Sometimes I really want to quit my jobs,
erase all the numbers from my phone,
pack some clothes,
stuff all my savings in my pockets,
grab my camera,
and just
go.

Sometimes I fill half my suitcase.
Sometimes I take all the money out of my account.
Sometimes I wait till the last minute to decide I'm going to work.
Sometimes I leave out of the house, walk halfway down the street without looking back.
I can only ever make it halfway.

I never think much about the fact that I am black.
I know I am black.
Like I know I am a girl,
Like I know I am an American,
Like I know I am nineteen.
It is a fact; I am black.

I hate when people say I am not.
My parents are black.
Their parents are black.
We are black.
Look at my skin,
It's dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not be black?
I am black.

I hate when people say I don't 'act' black.
How does one act to be considered black?
How am I acting? How is it not black?
Look at my skin,
It's dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not act black?
I am black.

I hate when people say I speak like a white person.
A way of speaking is not exclusive to race.
I am not white.
I do not speak like a white person.
My words are coming out of my black mouth.
I speak properly,
The way my black parents raised me to.
Look at my skin,
Its dark and it's beautiful.
How could I not speak black?
I am black.

I HATE when people say I am a white person trapped in a black body.
I have NEVER heard anything more insulting.
I am NOT trapped.
This color is NOT a cell.
I wear it proudly.
Look at MY skin,
It is DARK and it is BEAUTIFUL!
How could I ever be trapped?
I am black.

I am in no way white,
Nor do I ever want to be.
I am black
And black is beautiful

In his hand he holds a heart
A heart that was once her own
It has no wings to fly away
To where the PrttyBrd has flown

Since it could not follow
It awaited the return
To dwell in the empty cavern
Of a love that will ever burn

Ne'er to be filled with purpose
As the cavern is sewn in steel
The fire will char the surface
Where there is nothing left to feel

She could not bear the weight
Upon her wings so frail
A heart so full of love
Returned to no avail

For it had beaten just for her
Though she never realized
She had thought she set him free
But epitomized his demise

The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.

People think that the only way to connect
is to have ***,
this generation's biggest tragedy is
mixing up love for lust on the daily

I am a poet
And my world is my own
No ingestion of substance can compare

I am a poet
My senses I hone
How else can I color them to share

I am a poet
My pain is my pride
My wounds bleed raw on a page

I am a poet
My hope burns alive
Experiences transform me to a sage

I am a poet
I overflow with love
I accept all for who and what they are

I am a poet
Who needs not a shove
To weave a story in whimsy from afar

I am a poet
My passion rules the mind
However logical I pretend to be

I am a poet
I coax the words in kind
Filled with feelings only memory can see

I am a poet
I see the verse as yet untold
I bathe pages from the beauty of a look

I am a poet
My pen leads to my soul
There is intrigue in every shadowed nook

I am a poet

I hear, there is no caring just lingering thoughts
Of what it's believed to never have been
Still your demons awakened my own
As i fulfilled my promise to give you all that i could

The evil surfaced in acid burns on the soul,
Your sulfur dragons born of barren dreams
Spewed fire that licked my flesh clean
And as you consumed the charred bits of my essence
I experienced the kind of freedom
Birthed in a place I never wanted to be

Relinquishing so much of my past, my pain
To have you grow stronger
As I dig my nails into my own flesh
To crawl out of the shadows I, myself, created

And I hear your gentle voice whisper vile commands
The hint of an evil smile as I dutifully acquiesce
Claimed in the darkness found in the corners of daylight
I kept my promise
And you claimed me
Mind, body, and soul

When my demons were quelled
As you slay them
As you bashed them into submission
My knight, in empty armor
My heart, now unbound, became full

Perhaps you believed that my heart would feed your own
But your heart turned to ash
The last time it loved
Still, your monsters were hungry
And my heart was full

You held me in the darkness
Your hand in mine
Keeping my sadness company
Turning friendship into love
'Tis who you are,
Who you hate yourself for being

In that place where your sweetness flows,
Where there is no doubt that you care
Your monsters ate my heart
Consuming chunks of my emotion
And I, having an abundance,
Was grateful for the chance to feed you

But my heart, now full of holes
Still mocked you in its ability to smile
So, you kissed me and held my heart once again
So I  would not drown in my own fear

And I gave you what you always wanted
Mind, body, heart, and soul

And there you were
All the while disgusted
That my promises
Don't feel like your reality
That my heart is more sweet than savory
And that my demons lie dormant
While yours are ravenous
Looking for new prey

The holes in my heart smolder
As I feel that familiar burn
The burn of the birth of new demons