I grab my pencil
everyday

Shaky hands
bring down the lead tip
barely touching the paper
in anticipation
of inspiration

Bombs explode outside  
clouding the sky

I call my muses
to work
but
they fail to clock in
because
the road between
the heart and the mind
has been
bombed

I can't keep my
mind shut
and my heart
quiet
for the key
to locking them
got lost
the day
I learned
that,
"all is fair in love
and war."

When a heart
forgets
how to heart

A mind how
to
mind

A logic
how to
logic

A human
how to
align with
all the above

I caught my breath
chasing after another

I put my hand on my chest
to tame a raging heart

"Calm down ******"
I said

"But I'm falling"
it replied

They drop
traumas
like
r
r                                         i
                                           i

                                                              ­                        n
                                       ­                                                n
                                a
                             ­    a

Why does my mind
race
without running shoes
to exhaust the
thought of
over-thinking?

Maybe my poems
have fallen on deaf ears
to a point
where
they lost
their
voice

Why not.
Not why.

The words fall short
of their meaning
the one beyond the read

The lines weaken
and leave the reader
with a sense of boredom

The heartbeat
only in that cage
and fails to bleed
on pages

The papers
become satiated
with empty ink
lacking quality

The poet
loses him/her/them self/ves
in that limbo
between
head
and heart
running on a treadmill
trying to catch the fleeting muses

The poet dilutes
in reality
his/her/their greatest
fear
for that is
what they
try to escape
in every
poem

When they tell me
"we understand"
I take them seriously
because they will always
be under
the impression
that they know

I
for
got
for
mality
for
it fermented
itself
in
for
ming
years of
com
for
t

I severed
ties
and all I have
to give you
is a band aid
to stop the
bleeding
for I am robbed
of all my
FIRST AID KIT
of affection

I always went for the natural look
till it dread itself with dread

I put some conditioner
and lathered its sorrows away

Little did I know
that I was manipulated into thinking
my natural was natural...

Till I dried it off
and saw a lighter curlier ...natural

The tabs of my mind
miss your fingers
skimming through them
index first
middle next
till you find yourself
running till you
find
thoughts of
you

We lock things
to keep them safe

We lock them
as plan B

because at that time
we feel unsafe
around them

The sound of your thoughts
crunch through my brain
every time
I chew
through
your
lies

Putting pen to paper
slowly
                              serenades my nerves
and carefully
                              caresses my insecurities
to make me mindfully
                              and mindlessly
fall
for
every dent
the words put
in my chapter

It's the kind of heartbeat
that pushes you forward

For what's a glow but a holy light?

There was a little dash once
that lead me from here - here…
sometimes it showed me time
and how long and short it can be
from Christmas – my birthday or
from Thursday – Friday
and other times,
when I dot my i’s cross my t’s
this little dash adds a little extra..
from – to +

For once
he asked the sun to set
to bring his own

For once,
He strummed her heartstrings
and turned her into a hymn

For once,
He dawned on her with
new colors, she couldn’t believe existed

For once,
She melted at the sight
Of a smile … a specific smile
Too beautiful for poets to describe

For once... this might turn
into
“a while”

Dawn cannot dawn sooner
with you

Now I know why I see the moon
linger till the early morn

T(he)
Truth
About
(L)ies
in
(L)ines
Beneath
the Earth

"What happened along the way?"
as she looked back to see
her lines crooked, her ink melted
and her pages torn apart
from the book that held her
together

He blew me a kiss
that blew my muses
        n                    a                 e               f                   h   o
i                    o                 s                 o          e        p            r                aaaaa
         ­       t                                   a                     u                           i

Falling in
is easy
But

How does one falling out
when falling requires gravity and all I want is to do the opposite...
to climb out
claw my way out
from the void that ****** me
into
toxicity