You are poetry spoken in tongues.**
I do not know how to understand you
I do not know if I'd like too
I'd love the sounds all the same;
regardless if
the meaning escapes me.

I no longer needed music to escape
my thoughts because I could recite
all of my favorite songs between
her thighs and she would
sing along.

-o.b.

kid: what are those words?
me: I'm writing poetry.

kid: party tray?
me: poetry.

kid: polo tree?
me: poetry.

kid: poe uh chee?
me: close enough.

I love it like when people sing incorrect lyrics. But more, because kid has the cute and is missing a tooth.

Have you ever  seen anything so
barren as a neighborhood? I swear
even  the nature there  is  sterile -
narrowed  down  to  a  few  well-
behaved   bushes,   shaved   into
submission, bereaved of freedom.

i  miss the rebellion
of the trees
pushing defiantly even through
concrete to see the sky not silent
and  fearful like these
things crowded and compliant with no
room to breathe freely
do they even seem
alive

baptism recurs as trauma, angels watch me
seize
i have begun to pray again
i may feel cold but i am so warm
in my throat and bones, i have a fever
by the time my vagus nerve grew up my lungs were so full i found it impossible to scream
give me love without evasion and equivocation.
no one will just speak to me anymore

my limbs are cold and purple and i ache for the past;
they will be rosy soon (if it turns out to be raynaud's in the end)
cairo used to be a boom town, she said; it ain't anymore,
if we're talking about the same place
i miss the waiter in kentucky
he couldn't have been more than fifteen
someday he'll buy me a house

pull on my teeth, press my tongue, make me *****