Most times I write poems for the sake of writing poems, I write pretty words that make you smile and butterflies flap in your belly.
Most times I write poems for the sake of writing poems, I write harsh realities that make your bones shiver and your will break.
But sometimes, sometimes I write truth. I write poems about a boys day dreams and his night prayers. About a boy too young to be this old, about a boy too strong to be scared.
But he knows more than any that the palms of fear are sweaty, that it's voice shakes in rhythm to a shaking faith and it's knees are two rope bridges, the only path between standing and falling.
He carries his pride in a backpack of loved ones, and even though they may seem heavy, he knows that if he falls they would always have his back.
Most times I write poems for the sake of writing poems, but sometimes I write about you. About how I dream of being everything like you but pray to be slightly better.
Mother prays my feet are bigger, but she knows the shoes better than most.
Shoulder cannot be both broad and cushion. Boy cannot be both man and Saint.
So for every blue cloud under a yellow sun, there's an ode to the grey. There's a star more silver than bright and a rain drop not quite.
But the sun is coming, the dark is not as fast as December, and for every dark night, there's a blue Sunday.

Distance and hope are two old cell mates that have long stopped fighting for the top bunk. They settle into each others charm as I think of you nightly. As my voice tries to break the night to spew sunrise for its spine and my shoulders learn to catch tears over the phone.
Our Faith is in the Palm of an arm too long to see the face. Our breaths are daily sacrifices, but each kiss is a protest, Each three hour train ride is a war against heaven and a riot against hell demanding paradise, nothing but crepes, Netflix and winter. With swords made of Friday nights and shields of Saturday mornings, time is nothing but a prisoner of war.
But for those Mondays when I’m too far to reach, but my scent hasn’t left your pillow and there’s still brown hair in my black, let this poem be the cloud of hope and dandelion seeds, keeping you afloat till you find fertile ground, till you find me again.
If I have learnt anything from you it’s that for trees to grow the earth must break, so we know that not every trial is a test, but every test is a brick and every wall that we build is another reason to slow dance to an orchestra of ringing phones and text message alerts.
My love
For when I cannot hold your hand
For when I cannot wipe your tears
For when you and the moon cower under the blanket of cotton and cloud
For when your heart is breaking, know that I will sip through the cracks like glue and hold you together, I will whisper your name under my breath, for what is the wind but the breath of lovers too far to reach.
So I love you like I love the pen, beautiful and true.
And I miss you like oxygen to two sinking lungs, more and more with every breath.

I used to fear that one day I would run out of words.
That I would put pen to paper and spill expired honey too sticky to lift,
But now I know there's still a thousand ways to say your name
I know S can be a silk bridge like Lala salama or bright like sunrise or asante
So today when I say babe
Let your ear convince your heart that it is not broken
I have tried and failed a thousand times to write a poem about butterflies, french fries and you
But if the past year has taught me anything it's that relationships cannot just float on two lungs sacrificing oxygen for a kiss
And no matter how much you fit between my ribs I still have to rip open my skin to let you in
So I don't promise butterflies anymore, but I promise to give you the universe, with all the good and bad that comes with it
And if I cannot be there know that I will always be here, so don't be afraid to fall
I trust the earth to spin fast enough to send me your way every so often
Let me be your wave and you will be the rocky shore, tempting sea levels like me to rise.
Let me hide my fears in the space between your eyelashes and watch you blink beautiful.
So as you watch me stumble in the dark searching for where the tunnel starts, having faith that I will remain the boy of your dreams and become the man of your prayers. Know that I remember all the places I buried my smile and all the times you've gone grave robbing.

What's in a man
My mother always said to me that the day I was born my father ran home and changed into his finest suit.
In his words "I am a man now".
I do not remember the time but I know she described it like the sun hung on to the sky like a bright yellow lantern trying not to fall.
Everyday I wake up, my goal is finding that suit, something to say "I am a man now". Some fabric made of second hand wool and words and actions, all trying to fit into the same seam.
I was three the first time my father called me the man of the house, I was five the first time he meant it. Since then he has been more sky than earth and I have been the bright yellow lantern of a sun hanging on, trying not to set. Trying not to dip behind the clouds because I know better than most that the shadows of fathers are long and dark.
It's been over two decades and I still don't know the recipe for a day, I still count my steps between sunrise and sunset and believe life is everything that happens between a day dream and a night mare. I still describe life between the shades of grey as if Sophia's eyes have ever been ash, as if my mother's smile has ever been anything but an upside down rainbow trying to catch rain.
But today I a become old enough to know I am not old enough to know what makes a man
But I know that each day demands a different recipe.
Some days I am simply my brother's keeper
On other days I am the last straw on the camels back trying to balance.
My mother always told me that faith is showing your belief in the sky by planting yourself deep in the earth.
And that is why we bury.
So today maybe all I need to do is just be.
A pigment of dirt and air and a spirit that has pretended long enough till practice makes perfect.
Maybe real men don't exist, and we all just have faith.
My mother still tells me about my father's favourite suit.
She's said he carried me with pride and I was his glow of fabric and wool.
So Maybe that's all a man is,
The chin that holds heads up,
The lazy sun catwalking across the sky that keeps the darkness at bay.
And this is the man I choose to be
A sacrifice to the world.
A cemetery for your bones.

The sun had dipped into the ocean and sizzled out its bright. And the sky was a bipolar devil trying to glow in the dark.
He was an old man filled with regret, and I a young man filled with dreams. But there was no wisdom or foolishness in the air, just the memories of the past; words of light that cast shadows of the men we used to be. And imaginations of the future, like seeds coming out of their shell, learning to trust the earth.
We were two sleeping dogs chasing dreams of grey and grave. And it did not make us bitter, somehow we both knew that death was our only proof of life.
When he said "If I am ever lost in this world, I will take care of my soul, but someone please take my body home", all I could say was "I will".
He was a solemn whisper kind of man, and I was the angel on the wrong shoulder telling him that every second Friday we have chicken in hell. But sometimes every bite is a basket of regrets you're hoping are small enough to slip through.
Sometimes silver linings are lightening and thunder is the sound your body makes when it hits the ground.
We were two cups of water, he was half empty and I was half full and even though people tried to convince us we were the same, we both knew that tomorrow he'll be less full and I'll be less empty. So today we spilled, guts and skeletons and keys to closets we've long forgotten where we buried.
He said his biggest regret was the wisdom of age, because an old man doesn't have a lot of days, so what's the point.
You can bank on the rising of the sun but if you have just enough yesterdays you can tell a wind from a storm, but it's too late to run for shelter.
But you are not me young man, you have the foolish of pride and the wisdom of time so stumble in the dark a little longer, don't wait for the sun to rise to find the light switch.
Don't wait for the smell of rain to build an ark.

I will always be words. I will always be rope, both noose and harness. I will always be words, jumbled up alphabets to break spirits and raise men. I will always be flesh, I will always be too man to cry but just man enough to fail. I will always be tears, I will always be too much pain to be anything other than mortal. I will always be man, too much ego but just enough sense to know I need a woman to tell me when enough is enough. I will always be my mother’s prayers and my father’s son. I will always be my brother’s keeper and my sister’s friend.

This is not a poem, well maybe it is, but it isn’t a poem about streetlights and butterflies and metaphors about metaphors. It is about weak men and strong women and places where lost souls practice bravery.

I don’t know what she felt
I don’t dare claim to
But I know she cried, I know she fought, I know she broke in places she didn’t know she had, I know she scrubbed hard all the time praying her skin was the memory, I know she prayed, I know she prayed hard, I know it rained, both inside and outside.
But I don’t know what she felt.

I’m tired of excuses and stories about how men are built like tsunamis raised between rock and hard place leaving broken bodies in their wake. I betrothed the knife under my pillow to the souls of men like you, men like me.

Is there a crack in my spine, why can’t I understand that women are nothing but a sum of their body parts. Is it my fault for seeing them as everything we can’t be, from wishing well belly buttons where life comes from to men raisers and once in a while they beat us at our own games just to remind us that they can rustle at the top also but foundation is key. I’m tired of apologizing for men that cradle in the arms of a woman but still reach for her neck with their arms forgetting the reason he is off the ground.

But even if she was none of these. Even if she was built like a tsunami raised between rock and hard place. In his eyes her body will still always be a temple for his sins and sacrifices.