hear your voices.

I heard that the voices are the first part of a memory to fade. But I have tattooed your voices on my eardrums and your faces behind my eyelids, so my dreams will do you justice.

I am a product of ice boxes and broken black holes and I long for time to freeze again.

For now, I’ll sleep under blankets of memories on pillows of promises to red doors and street lights.

Sometimes, not always, I attach strings to the ends of my arrows to help give meaning to the relationships you get in.

Sometimes, you walk around with arrows sticking out of you like a human porcupine, cause the pieces of you heart are scattered like a jigsaw puzzle in your chest. I still don’t get every piece.

I have to admit sometimes I’m a pretty bad shot.

but most times you don’t let me.

Most times your either hiding with the skeletons in your closet or you leave home with your heart on the sleeve of yesterdays shirt.

You tend to lose your breath every time someone comes close enough and your butterflies have long suffocated .

Finger tip arrows to touch hearts and silk basket ears to catch dreams I’ve been doing this job long enough to know that your kind is a solar eclipsed blue moon. You don't happen that often.

You've battled impossible in rings made of bent realities. So how dare you not trust faith to be faithful.

You've developed a stainless steel philosophy, hoping if you stay still you’ll stay stainless.

But sometimes, not always, a broken compass still points north.

Today I breathe, like each breath was a champagne toast to life

Today I walk around with a pocket full of pennies in search of free spirits and  cheap talk

Today I celebrate, over half a billion stories each just over half a second long

We are not always broken

Death, is a forest where family trees fall and no one is around to hear

But life, is a star growing in a back garden under tiger striped sky of night and day.

So I carry my garden in my chest, growing veins and arteries and guitar strings so each story has background music of heart beats.

If I could, I would trade in every well wish for a wishing well and make your wishes come true. Give wells to parched gardens so stars can grow.

Someone once said “What is the difference between a ****** and a coffin? You *** in one and go in the other”

What is the difference between a ****** and a coffin? Nothing, they both carry unfulfilled potential, and we are lucky not to know either.

But if I had to choose, I'll choose the latter. Knowing I have lived even for a second, is a breath worth raising my glass to.