There are parts of me I have yet to become acquaintances with,
Flesh,
I have never stroked with my fingertips
Like the sinner does when he's lonely and makes the Holy Bible his lover.
A bible that only sees the light when his world is crimson, going down in flames.
I can feel the presence of opaque shadows lingering in my head,
The fog is still too thick to see the edges of his face,
But the smell of whiskey still brings me to my knees
Like the sinner who sees scarlet flames every time he looks at his palms.
He reserves his Sundays for prayer.
My reality is seven-thousand ghosts chanting the same sermon against the walls of my anatomy, begging God for truth.
Pressing against every curve, sending shivers up my spine because it strikes a harp I've heard before.
White wallpaper, silent whispers, a ripe peach.
The clock on the wall strikes one-twenty-seven, the moon cries for help.
The sinner has just come home.
Whiskey entangled sentences, blurry vision, loose hands.
In the shadows, his palms reach for change in the fountain of youth.
After all these years, I'm still picking up the dimes he dropped on the sidewalks of my life.
I see orange in stranger's irises,
My surroundings become dark, humid spring days whenever I smell whiskey.

I wonder if he used it to set flames to my anatomy.
I don't know how to extinguish all of this smoke, but I can't see straight, I'm choking on all of the memories faded into the monochromatic sky.
I wonder if there's a prayer in the bible that paints my face across the canvas of his mind.
I'm still picking up the glass fragments of this shattered life.
Cutting my hands while putting the mirror back together.
Trying to see into myself, into the sad caramel eyes staring back at me.
Thick smoke, crimson flames, shadows dancing.
Ghosts screaming, blurry vision, dimes scattered across the floor.
I fear for the day all these faded sins become friends of mine.

There are parts of me I have yet to become acquaintances with,
Flesh,
I have never stroked with my fingertips
Like the sinner does when he's lonely and makes the Holy Bible his lover.
A bible that only sees the light when his world is crimson, going down in flames.
I can feel the presence of opaque shadows lingering in my head,
The fog is still too thick to see the edges of his face,
But the smell of whiskey still brings me to my knees
Like the sinner who sees scarlet flames every time he looks at his palms.
He reserves his Sundays for prayer.
My reality is seven-thousand ghosts chanting the same sermon against the walls of my anatomy, begging God for truth.
Pressing against every curve, sending shivers up my spine because it strikes a harp I've heard before.
White wallpaper, silent whispers, a ripe peach.
The clock on the wall strikes one-twenty-seven, the moon cries for help.
The sinner has just come home.
Whiskey entangled sentences, blurry vision, loose hands.
In the shadows, his palms reach for change in the fountain of youth.
After all these years, I'm still picking up the dimes he dropped on the sidewalks of my life.
I see orange in stranger's irises,
My surroundings become dark, humid spring days whenever I smell whiskey.

I wonder if he used it to set flames to my anatomy.
I don't know how to extinguish all of this smoke, but I can't see straight, I'm choking on all of the memories faded into the monochromatic sky.
I wonder if there's a prayer in the bible that paints my face across the canvas of his mind.
I'm still picking up the glass fragments of this shattered life.
Cutting my hands while putting the mirror back together.
Trying to see into myself, into the sad caramel eyes staring back at me.
Thick smoke, crimson flames, shadows dancing.
Ghosts screaming, blurry vision, dimes scattered across the floor.
I fear for the day all these faded sins become friends of mine.

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

i am an empty vessel of life,
that was once filled
with the brisk wind,
that echoed between the stems of
fragrant flowers; the inhabitants of my lungs.

& now i am the remains of
the fluids of old flames -
filled to the brim.

     • (1) my mother fills me to the peak of the mountain that i am,
      with fiery volcanic ash.
      she shakes me to the point of no return -
      paints my silhouette in monochromatic shades of despair,
      carves the edges of my bones with the idea that i am the ghoul that
      haunts the walls of this house.
      she injects me with fury, until i am the artist who painted me across
      the canvas that is this life.
      the man with anger etched eyes, and a frigid heart.

     • (2) my father fills my glass anatomy with potent gin
     i never feel like he sees me.
     he's focused on the romantic burn in his throat.
     tangled in his bitter laughter,
     i wonder if he can sense the anger buried beneath my melancholy
     eyes.
     always straining to see beyond the crooked frame of my
     cheekbones,
     he probably couldn't paint the sky with the hue of my eyes,
     he'd paint it in vivid cerulean,
     lost in the blur of my coffee stained irises.

    • (3) my sister fills my atmosphere with acid rain,
     because every time her presence enchants my focus,
     my eyes become thick clouds,
     because i can't fade into her,
     she pushes me away like the tide,
     & she's an ocean with scarlet waves
     arising from the gold mines carved in straight lines
     across her arms.
     she's an artist who can't create anything beyond
     sculpting her demise,
     painting her misery in violet eyes and decaying flesh.

& i am an empty body
with decaying curves and edges,
i can't consume these potions.

not if they won't make the flowers grow back

i often find myself
wandering in the way you say
"i love you," with
loose cherry lips, and bright caramel eyes.
- finding energy in your caffeine flavored irises,
and getting lost in the syllables of your laughter
because i'm so used
to sleep-deprived voices
talking about how it hasn't rained in days,
asking empty questions
about my future -
having to gaze into my crystal ball,
and responding with
"my future is painted in watercolor"
because i've been combining the pale pigments
with my tears.
my whole existence has been
a mystery -
trying to merge my mother's distaste
for my soul, and my father's footprints
out the front door
so that maybe i could see a clear image
in the mirror.
but every edge has always been a blur -
every glance has always been
an unfocused image trying to
find the focal point in a single
strand of grass -
trying to find purpose in the horizon line.
trying to silence all the noise -
i can still feel the frigid breeze
when he walked away,
i can still hear her hard words
from pursed lips talking about
how she sees him in the way I
move across a room.
i've always been the
answer to every tear she's ever shed.
so i'm sorry,
if i follow you across every sidewalk,
and can't resist your exothermic skin
that amplifies your heart beat
like a song i can't get out of my head.
but in seventeen years,
i have heard my name so many times,
but you were the first person
to make me feel like it
was worth something.
you were the first person i got so high off of,
that i could finally see straight.

i've searched for your love on
every sidewalk curb.
waltzed along empty roads at midnight.
acquainted with the candle light
instilled within street lamps.
begging ever stranger for pocket change,
they never had.
and i've danced with wine,
fading into my cherry lips
the bitter taste flirting in the back of my throat.
until my mind was scattered in pieces
i threw across the bathroom floor,
but didn't bother to pick up the
next morning.
& i never found it,
eight years later and your love
is like waiting for snow to fall in july,
it's always felt like an empty gaze
out the window,
after an illusion to the ears,
the tires against the pavement,
only for my iris to
release sapphire pools of
disappointment,
because eight years later,
and your love is still a question,
that i've never asked,
because i already know the answer,
*you're not coming home