Oh the gratitude! gentle easings into the day
bittersweet warmth of coffee on my tongue
i stare into the space of thoughts before me

an even greater warmth reaches out to me,
the kind realization that the ones i love are
sipping and pondering and contemplating

smile, i, at the morning community, welcome
impassioned melodies that awaken my soul
and brighten my eyes, oh! the gratitude!

the sun never fails to rise
i, yea we, are yet, alive

Lions rarely climb trees
Except for western Uganda

Languidly resting
Limbs dangle in repose

Recovering from  
The ferocity of chase

Panting and roar
Conquer and surrender

I think you and I
Are in Western Uganda

Teeming with stealthy vigor
And sleeping in trees

the empty glass of earlier red wine
is a temptress beside me as i sit in this chair
subtle sways of fragrance wafting
her beckoning calls out like a siren

isn't that just like a woman to do such a thing?

A blinding reflection
of the sun’s light shot
like lightening flares crashing
against glass towers
turquoise blue drawings
of the sky in structures
with angles and boundaries
climbing high as its
architecture would allow,
thrilled by the terror
of getting right
to the edge
and looking down
was my first step
towards freedom;
towards a tiny movement
in a no fly zone
bent by dreams, purposes
and meanings
now those peregrine callings
and two flying together
are becoming human,
lit with discernment
of a third eye
and an aerial view
I step off the edge,
headed east
into the morning sun
like the hauntingly beautiful
songs of French monasteries
I see clearly,
I am strong
and my body can only rise

I like how the air feels
when you are in the room
the atoms visibly assemble
as your soul and synapses
converge
the earthly and the ethereal
and I need it now,
the air you produce with your exhales
I need it on my skin,
through my pores
inside my ribcage
wisdom and innocence co-habit your face

you are pure running waters

raising humans above your head
like a homage to the gods
like the worship of cats in Egypt
your hands form a basin
to cradle my vulnerability
they safeguard the ethos of who I am
and exalt the who I want to be
you are inside of me
and together we are whole

There was a spot on the sidewalk
Where the sun had landed
Making its way through the skyscrapers
I stood inside it, face tilted upwards
To let heat and light kiss my skin
Just then, a breeze surrounded me
Swirls and circles and
I felt the color blue
For a few moments
What is me disintegrated
Dissolved into the sky
Alive forever

She thinks if she travels to foreign lands- even if
it is only by dating an ethnic man- that she can
scale the high walls of the borders between what she
was taught and who she hopes she is.

Having followed blindly her predestination programmed life
she can’t resist taking squinted peeks through the
tiny open slits of vision, hoping to find her true self.

“You are losing the faith!” her anxious mother warns
as though to do so would be an inherent flaw,
not a conscious choice.

But Mother’s own faith
has been slipping through her hands for the past
30 years, and only that promised salvation can save
her from the indiscretions that fill the non-rapturous void
left-behind by mister Christian-right-wing-man.

Taught well by mother, father, and god, that men
must be assessed in a purely logical fashion,
“Agree on finances and childrearing and you will
have happily ever.”

But she feels fake, and does not know how
to peel the plastic wrap off her personality.
You can see its bindings in the way her eyes implore you
and how she clasps her hands on her lap by rote.

She is the pink peg in the Hasbro Game of Life car
with guilt trip road blocks, detours and poorly folded
directional maps. Spinning the wheel in search of tour guides:
What should I read? What should I think?

But that only gives her new mind instructors.
Perhaps instead of foreign languages and foreign lands,
the verity lies in the realization that mother
probably feels fake too.