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.

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.

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.

I’ve never known how to feel about wild things.

I read once never to fall in love with a wild thing.

Their hair will always belong to the wind and their toes will always belong in the sand.

“Never fall in love with a wild thing” they said

Their soul is made of earth and sky and has no anchor.

Their heart is always searching for reasons to skip and there’s only so much rope you can offer.

So do not tame a wild thing run with it as far and as long as you can until your body breaks or you become wild too.

She smiles,
I try not to,
But we both know my weakness lies somewhere between her lips. So I do that thing where I smile and frown at the same time, as I mumble "it's not funny" under my breath.
This, this was our language of love, but it didn't always come easy.
I'm still learning to take hints, especially from damsels in distress, they paint the worst pictures, with shaky hands and nothing to work with but red and grey.
You, you came into my life like a basketball going out of bounds, with ******* men chasing after you, each bounce lower than the last till you met me where I've always been. It took me a few tries to learn that you can't play football with a basketball, somethings are meant to fit in your hands, she liked to be held, so I did this, as often as she allowed me to.
Every time I said women are complexity, she always replied with "men are uncertainty". If I was ever grey Miss, this is the black and white.
You are the dream of all my dreams. A cloud made of silver strings trying not to rain, but trusting the sun to make a rainbow even if you fail. Trusting me to do that thing where I smile and frown at the same time, something to tickle your cheeks when tears are forcing them to be more river than mountain. I'm sorry if I failed you sometimes, men are raised to be more rock than water, not knowing when to flow around you.
I still think of you everyday, most days not even because I miss you, but because I'm terrified I'll forget what your smile looks like, what your laugh sounds like, what the hair at the back of your neck feels like every time I kiss your belly button. On days when I catch myself smiling, your name is the mumble under my breath. We will forever be that picture of grey and red, an uncertain man trying to paint rainbows.
I've wrapped my entire body in a bandage of time, hoping to resurrect as someone who doesn't love you as much. But I've settled for being another black man chasing a basketball going out of bounds, or at least, at least let me catch the rebound.

If I could I would write letters to the wind and ask for lessons on how to blow you away

If I could I would take a star out of the sky and put it in a ring and ask you to be it’s replacement in my life

If I could I would keep you between my second and my fourth rib, so they will tell you they’ve missed you.

The first time I saw you, I smiled with my mouth open to let go of the crickets I buried in my voice box so I could say hello

How else can I explain to you that our stories are God written guitar solos to the keys of our DNA, and I’m more electric and you’re more acoustic.

On some days you look like there are lingering pieces of a boombox etched in the framework of your spine. In simple terms your body speaks volumes.

On other days you feel like there are too many fault lines on the rail track of your spine

Those are the days I want to tell you I’m a pretty good conductor

Your voice sounds like an unfinished love song stuck in the throat of an ’80s jazz musician and I’m more of a hip-hop kind of guy, but I would make kissing you the perfect symphony.

I’m more like the odd boulder on a sandy beach and you're the entire ocean but I've drawn coastlines on the chambers of my heart

With you I could build sand castles in hourglasses, cos I wouldn’t feel time pass.

If I could I would write this poem on the wings of a butterfly and say to you “Here I think this belongs to you, I found it in my belly”

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.