I read last Saturday in the
redwoods outside of Santa Cruz
and I was about 3/4's finished
when I heard a long high scream
and a quite attractive
young girl came running toward me
long gown & divine eyes of fire
and she leaped up on the stage
and screamed: "I WANT YOU!
I WANT YOU! TAKE ME! TAKE
ME!"
I told her, "look, get the hell
away from me."
but she kept tearing at my
clothing and throwing herself
at me.
"where were you," I
asked her, "when I was living
on one candy bar a day and
sending short stories to the
Atlantic Monthly?"
she grabbed my ***** and almost
twisted them off. her kisses
tasted like shitsoup.
2 women jumped up on the stage
and
carried her off into the
woods.
I could still hear her screams
as I began the next poem.
mabye, I thought, I should have
taken her on stage in front
of all those eyes.
but one can never be sure
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid.

Forgive yourself
Perfect was never a word suited for you
Love yourself
Everything comes back to this
Love your sister
She has been picked apart, degraded, and has an internal war eating her from the inside out
Love your brother
He has a time stamp of deliverance to a life of incarceration, bullets released from an absence of sense, lack of educated, blind ambitious followers.
Raise your head
You are a Goddess created
with disarming beauty in mind.
Continue to place one foot in front of the other
You are meant and strongly designed for forward movement.
Take no steps back, do not bow down your head, do not close your mouth
In fear that judgment will fall
It will, but you must speak anyways.
Your voice is imperative
to the growth of lost girls who are unsure what real women are made of.
Your voice is imperative to the peaking of the minds of men unsure what to look for in a Queen, show him.
Your voice is imperative to the readjustment of the image of
Black Women with large voices
Black Women with high diction
Black Women with love language
Black Women with literary genius
Black Women filled with nothing less than the peace & love God has manifested within us.
Black Women
Black Women
Black Women
Who love Black men like double chocolate moist bliss
Who love White men like dark roast coffee filled with cream
Who love Latino men like Butterscotch candy dipped in chocolate
The list goes on
Black Women who love like we are bound to implode if we don't give the universe what it is that we need back.
Black Women
Your Mother
Black Women
Your Sister
Black Women
Your Friend
Black Women
Your Lover
Black Woman
Love Her.

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
  This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
  Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
  Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
  Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard,
  Marking the reach of the winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
  Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;

Always I climbed the wave at morning,
  Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
  Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning
  Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
  And the black sticks that fence the weirs,

If I could see the weedy mussels
  Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
  Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

Feel once again the shanty straining
  Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
  Dread the bell in the fog outside,—

I should be happy,—that was happy
  All day long on the coast of Maine!
I have a need to hold and handle
  Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy, that am happy
  Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
  I have a need of water near.

i wish i was something immutable or indestructible of fountains
and of young **** yielding grass laying youth country USA
stargazing, in a plaid shirt even though i'm a city girl trying to get more
acquainted with your southern drawl and a bit of your memory
you're out on bond and the first thing you do is call your momma
hurt somebody bad because they messed with her
that turns me on a little bit like the hay in your truck's bed
life's been kind of bright red like my lips and i'm not down with tricks
but i can afford clothes now and my parents don't talk to me anymore
dusk is here but you don't have to worry anymore
and you're hot like the August asphalt, lines in my cheeks from laughing
with you
no plea deals and no instagram pics, low lights and maybe more bright red
less stagnant and more comfortable with the visions of love and life

"Write one sentence, the truest sentence that you know."-Hemingway

So I took his advice.

I wrote it on the walls of your slumber and
along the spines of my favorite days.
I painted it on windows,
we turned into doors,
and doors we turned into walls.
I wrote it on your sharp tongue
and all it's favorite places to explore,
the latitudes
and longitudes of a truth unraveled.

I will always love you.

i think about
a lot of things
and most of them
don't stay for long
but if i had to
sum it up,
for you,
i think i'd try.

i think about my memories
and replay laughs
and lessons, kisses
and the first time seeing
people who i now know well.

i think about the near future
and try to tame expectations
and try to focus on the now
but sometimes it
gets tough.

i often feel like
dipping in and
out of life like
something rolling
back and forth
along the wave break
resting now and then.

but mostly i just
think of that
which is before me
like a map or
flower or a shadow
or whatever form i find.

so when you asked me
what i think
it at first seemed
a riddle, for
i'm not sure
that i think at all
now that i
think
about it.

"A one-way ticket to space, please."

"These coins can’t get you anywhere"

I poured my silver lined heart
on the desk

"Ma’am this is all I have"

“I am afraid that is not enough"

I plucked my crystal tears
drew the rubies in my veins

I picked out my pearly eyes
they rolled like silk into her hands

"Enjoy your trip"



But

As I stood on the observation deck

Before the inky canvas
freckled with glistening stars

I realised

I had no

Eyes to see
hearts to please

Not even a tear to weep

Just a vessel
With a metaphoric soul

And a one-way ticket to space.

give me back the days
when you’d press me like a flower
against the wall
and whisper little nothings
so cinnabon sweet
they’d swirl around
my head all day.
when we’d walk
spring streets coated
in magnolia leaves
you, mr. chivalry
curbside, protecting
every milky bone in
my body.
i crave
one more afternoon
tangled in sheets
with you,
fingers tracing
places i want
discovered by you
only.
another beeswax flavored
kiss, to get me through
the solstice
not yet gone,
already missing you.