Intimacy is
Wanting to feel
The way you choose to kiss-
Just as much as wanting to hear the words you choose to speak to others

Wanting to feel
The curves and movements of your body-
Just as much as wanting to watch the choices you make

Wanting to experience
The bareness of your skin
Just as much as wanting to view the unraveling of your mind in all its vulnerability

Suddenly
With a look of confusion on my face
But no confusion in my heart
I realized I wanted to write again
Like a man emerging from a cloud of depression
I wanted to live again.
I realized I could write again
Like someone standing after years of paralysis,
I could move freely once more.
I had to write again
Like I had to breathe-
Words streamed out
As naturally as exhalations from my chest
And as urgently as water breaking river banks

And I knew it was because I had left you and found me.

Never forget
You are the masterpiece,
You are the golden frame that surrounds it,
You are the mansion that houses all art!
Your soul is the proprietor of all the magic and value in the world,
You own it and to dispense of it
Would be a crime of epic proportions.

In these walls of skin and bone
I house a sacred soul
An inquisitive mind
And noble conscience
I feed it daily with nurturing thoughts
I tend to its needs like a caring mother
I have built these walls on a strong foundation
But painted it in soft shades of self love

I have built a home that I love coming back to;
A shelter when storms are brewing
A place I never grow tired of
Yet A place that could still use touch ups every day

And after years of building and refining-
I think I’d like to welcome you in.

Mom
You never gave me approval to water my roots with;
And it’s been two years and you wonder why
This plant is dying.

You handed me your love
But it was always on a silver tray,
Cold and at arms length
Where I could never reach it

Mother give me love
In my hand
So that I can feel it
Hold it
And Know how to distinguish its textures from others
(Mom I am giving my love to men who will never give it back to me
because I know not the texture of love)

Mother give me love in my hand
like fistful of raw earth
it does not have to be beautiful I promise
but it will be pure and true
and I’ll love you for it

mother give me love
so that we can nourish this relationship again
I miss the flowers that blossomed from these soils

Mother give me love please
So I can mould it into my hands
So that I may know
What self-love looks like

I write you into my poems at midnight
So that I never forget you;
I write you into my prayers at midnight
So that you never forget me.

I wrote a list
Of all the times
I have seen injustices
Being committed against women
In my life-
And the list was longer than the Bible.

I wrote a list
Of all the injustices
That had been committed
Against women around the world today-
And the list was longer than
All the words
From all the languages
They are silenced in