My silence lives in the middle of my chest.
Engulfing my lungs into the poeticness of Black.
It inches up my throat,
Clinging onto my esophagus,
Chokingly.
My silence suffocates me,
But my voice still wants to Scream.










© 2015 Kendra Bowman

I am from Fisher Price cars with foot powered engines.
Dolls with no hair,
Barbies with no houses.

I am from give it back!
Give it here!
Alex, no!
Ni Ni, stop!

I am from frost bitten rain and winter coats.

I am from snow for Days.
and Weeks.
and Months.

I am from North, East, South, and West.
The Shinobi.
The Lone Ranger.
With Life dragging me in each direction,
“Stay” is not in my vocabulary.

I am from the Cool of The Bay
And the Heat of The Valley.

I am from Loud Mouths
And Long Hair.
Sarcasm and Activism.
No one speaks for me.

I am from a Cousin of Every Color,
A Sister of Every Origin,
A Brother of Every Nation.

I am from the empty darkness of my room.
I can do nothing but bask in its humidity.

I am from nothing but the Hum of Music.

The Tune of Music.

The Sound of Music.

I am from things unsaid.
I am those unsaid things.

I am from the beat of the drum,
And a dance that will always conversate with me.

I am from the Theater.
From the Backdrop to the Stage.
I am the dusted over glitter on the floor.
I am the glisten of the lights above me.

The Singer.
The Actor.
The Writer.

I am the truest version of myself.

And nothing will stop me.











© 2015 Kendra Bowman

I make myself
Hate myself
When I sit alone and think about Myself.
And despite the Confidence eluding from this Self
I still Spite thy Self.
I'd disown myself,
If it could rid me the Pain of Living with this Self.

I took my life to forget your name.
Drowned in alcohol to wash away your kisses.
Drunk bleach to make your lies spotless.

I took my life to forget your name.

Hit this blunt because you take my breath away.
Lit my skin ablaze to erase your touch.
Slit my wrist to leak our connection.

I took my life to forget your name.












© 2014 Kendra Bowman

He had swallowed me whole.

Lips pressed together,
Wandering hands full of freedom,
He caressed me.

Blind fingertips
Sweet between these foreign sheets,
They roamed my hills and valleys.
They tingled like peppermint soap,

Though not to clean.

***** me,
Lied down of soft comforters,
Lied down like a princess,
Like a beast you defiled me.

And once there was Beauty.









©2014 Kendra Bowman

There is a scream inside me,
And its Angry.
And its Agonizing.
It is ever so Tantalizing.
There is a scream inside me.

There is a scream inside me.
And it's loud.
And it's deafening.
It just whistles through my emptiness,
Never filling.
Cause it's leaking through my bullet wounds.
Lord Jesus,
Help me.
There is a scream inside me.

There is a scream locked up inside me,
And somebody needs to hear it.

Take this scream out of me, Bwana.
Bwana, take this pain off of me.

This scream can stay no longer.










© 2014 Kendra Bowman

I no longer yearn for tenderness.
I only once yearned for it because I thought it was what was right.
Soft,
Gentle,
Love.
Sweet
Between
The Sheets.
With Patient Kisses.
And hands
that Do Not
Hunger.
But I need you to Ravish me...
Because when you ransack me it feels ravishing.



© 2014 Kendra Bowman

**** your heroes
Shoot em' down.
Shoot em' dead.
You'e only got one hero
That's You
Get it in your head.



© 2014 Kendra Bowman

The Sun.
She is Golden
Crying out to me as she dignifies the morning.
Blinding me.
Encasing me in her warm arms.
Comforting my wonders as I stare up into her pudgy round face.
Feeding my thought.
Her smooth touch across my cocoa colored skin,
It makes me just want to watch her,
And lie there forever.
As life happens,
And time passes by.




© 2014 Kendra Bowman

She is yellow.
Screaming happiness in my face as she glistens across my tear streaked cheek bones
She shrieks with laughter.
Filling our soul with the joy we continuously search for.
She taste like lemonade,
A sweet, sour sensation that pools upon my lips,
Swims in my mouth,
Swishing along my tongue.

Though she smells like fear.
And we all cower before her.

The sun is like a wild fire. You can not control her.

Still she engulfs us in warmth.
Glistening.
Holding fast onto our hearts

She knows we can not live without her.


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Perfection likes to vacation inside my head
And I can’t stand her.

With her bows
And her dresses
And her frilliness....
She knows everything....
She can do anything.....

She's what everyone dreams of.
She's what everyone wants to be.

But,

She's always loved to tag along with Insanity
And of course Insanity drives me crazy.

So self-control tries to control me.

But still insanity pushes her way through to me.

Till I am drowning in her sweet words of comfort.
Wrapped up tight.

In a soft padded room.




© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Sky.
She is falling.
Crashing down upon me.
Crushing me beneath her overwhelmingly heavy weightlessness
While Beauty,
Striping herself from me.
Constantly escapes my needy grasp.
Then Pain
She singes me
Burning deep into my flesh
As she holds fast onto my heart.
Squeezing its rhythmic thumping in her tight grasp.
Killing me.
All while waiting on Death,
And searching for Perfection.
Dying for Joy,
And crying for my savior.

Who never showed up...


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

She was the one that ran out into the rain.
Laughing,
Smiling,
Dancing.
The one that made the boys afraid.
Tough,
Fearless,
Strong.
The girl who'd jump not knowing how to swim.
Now drowning 6 ft under.
Lost and imprisoned within herself.


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Just let me die before I wake.
**** me softly in this sleep.
Slowly,
Painfully,
Anything.
I mean it.
Just let me die before I wake.
**** me softly in this sleep.

Just let me die before I wake.
**** me softly in this sleep.
I don't care how it happens.
I don't care how you do it .
Just let me die before I wake.
**** my softly in  this sleep.

And If I shall wake to my captor,

Gripped by the beauteous hands of death.

Let me feel every bit of pain
While I relieve all the pain in my life
And then I shall dwell
Beyond the gates of Hell.
All the days of my eternal after life.


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Guns to the head.
Knives through the heart,
Down our wrist.

Jumping off bridges,
Drowning, Crashing.
We keep putting bullet holes in our chest.

Tears streaming down our faces.
We go to sleep and never wake

How much more can we take?

We've got those painkillers,
Our cheerleaders.
Screaming "You can die!!! Just take me!!!"

© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Why didn't you get it?

You just thought it was one of my phases
But on the inside I knew I was going crazy

Why didn't you understand me?

Oh the irony of that statement.
That you can understand the children with the needs of the special needs
But you cant understand your own child
Who's brain functions and cooperates
Quite clearly
She is calling out for help
But you cant see that

Now she is crying out to you from her hospital bed.
From her asylum.
Bruised around her neck.
Scars across her wrist.
Scratched up and down her arms.

Cut to deep,
In a coma from the draining of her sweet crimson.

Because she let the pain tear through her.

She let it tear though her....

And it threw her
Over the edge

I am pouring out to you through this poem.
Before I let my pain
Push me over
And I Am crying silently to myself in my asylum.

From the scars down my wrist
And the painkillers that were once in my hand
In my coma

Because I let the pain tear through me
And I've become this person I can no longer control.

I could never control myself.

So please
At my funeral I want all of you to see rainbows
And I'll see you in white
When you meet me
In heaven


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Beauty Is The Beast.
And I want no part in her sadistic massacre of my body

Her clawing at my flesh.
Her tearing at my skin.

Her pulling me down and ripping me limb from limb.

But sometimes....
I can't help but help her destroy me.

Because people are always drawn to beautiful things.

But you should be careful.
Beautiful things are always more
Than just beautiful things.


© 2013 Kendra Bowman

Hi,
My name is--

Nothing.
Never mind.
I forgot that I don't have one.
You can't know me.

You don't know me....

At least that's what you told them...

You could never just admit it.
You would never just tell them.
You should have went out shouted it out,
Loud enough for the whole world to here you.
But I only ask of this because you were so ashamed of me.

I love you...
And you know this
Because you know you loved me...

Cause we were together

Yeah.
We were a thing
I couldn't have just imagined it
We spent 4 months together

Cuddled up in the back of your mom's car
Laughing at my jokes
And spilling drinks
Arms around each other
Lips locked together.....

But now you say that you don't know me??

Every.
Single.
One.
Of my deepest darkest secrets has been invested into your very soul.
****** into your hands for you to hold onto.

And in return I had gotten trustful looks of lies.

And now every time you look at me...
You turn the other way and laugh

Because you know I'm a freak.
You know what's wrong with me!
You know everything!

But you still say that you don't know me...
But you know you do.
You know you loved me!

And I know that I loved you....
And I know that you know you loved me too

So I am just waiting.

Waiting on the day you will tell the world

That you loved me.

All I wanted you to do is not deny this.

Deny that there was an us.

That you know that our laughs
And our smiles
And our times together
That our everlasting foreverness
Was not made up
It was true
We were real

And you loved every bit of it....
Including me.

Hey,
It's me.
And Baby...
I'm still waiting.












© 2013 Kendra Bowman