The volume is at full percent, and then some.
If you listen close enough, you can hear a piano in the far, left back row of sounds, shoved clumsily to the side.
The bass shakes my eardrums, so deep the earphones only make a dull hum as an imitation of the mind-shattering sound.
It's a heavy and fast-paced requiem service.
A shame the volume dosen't go louder.

and we fall in love
cherries in the groves
lime sugar love
unable to grow

can we take it back
forget what i said
blocked until the next time
left me on read
regret what you said
thought the best time

headache in my chest
text message in your breath
hiding til the next time
creeping on the rest
if you just press send
we’ll forget the flatline

She's big and she's strong
She's mostly right but sometimes wrong
She's got moves and she's got beats
She keeps the blood flowing from my head to my feet
She's pure as gold
And doesn't always do what she's told
She gives me life and works everyday
And when she stops, my life she'll take away
She's my heart
And has always been a work of art ♡

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

If I sketched an angel without wings
would you be able to tell
she’s an angel?
The sky behind her would be pale yellow
The world below, gray
Like the color of the outline of her frame
I’d describe her face as angelic
Which is supposed to give it away
But maybe you’d only say she looks nice

some claimed the paddies smelled like
fetid fishes, *****; some said like the dung of oxen, peasants
or other beasts who squatted there  

others whispered the fields reeked of death  
while I found no odor to be grander evidence
of life’s languorous longing for itself  

we marched those mired moors, as hunters
of invisible prey--ourselves too being stalked, or worse,
mocked by other hairless apes,  

who like we, sought light, but
could divine darkness far better, for we
knew little of night, its sacred riddles  

some said those places reeked  
of rotted flesh, the festering relics of our deeds
I inhaled deeply, slowly  

only rich, fecund stories
were revealed to me, ones I fear yet
this silent night

my father carries his grandmother's wisdom with him
like a satchel upon his back,
like a palm print;
his own father’s teachings tug like strings
and read like a map worn but never wrong —
one that transcends.

my father knows how to live for himself
for the sake of others.
a hidden art form —
secretive to his son
who only knows how to live for others
for the sake of himself.

i could ask him how he does it,
but he tells me first that i will live and learn and hurt and grow,
and so i know, instead, that i will come to know.

my father carries me in his arms as though i am still one day old,
as though i am still taking my first few tiny gasps of air from this great big world
(the world he built for me),
as though my eyes have not yet become accustomed to the light.

my father’s arms never tire and i know why.
they are satchel and palm print,
strings and map.

i am one day old and sure that my father has lived a thousand lifetimes.
he speaks in bloodlines, holds heritage in his hands and then brings it to his head when it whispers.
like a child holding a shell to his ear, listening to the ocean.
my father knows where to find right answers.

i could ask him how he does it,
but he is already answering.

he has always been answering.

(a.m.)