I think of you as my love.
My heart, my soul
longs to be in your embrace.
I think of you as my everything,
and you think of me as nothing.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Adamant rays of sun kiss rooftops,
blades of grass caress skin
as crickets whisper soothing melodies.
Your skin is hot but you bury closer to the one beside you,
and your hair is *****
with knees stained green.
But right at the heat of dusk,
nothing could be more perfect
than the eternal sigh of forgotten troubles
as dusk turns to night.

It's times like these where I miss you most.
My lips crave the feeling of yours pressed tightly against mine.
Yet as I reach out
against the crisp white sheets
and feel nothing but empty space,
my walls crumble
and I am left with only the memories
of what we used to have.

maybe it was just bad timing
maybe 10 years from now,
we'll meet again in one of the most cliché ways.
maybe I'll be sitting on one end of a coffee shop
and you'll be sitting at the other
and I'll be drinking coffee
and you'll be drinking anything that keeps your eyes open.
I'll see you but pretend I didn't,
I'll take the napkin that was once sitting under my coffee and place it in front of me,
I won't write down my number.
I'll write about how my coffee matches your eyes,
dark brown coffee sweetened with a little too much sugar.
I'll write about the last time I saw you,
and how you said you'd never grow any ****** hair
but now you have stubbles resembling cinnamon bun crumbs swept across your face.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll look up from my napkin, and see you looking at me.
Maybe I'll see you looking at me the way Gatsby looked at Daisy.
Or maybe you won't look at me at all.
Maybe I'll just crumple up this napkin and throw it away.
(But I kind of hope I meet you at the garbage can, seeing you throw away a crumpled coffee shop napkin with scribbles all over the back.)

I am addicted to coffee cups and college ruled notebooks and eyes so blue that they turn grey. My veins crave wool sweaters and red cheeks and freckles and overcast skies. I wish on stars for snow and fog and thunderstorms with no lightning. I long for jeans with ripped knees and scarves and long walks in very cold weather with someone very warm. Sometimes I want you so much that I don't want anything else at all.