You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Tonight, this **** dog
Keeps farting himself awake.
Sleep seems quite futile.

boys
the way you try to look away in time
the way your hair falls in your face
or the way you hide under that hat or that band shirt

the way you pull me close
the way you smell my hair
and the way you throw me away

the way you lay your head on my chest
the way you talk like love
but the way you act like lust

the way you pick you pants up off my floor
the way you tie your shoes
and the way you walk out the door


men
the way your hands hold
like you’ve never seen something so precious
the way your nose is sweet
and the way your face is kind

the way you close your eyes when you smile
the way you sigh when my hands are in your hair
the way you ask me what i think
and the way you like who i am

i’m three beers in, alone
when i should be at home.
you’re god knows where
when you should be here.

i don’t cry
i don’t get caught on the little things
i do though,
without you

can we go watch the stars again?
slowly floating near each other
never meeting
like us
until it was too late

i feel like wearing all black
i feel like my scuffed docs
i feel like dark nail polish
and i feel like a fourth beer

dear painted mask slipping off my face,
wet mildewed socks clinging to weary feet,
molasses on my hands shrouded in gloves of lace –
you in the cracked mirror, you rotten, rancid, discarded piece of meat.

o, knotted wicked web of thread,
the faucet of my eye leaks.
emily’s funeral in her head –
it took three weeks

to admit the rot the plumber missed.
to cry when the evening light is dying –
to say that i’m sad – to say i’m ******.
to watch and feel my circuits frying.

blinded and fooled and beaten, i ran and crashed into not-love –
maybe i’m an idiot, because i still can’t tell a pigeon from a dove.

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.