Oh what’s that officer,
Did you say I fit the description?
Well don’t bother using handcuffs,
Because from since birth I’ve felt the constriction.
I kept my words and anger at a minimum
Because I live the life of a Christian.
Plus, cops hide behind their guns
And I saw his trigger-finger itching.
Submission of my wrists,
As a matter of fact my whole body, mind, and soul.
And you would think it hard to believe
That the youth could wield
The wisdom of the old.
Societies in which blacks tinker on the very edge,
Almost no existence
So I make new paths,
Trudging through the mass,
To overcome my birthed restrictions.

Haven't you heard it's not polite to stare?
Your piercing eyes puncture my skin and make me bleed my emotions.
And yet, I still don't know what
You see when my habitual glare meets yours,
But I know I cause convulsions.
Convulsions that run up and down your spine.
Because you have yet to realize until now
That you were bleeding the same dark red
Liquid from the **** that I caused.
Nevertheless, we still both convince ourselves of being unaware
To what this lingering, locking of our retinas symbolizes.
Is it love?
Is it lust?
Or is it neither?
We contemplate this question and wait patiently.
Hoping that our dauntless, hazel orbs, urge us on
Once more, to peer into their mirror images across the way.
So that they can utter the words that our tongues cannot form.
There is no longer a use for pointless chatter,
When our stare says it all.

I’m the type to holster mental index cards of things to say on a first date
But no matter how much I study, my words never withstand the test of time.
Eventually, sweet nothings cause ear canal cavities from sultry words too often indulged.

Love made me want to rip my pulsing heart out of my chest and place him on a table just for interrogation.
I would ask, why he would trust so easy when he should know better than anyone that no love, melody, or beat goes on forever.

But what an exceptional construction worker you’ve become.  
Demolishing hearts as if the blueprint to my soul has become obsolete.
Words spewed from your mouth with the power of a wrecking ball that collided with my 5’7 frame.
So unpredictable that I doubled over from the pain.
I crumbled as if I was an ancient building way pass my prime.
And I’m still searching through the rubble to find any salvageable pieces.
Maybe I can recover a missing part of my smile and plaster it back into place, though it will never fit quite the same.
You ****** slowly on my bone marrow and your lack of concern made me insane.

Before I slept, I sprinkled immaculate images of you on my eyelids as if I was the Sandman.
Thoughts of you embraced my dreams, and it was the only way I could find serenity in my slumber.

I will never again activate the synapses in my brain that saw you as a god that descended to earth.
You ripped my psyche to shreds like a cannibalistic cupid who lost sight of the agenda.
To create love, not to pierce it with vindictive arrows.  

Now all you are to me is this poem.
A poem.
Letters, words, and stanzas.
You don’t even deserve the time it took me to write this.
You do not deserve the effort of my joints smacking the keys when I find the next thought of how you hurt me.

Like sacred paintings in newly discovered caves, I tattooed the inner walls of my cerebral cortex with memories of you.
It would be there forever. Waiting to be discovered by the next person that walks into my life with a torch filled with hope.
Illuminating my dark, damp and lonely cave.

When the next woman crosses my path and wonders why I get a verbal tic from the word love, I will unlock those same chambers of my mind and show her the walls that you’ve left your worthless signature on.

I hope she will be able to understand that I can let her onto the front porch, but it will be some time before she gets to see my home.
Because, it’s really messy in there.
***** dishes in the sink, books thrown on the ground, an unkempt bed, and my confidence and self-worth hung up to dry on the clothesline.

You cannot just rent a space in someone’s home and then leave without a month’s notice.

You were my addiction,
I injected your ******* essence and I was high on life when you were near.
So close that you coursed through my veins and made me feel alive.
Every now and again I get that familiar itching of an addict.
I am itching, just to text you.
Just a simple hello.
I get urges to find you.
To cop another one of your addictive glances straight into my two liquid pools of inexperience.
I never thought addictions were this hard to kick.

Like a pumpkin on Halloween, carve me open.

You will fear the hollowness of my insides.

Previous trick-or-treaters, in their too high of spirits, have long ago scooped out what made me tick.

My pulse used to pound louder than a heart knocking on the door of another’s soul,

Hoping that someone welcoming waited on the other side.

Begging for entry.

As they dressed in their costumes, hiding their true identity,

They stumbled upon my motionless being.    

They mistook me for the large, misshapen fruit and I did not make it a hard feat.

With my constant state of lifelessness and lack of expression, I am a lyric with no beat.

Lost amongst the stars, wandering far.

Hiding next to sons that always knew how to shine brighter than I did.

Camouflaged, so that you would not notice that I too could light up the sky.

Too often,

I would rather be overlooked,

Than to have my illumination come with an expiration date.

Too often.