I miss the old times
Where everything was all good
Playing around and running the streets
It didn't matter that we were in the hood

I remember the old days
Where our cousins were around the corner
Having hang-outs and sleepovers
We even walked to school together

What about the old places
Like Jefferson and Roselle Park
Where our uncle was there watching us
Having fun and pouring out our hearts

I miss the old fun
Walking to the corner store
Where the candy was only a penny
And 25 cent for a huge popcycle

I miss the old times
When an Ice Cream cone was a dollar
And 25 cent for the sprinkles
Those little things made our hearts sparkle

How juicy your words taste
sliding down my tongue to my thirsty throat;
tasting of freshly picked apples
squeezed into sunny warm cider-
seeping into my blood stream
and bringing me back to the fall where
the sunset leaves fall across my skin
and your voice sings with the crunch of the leaves.

I float in a sea of your words
thrashing against my skin
but I embrace every single
whispered black letter and
swallow the bitter ink,
so my lungs become too bloated
for me to hover in the foam so that I
sink and I find your cheek to kiss.

Come dance with me between the seaweed,
with sand wedged between our toes
I’ll hook on to your Cs intertwine
with Ls, slip behind Bs and lay in
the Ys when the dance is done--
you would have kissed the lids
of my eyes, slipped into my soul
and transformed me to you
your words are my thoughts and dreams
of autumn leaves and breezy waves.

shine your light my way,
and the winds will dance
with us on their strings,
we are the earths puppets,
we'll spin again.

I never want to leave your side
but my hands are tied,
my hands are tied,
your heart screams blind.

You don't love me anymore.

Welcome home, we're proud of you
soft hands caressed my hair.
You're ghostly white and beautiful,
we'll care for you, my dear.
Lay you down on blankets
and sheets as pure as doves.
Kiss you on the temple
promise you our love.
You've returned to whence you came
please do not leave again.
From dust to life to ashes
your body you will shed.
Your soul has been marked black
we'll wash it clean with prayer.
In your heart you've always known
you didn't belong there.
So jump, my child, into our arms
we'll keep you safe forever.
Come back to the sky, it's simple now
you just have to pull the trigger.
Press down a littler harder on that blade,
swallow a few more.
Welcome home, we're proud of you.
With angels you will soar.

Their heads are filled with stories.
Hope for life after death.
The questions asked to many times,
what'd happen if I lept?
Would I still get into heaven if I took my own life,
would my father from above see my struggle and my strife,
would I be forgiven for giving up so soon
to be pulled back into angels arms
white clouds and perfect harp-played tunes.
If I quit this now, the fighting,
I'd be on the other side.
And we fill the heads of children
tell them that the pain subsides
when the kiss of deaths upon you,
the dead move into the sky.
And everything's eternal
when the last breath escapes
as a sigh.

There was a lemon tree that never bore lemons
still growing in the backyard of my grandparents' home.
Years passed climbing every tree around it
but never did my sister or I dare to yank on its branches.
"It's weak. Rotting from the inside out,"
but still standing.
The cherry blossom tree towers over it
sneakers often scuffed from the bark and knots.
Climb higher, so I did. I was the smallest.
Gaze down at the lemon tree from the highest branch I'd dare rest my weight on.
I have faith in you.
"Grow," but it didn't.
I spent all my years climbing every tree around it,
and the lemon tree stayed weak.
Stayed growing.
I stay faithful.

When did you feel the most beautiful you've ever felt?
When it sent a lightning bolt through your bones and hit
every pore, caused your hair to stand on end
and your heart to pump more blood,
like you couldn't fit all that living into one breath
you needed the whole. When the sheets on the floor looked like the entire ocean
stretched out before you, your body is a boat, a vessel for another person's life
not a stitch of clothing on and not a single speck of dust
in the air of the bedroom. Lights wrapped around your ankles like
you're above the sun rather than underneath it,
but there are no boils on your skin and your scars have smoothed.
There are no hands on you
but your own and the ones of every person you've been before.
Shedding skin cells with every brush of a finger on your wrist
and this is it.
You promised yourself, I love you now.
I love all of you, somehow I always have. Not a stitch
of clothing
not a hand
held to your body warmth
and you're beautiful alone
you're the ocean and the boat.
I'm trying to write until I can't anymore
and it's words that flow out and it's sentences that pour
no longer about those lost, but those living,
and the ones that I strive to keep close, to keep giving
every bit of me away and I'll gain each part back
from other breathing and split ends and cells,
I don't need others to feel well.

I said that I would wait.
I put it down in words.
Even though the distance was slowly and painfully beginning to settle in,
I said I would wait.

I promised that regardless of what happened,
I’d wait,
Because somewhere, deep inside me, I knew we were worthy of it.

I returned,
Heavy bag in hand, tired eyes, heart full of hope,
But you weren’t waiting.

You stopped waiting.
You didn’t even have the courage to tell me about her.
After all our history, the years, the growing, the learning, the tears,
I thought you’d maybe wait.

But you didn’t.
You were gone before I could even touch you, smell you,
Hold you.

You didn’t wait.
And now, I sit here.  
I sit and wait,
I wait…
And wait…
But I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.

Because you were gone before I could even whisper “wait”.