My mind encompasses a cumulonimbus cloud that strikes my spine of agony and hope.
My nerve impulse consists of abuse that traumatizes my heart yet it beats on hope as a way to cope.
The pain sleeps underneath the bags under my eyes and feeds on the despair which hides behind my smile,
My soul is trapped behind the body that’s been burdened wearing heavy armor for awhile.
I’m a shadow to a reflection that’s unrecognized that became my escapism.
I remember telling myself that love is a blessing but I’m a curse.
That love will never devour me until it strips every heartbreak from my bones that ruptured into me like a bullet.
My skeleton shows missing fragments that my bulletproof skin was unable to fit though it survived the full impact of distress that ever hit.
This body is an armor of tinted smiles and radiant persona to pleasure the pain in my heart for encouragement that it too one day can be jovial.
But my armor isn’t strong enough to stitch wounds of my past to allow a peace of mind to last.
Beneath this skin are bones made up of affliction and anguish that doesn’t ossify after it’s pierced
I’ve carried this weight that was always too much on my plate for years that even the screams in my head wasn’t enough to lay my sorrows on the bed.
Days may have been black and white but the sun keeps me buoyant with everything I do,
It reminds me that I am the crayolor in a colorless distraught though I may feel blue.

-dpk

Dear little girl,
You were always more than what they expected you to be.
Called you names, neglected you, threw you out, disrespected you but you stood firm and made a persona you wanted them to see.
You were so weak to your knees that crying was a remedy to help you believe.
Believe that beauty can come from darkness, believe that the truth can come from the deceive.
They thought you were naïve, they ridiculed you to turn you into something you didn’t see in the mirror.
They tormented you with pain for you to surrender, they wanted you to pay for their actions incurred.
You were fighting a losing battle.
You were fighting a battle that only you knew about,
Only you experienced the extreme measure of what it is to be strong, yet you still doubt.
You became so accustomed with hiding your feelings that being numb was your haven
You grew so attached to yourself that nobody can knock on the door to let themselves in.
Your mentality became so advanced that you couldn’t fit in.
You became your own light in the darkness but that too became dim.
Dear little girl I’m sorry for hurting you and betraying you,
I should’ve pushed you harder, I should’ve become your best friend, I should’ve become everything they didn’t do.
But look at you.
Look at how you’ve grown and your potential to become so great.
Look at how you overcame every obstacle that was thrown at you,
Look at how you relentlessly found the positive in every negative,
Look at how you became your best friend.
Those tears weren’t in vain darling, they wrote the success you’re destined to achieve.
God heard you, he’s listening.
Just be careful opening doors you need to leave.
You are everything you need yourself to be.
So dear woman, don’t ever belittle yourself, hopes and dreams.
-dpk

They said to stay away from those that grew up on survival and not love.
That those individuals are too broken to love or they'll hurt you because their past was too tough.
That the daddy and mommy issues clings onto them like a leach,
Altering their thoughts, moods, decisions,
They're the people that got heaven and hell in them and you dare not to get close to them.
They're selfish.
They won't keep you up at 2 am so you can hug on their sorrow,
They won't leave trails of destruction in your chat so you can kiss them tomorrow.
They won't change their image so you can feel a different energy,
They won't half love you no matter how ugly your soul may be.
Instead they will push you away repeatedly and love you from a distance because they know if you come any closer, you'll see them for who they really are.
Mentally they're gone so far but they're here feeding on the emotions of false love and happiness to keep them holding on from letting go.
They're afraid that you'll see how weak they really are when their lungs are so tired of pumping something they don't know.
They don't know what it is to feel love in their bloodstream that they get so high off affection.
They don't know how to enjoy a plate of food because the inside of their stomach tie into knots of neglect they refuse to mention.
They don't know how to smile with sincerity because everything that supposed to bring them happiness destroys them in the most blissful way.
They don't know what it is to kiss your wounds because their wounds went unseen everyday.
Don't love somebody with daddy or momma issues they say.
But I say to love them so deep that they forget what it's like to breathe the oxygen that once tore them apart day by day..


-dpk

I hide behind a mind engulfed with poisonous secrets I dare not to leave my mouth.
My feet are buried in shackles latched onto them while my skin drips in doubt.
My hands are stitch behind my back with threads of weakness.
My mouth expands while the truth is caged behind my teeth because it’s no one business.
I open my eyes and it flutters more than a bird in fear from a threat.
I lean my head to the side and analyze this disastrous home tormented by time but hasn’t given up yet.
I watched it light on fire.
I’ve seen it dismantled by hurricanes.
I heard the walls and wood creak from the distress.
How can a foundation be so strong after a wave of events?
We all are broken homes at some point of life even if it doesn’t make sense.
Financial crisis, heartbreak, anxiety, school, family, work, depression, racism, we all experience a wave that changes us for the better or for the worst.
Sometimes it becomes so consistent like an epidemic that one can feel curse.
Then we question, “why did I go through this? What did I do to deserve such a traumatic blow to the head?”
And we search for these answers in the same place that hugged us with so much agony and the countless stress it led.
Early nights turn to restless nights in bed because we force reality to sink in our head but it covers our nose and mouth until we faint in a pool of insecurity and beg for these feelings to dead.
Make it stop,
I’m drowning.
The sky turns to a bruised face and wakes up the roots with its tears.
I feel so connected as the drops fall to the floor because it reminds me we all break no matter how much we can bear.
I observe the rain dance on the sturdy house and admire it as the beauty glisten,
I grew a love for this home because it rebuild as much as despondence knocked on the door, it ignored and refused to listen.
It upholds its commitment to itself to never give up.
That no matter how much times it can get rough,
Know that you can survive and pretending your problems don’t exist will never be enough.

-dpk

If I told you to look in my eyes would you be able to see the mystery of untold truth twisted in lies?
Look at me with an open mind and read the fine prints sketched in my deep brown eyes.
Understand that I’m not a work of art to showcase in a gallery of hidden ignorance.
Favor my solitude and leash onto my oxygen and see that I am the art in a work of progress ever since.
Do not label me due to my ethnicity, skin tone, hair type, sexuality, religion and individuality.
Do not defy my capabilities and slaughter me with words and force me to think that your criticism defines my reality.
Look beyond the exterior layer and see me as a human.
My flaws are not to be considered jokes.
My brown skin is not to be a target for death.
My preference is not to be ridiculed and abused for love.
My religion is not to be stereotypical and dragged down as one.
We live in a society where mental illness is to be cured over drinking tea,
We live in a society where we rather poison our system with liquid and smoke to go in another dimension to escape reality.
We live in a society where social media depicts whether we’re beautiful or worthy.
We live in a society where we segregate ourselves in our own race because of insecurity.
We are imperfect and demand change but refuse to change ourselves for a better way of living.
We rather be a part of the problem rather than the solution because working together is a sacrifice than willing.
My intelligence is not to be measured by your inability to understand my standpoint, it is not to be underestimated.
Do not try to paint a picture or lye in your bed of presumption unraveling the knots of your lack of knowledge of who I am.
I am not defined by your weapon you consistently lash at me with your tongue.
I am not to be seen as the lyrics in those demoralizing rap songs.
I am not to be hold to a lower standard and revoke of my abilities because I am a woman.
I may be a lot of things but that does not give you the right to discriminate my life as a human being.
When you look at me, value me for the person I am,
And that person is beautifully and wonderfully made.

-dpk

Lately my mind has been in one place beyond the stars,
I try to connect the dots but they just leave trails of false happiness tainted in scars.
I’ve been lost and consumed with unimaginable distraught built up in me
Went from writing poetry on a daily to not at all due to the animosity I blinded myself to see.
I look in the mirror and see someone I don’t recognize,
From all the lessons learnt I still fantasize how life would be without uncomforting cries.
I believe that life without the setbacks prevents you from appreciating the triumphs,
But what happens to the pieces of you that stayed shattered while life was your worst enemy?
To battle with life is to drag yourself across the finish line after every milestone  
Bruises, blood, sweat, tears become a cushion to your self-destruction and you lost your way from home.
They name hurricanes after people because we are a cluster of emotions burning inside, we set fire to our own rain,
We add fuel to our own fire because we rather suffer than to gain,
We become our own enemy and barricade ourselves from outside pain but lock ourselves in and become insane.
Insanity becomes our best friend. We persuade ourselves to get better but rather give another person a helping hand,
We give advice because genuinely that’s what we want to hear but we run into loops and bury our security in the sand.
Looking beyond the stars trying to connect the dots of the chaos but the galaxy lye in me, the fire lye in me, the hurricane lye in me the mediocrity lye in me,
Blatantly to say,
The only person that can save me, is… me.

-dpk

You found beauty in my disconsolate eyes.
Seeing right through me and my lies you comforted my miserable outcries.
A fortress was built to protect my heart from agony and disappointment,
But you molded a door through my scars and viewed me as heaven sent.
Embracing my imperfections, you kissed them with reassurance,
You became my mirror on the wall and developed a tolerance.
I was not the beauty but indeed the beast,
Yet you made love to mind and engulfed my soul with adoration none the least.
Taming my pessimism that overflowed like Niagara falls,
You chained them them to happiness and hope although they had brawls.
Your beauty became the stars and the moon in my darkness,
The dark knarled and hissed at the idea of love but eventually filled with bliss ,
I found peace, the best thing I missed.
Becoming the energy from your light, the radiance choked my chaotic mind until it quenched for sight
It overdosed me in seeing what's right  instead of hallucinating in "what might"
It made me realize your love was worth the fight.
Your smile poisoned me with a kiss of forever ,
Your eyes blossomed sunflowers from my veins I thought would never grow
Your arms carved an imprint of your love on my body that gave me a glow
Your heart shot me with bullets of consistency I thought I'd never know,
Your personality was alcohol that kept me spinning and made me not want to go.
Mirror mirror on the wall you're my reflection,
I undergo many selection but you gave the best impression although family became the most fraustration our love conquered because it's from another dimension.
With you I can face anything, I am complete,
You see me for me,
Acknowledging the beast , you transform the negativity to positivity with ease
You allowed me to be Destiny without judging me.
It was not a true love kiss that awakened me,
It was your beauty that stripped me naked without me taking off my clothes,
It was your compassion that saw an aching soul,
It was your words that stiched the empty hole,
It was the person you are that rescued me from the cold.
You are my true love.
You are the beauty to my beast and
I love you with all of me.
-dpk