He held my hand at first spark,  
Guided me through worlds gone dark.  

Shielded me from lies that bite,  
Kept me safe from jealous spite.  

He chose my voice to light the flame,  
From whispered truths to halls of fame.  

Man and beast have cursed His name,  
Yet none can dull His boundless flame.  

You’ve met Him—so have I,  
Jesus, Lord of earth and sky.

It's a free world,  
You choose when you're born,  
then fill a form, an early warn.  

It's a free world,
You apply to meet your end,  
Just sign the sheet and send.  

It's a free world—
so they all say,  
We chose to struggle every day.  

It's a free world,
We picked the pain, the loss, the mess—  
Of course, we chose our loneliness.  

It's a free world,
love.

The poets I saw—  
the ones they envied,  
clean-cut skill,  
perfect in articulation.  

Lips of orators,  
Shakespearean quills—  
bequeathed to their palms,  
riddle-rs.  

They pen on how to change generations,  
gain the strength of bulls,  
surf tsunamis,  
**** racism.  

The poets I saw—  
I can't unlatch their shoes.  
I only type as I wait  
for my soup to cool,  
with a tear and a red cheek.  

I only write  
to simmer the screams  
in my head.

I decide
when to call my mother-
and she hangs up mid-sentence.
when to kiss my rocks
when to fly a kite.

I decide
which flower in the garden to water-
which ones to spit on.
when to wear my purple socks
when to throw my left shoe.

I decide
when to jump rope
when to bomb my living room
when to milk a horse-
then circumcise it's colts-
and burn its stable.

I decide
When to go to church
and wait until they sound the bell-
then slip out the side door
and go rob a bank.

I am unruly!
I am my own storm.

In the day  
when sundry eyes cast envious glances,  
we share the same couch—  
your head resting in my lap,  
your temple syncing with my pulse.  

In the night
just you and me—  
or you and me separated by screens,  
your breath curling like a rattlesnake,  
your vampire teeth peeking through.  

You don’t reply.  
You answer in your head—  
or not at all.  
You skip my texts like stones on water.  

And I—  
I cannot cry.  
That’s what I know.  
I’m a man, darling.  
I have manly genes.  
So I forge words.  

I write them until I cannot,  
until the rhyme dries up—  
when all poets sleep,  
when my foes grow tired of watching,  
when creatures of the night stop chiseling the air.  

Still,  
I type—  
through the silence.

I'm not a poet
I'm just emotional
twenty-something emotions
those hit hard

I'm not a poet
only a sleepwalker,
my fingers burning to type
my laptop keyboard so well-lit
so I fall into the desire

I'm not a poet
I just whisper to a quiet altar called Hello Poetry
a fatal attraction
so I type
welcome to the cult

One Brutal Friend
Closer than my own spleen,
he calls me buddy.
“Hey, buddy!”

As if struck by a fever,
a silent malady,
he changed—
morphed into a beast,
a movie beast.
An ogre.

Where did the grandiose come from?
What street did you drag that arrogance down?
A lack of empathy,
a thirst for admiration so cruel
it drowns reason.

But he wasn’t born like this.
I knew him long ago—
when “the floor is lava” was gospel,
his bike had no spokes,
and breaking curfew was unthinkable.

Now he calls me.
Then hangs up.
Then calls again—different number.
Games.

I don’t like it.
Don’t call my second phone.
I stole it.

You don't know how wroth I feel,
You don't know.
It is better to swallow my own *****,
Gurgle my own bile down this sore throat.
You said you're ugly?
Can we trade?

It is better I wouldn't be this,
It robs my peace.
But it's not the first time,
Is it?

I took the spear,
*****, rusty spear, ugly.
I throbbed my own gut, repeatedly until I stopped bleeding.
And when my guts were hanging on the floor,
I waited till the crimson dried.

And when my entrails lay glistening on cold stone,
I took the Spear, and hurled it towards my creator.
Ooh how I repent!
I repent my God!
My heart is broken. Fragments.

I have one to blame, yes I do.
I.

But I have one to thank,
Him will I highly glorify, highly exalt.
pure as a lamb, mighty in glory.
Christ! Christ! Christ!

My King and My Lord I repent.
Can I put this filth on you? On those anvil shoulders?
Yea?
Why?


I repent!

"From dust to dust", they say.
so what are we?
wet clay?

Nah, that's not me.
I'm a ***,
Sculpted in the palms of the Divine.
Designed in holy thoughts,
Crafted craftily.

And so, the ***.
Marred in the hands of the potter.
Tempted to loathe itself
and cast it's image on the ground,
let's weep.

But then something,
The vessel that was marred in the hands of the potter,
was made into a new vessel.
Praise the Lamb of God!