She wrestled with her sanity like those who couldn't think
Enduring its profanity, the bitterest of drink
And as the taste began to drain from every single pore
The girl who held the cup in hand tried settling the score
But thirsty heads can only take offense to every move
And in the end proclaim defeat, surrender what is due
So spill it out, the time is now, as it has always been
A glass of equanimity, unshakable by whim

I went looking for God
but I found you instead.
Bad luck or destiny,
you decide.

Buried in the muck,
the soot of the city,
sorrow for an appetite,
devil on your left shoulder,
angel on your right.

You, with your thorny rhythms
and tragic, midnight melodies.

My heart never tried
to commit suicide before.

i am sick, mad, crazy
still in love with you
always thinking about not thinking about you
and whenever you incessantly creep in-
to my thoughts i scold myself
it's too late--
i haven't crossed his mind in ages

and i drive myself to tears at night lying awake,
feeling far too naked next to him
(who i can't stop comparing to you--
how mediocre he seems after you,
how everyone likely will be)
and i suffer in silence
from the dreadful
chill of lingering
hope
a hope
that maybe
you and I
just might...

it's like
how i can't forget
that summer afternoon when we were
sun-drunk and
bleary-eyed in your hammock and you
put your hand on my stomach and said,
one day, we'll have a baby in there
and i was stilled; i loved so profoundly then
i had thought,
one day
we could be magical

and every part of me hates how cliche this all sounds,
and how our stupid tragedy has turned me into a cliche
but it's true
every single day
my raw hungry love, still alive
looms over me,
plagues me,
decays me,
i try to push it away but
it lingers like a nightmare
that will not go away

i know we exploded, turned to
shattered glass,
smoky ash but
i still yearn to know why
and so every time
someone dies in the newspaper
or i read a line in a book that moves me
or our song
comes on the radio
or someone mentions your name
in passing, with painful casualty
or worse-- nauseating familiarity,
i feel a sharp pang, with every
accidental glimpse of a photograph
i still can't bring myself to throw away,
my heart sinks deeper down
into my stomach
and once more,
i am sure
i will never truly feel again
without you

sometimes i have the urge to stand on a
pedestal somewhere,
high and tall and proud,
in front of a
bustling crowd like
in the movies
and scream to the universe
i would still do anything
to be with you
and wait for you to run so fast towards me that we
crash and then you pull back, hold my face and say
shut up, i had you at hello, or something

i've tried so hard for so long not to feel any of this
to numb the breaking-away pain with
blue, white, green, orange pills and
sweet smoke
i've tried so hard to detach myself from the reality
of our tragedy
to avoid responsibility
for feeling anything at all

but my new year's resolution is to be clean
so now i am finally letting myself
feel
it
all
from my mind through
my cold meaningless fingertips
all the hurt

now i know
the darkest face of sadness
is regret

and i want you to know
that even though i pretended not to,
i heard you and
i'm trying to change
and that i hope one day you will actually
forgive me
for doing that awful thing i did to you
last spring
and that
i'm scared i will love you forever

but if there is a chance
you feel something too,
why have we wasted
so much time
not together?

Don’t worry
I’ll build you a house in the soft upper spot in my heart
There wont be Barbie’s, or neighbors
And we wont smoke, so we’ll be too good for crystal ash trays
I’ll purchase a porcelain tub so we wont need showers
Our clothes will all be tailored, so we wont need belts
It’s so warm, why not just be barefoot
It suited us just fine as innocent children
so you won’t even need to worry about seeing hard steal or hot leather
Everythings magic so I wont need to pull ropes or need to drag out a ladder
Who needs popcorn, when we have a garden
And the sun is so gracious, mud wont follow us inside
In the soft spot of my heart, its been vulnerable too
but we're still alive

And I love your Saturn hands
the knotted slim fingers
fixed in your fawn fine hair
long 'round your fine mirror accented face
crystal blue eyes that might otherwise send someone into 10 story ocean waves
should I come too close, I'm sure I'd have more than myself to save
Your dry weathered thumb brush my flustered lips
It looks like we're now apart of the papacy
creating an obvious contrast of our opposing polarities
Something in the way that winter craves to reach this upcoming spring
Hard tailored to the rules of some domestic order
the rigidness in your loving touch
leaves the eyes of my heart wide
Can you walk into me, several times more
It wont break the ties that bind our instincts
but It'll give me tastes of what free people enjoy
Kiss me, with more than what it normally takes
we're both starving to breathe
into another
into another
Just as it rains do we lose your leather jacket
that identity we cant force ourselves to leave
Rain to our face
wettness between our smother
lavish expressons of what we hope our wild selves to explore
water to this drought
for which we suffer and for what reasons no-one spoken truely
can they say

Most moments in our lives pass unnoticed, without remark or consciousness.
Then, there are those that mean something, or that we choose to mean something,
   that become a placeholder for our lives, to add meaning, understanding, passage
    a demarcation that bestows significance
My daughter graduated, under rainy skies and cool breezes.
The white tents in the grass flapped empty and lonely like a cancelled wedding
We sat in a loud gymnasium rather than in the grass quad surrounded by trees
I was there with a thousand other proud parents;
I circled her name in the program.  I waited for the moment when it was to be called; being    
   slightly afraid I'd miss it
And I whistled and yelled, but I don't think quite enough.  I didn't seem to mark the moment.
It was a moment, and I knew it, expected it, wanted it to be.
   so badly.  
Bittersweet.  I like that word, it explains life so well.
I like the idea of bittersweet and I wanted to have it envelope me that day.
I tried to hold on to it.   Like a good dream that comes too late in the morning and wont be prolonged quite far enough
I wanted to hold on, to understand what it meant.  I knew it meant so much,
   or, at least, I wanted it too.
I held on to understand what this meant to her.
I held on to remember my own graduation and the dream I then only fainty realized I had just experienced in my four years of college
I held on because I know her next steps take her further away.
I held on to feel what she felt in the mixture of joy, relief, sadness, confusion;
   all that goes with parting from friends who alone know the exerience you shared.
I held on to make sense of my life.  Making sense of moments makes them meaningful.  
I want life to be meaningful
I wish I would have written something that evening.  In the full emotion of the day.
I thought about it.
And now, like that dream, it is fading into morning light.  I can't remember all that was, or seemed to be, profound and important as I watched my daughter those two days.  
I want it to mean something enduring, symbolic and permanent.  
I want my life to be important, to reflect a famous quote from someone, to be in granite.  
Not so everyone will know it mattered, just so that I will.

When I think of the Congo,
I think of the blue skies and the
warm weather. Not the child soldiers
patrolling the streets, and not the
poverty lurking in every corner.
I see my old friends hopping
down the dusty streets
with bright smiles on their faces,
and mud on their torn jeans.

When I think of the Congo,
I see my brother and his friends as
children, kicking a beat-up
soccer ball on the patchy grass.
I see my sisters posing for
photographs in their bright dresses
beside the tall trees.

The more I think
about the country I was
born in, the more nostalgic I get. My heart
longs to come back to a place where
only few know my name. A place where
I can only be who I truly am. A part of me
wants to go back to my Congo,
the one they never show you,
just to say "I'm home."