Promise you’ll come home when you leave
Promise you’ll always achieve your dreams
Promise you’ll smile in the rain
Promise you’ll never forget me
Promise you’ll always call home when you’re gone
Promise you’ll think of me
Promise you’ll tell your new friends you have a sister
Promise you’ll still laugh at our jokes when we’re apart
Promise you’ll still be my brother when you come to visit
Promise you’ll never change.

“Write about ***” I whisper to myself
“No. No, that’s disgusting” I respond with vigor
“Write about love.” I suggest in the condescending tone adults often take with me
But I do not want to write about love,
I have never been in love
I have never felt anything like love
I hate writing about love
I hate the pronouns
I always want to write about hers
About the smell of perfume on her dress
And the way her hair curls and twists like the plotline of an Oscar Wilde novel
I always want to write about she’s
And the way she never makes fun of my silence
And the way she laughs
And the way she cheats off of me in geometry,
Even though we both know my answers are always wrong
She’s like a triangle
A cute
But if I were a shape
I’d be obtuse
Because when  we walk to together in the hallway I always get the urge to grab her hand
But I never have
And  I want to tell her to take off her makeup because she’s just so perfect
And you know she cried last week and I didn't know what to say
I never know what to say around her
But she never minds, she can have a conversation with me and I never have to say anything
And some days it takes all my restraint
Not to write about her
And I want to write about how I love her
I want to write about the way I love her
But hatred always hits me in the gut
And pain in the face
And shame cripples my fingers
So that I can never write she
And when he comes out of my pen
I rip the pages of my failed poem out of my notebook
And cry
Because I can’t stand writing lies

Now sit there, just a minute, hold on, hear my tale
for just a minute.
One of humanity, sincerity, tragedy
Of when I was there, live from the square.
Jackson Square.
Not the one of Coin Coin, the Nevilles, the Toussaints,
Allen or L’Overture.
This is one of a momma and her baby
in 2008.
Three years, three years,
three years after the flood, three years after the storm.
Let me paint you a picture of Orleans as it stood one day in 2008
as it stands today.

2008, NewOrleans:
What happens here, no one will remember in the morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.
Walking towards Bourbon
The lights, the sin, the history

New Orleans, where life ain't so easy.
There’s a family down there who don't survive so peacefully.
You can see them if you walk down Canal St., leisurely.
There, sleeping on the courthouse stairs,
A mother and her child who own only the clothes they wear.
The boy was young, elementary-aged
Curious too, I could hear him ask questions:
"Mama, why don't we got food?"
And her reply,
"Son, that's just the way it is, life's just hard for me and you."
Sitting there on the courthouse stairs.
I take my place on the opposite side of the stoop,
Watching the crowds go by.
The women in their high-heeled shoes
The men with their shirts half-open.
Grenades in hand, ***** in the blood,
Pockets full of cash and hearts full of lust

New Orleans
What happens there, no one will remember come morning.
The buskers, the tunes, why, even the voodoos get the blues.

There’s a family on vacation there
In such a sinful city, a family.
White, middle-class, suburban, all too WASP-y.
mom, dad, a daughter and a son,
elementary aged, with a pop in his cheerful step,
On the way to a nice restaurant
gon’ eat crawfish, gator, red beans and rice, jambalaya.
They’ll forget to tip the waiter.

New Orleans,
What happens here, no one will remember come morning.

That happy family, walking down Canal St.
Like walking out the gates of hell
Where the lost souls sit on the stairs
Begging for something, anything at all
The happy family had ‘bout reached the courthouse when the young boy asked
"Daddy, why don't they have any food?"
His father covered his son’s eyes with his white hand and replied,
"Here son, let's go and find a toy for you to buy."
And the kid shrank after seeing this mom and her son
His innocent eyes died and he said,
"I don't want a toy.  I don't want anything"
They walked on by, the happy boys' head turned the whole time,
those eyes.  Stuck on the family that was stuck on the stairs
Mom dad, a daughter and a son,
Elementary-aged with a slump in his sunken step.

Now, in my mind I wonder:
was it more monumental that my life changed
or that a had life changed before my eyes

New Orleans, two thousand and eight.
New Orleans, today,
what happens there, no one will remember come morning.

If I could just turn back time,
would loving you be such a crime.
Which one is it I would choose,
the man you were, or the man I loose.

For you were young once, full of hope.
That was before your heart, I broke.
We use to have such great expectations,
Before life showed us our limitations.

You were scared of what you lacked,
And with hurtful words, I shoved you back.
For fear of losing what we had,
We lost what could have been; so sad.

I made the you, you are today,
A man lost in my angry ways.
Where to turn and who to trust,
for all your dreams, I had crushed.

But it was me, that was so scared.
And my angry words; that wasn't fair.
I loved you once and then I changed you.
What a fool I was to blame you.

Blood
Rushing through my veins
Pumping to my heart
Driving me insane

Blood
Giving me this life
Giving me my breath
Filling me with strife

Why am I still standing?
What do I have here?
Why am I so different?
I am only a mere
Human
Filled with blood
Filled with flesh
And all these bones

Blood
Flooding my insides
Filling up my lungs
There's nowhere I can hide

From this...
Blood