ive been told i'm naive. i have this problem of letting go i like to cling on tight to memories and most of all people. as soon as i meet someone i put all of my faith in them right away. they always end up hurting me and i feel this heaving in my chest and the pit of my stomach wants to grow legs and crawl it's way but i'm addicted to hurting. i don't know how to get rid of the memories i wish i could be like a snake who sheds but for some reason i like the layers to build up with sadness. i like the way music can make my soul break even more,but still give me a bit hope for someone new. why do i depend on others? i know how to be happy but i want someone to share it with. i want someone that feels like home. i live in this city in mind where the lights shine only at night the mornings scare me because it's a new day where something could go wrong but at night i like to travel to my city. the lights shine thru my bones its being lit up like a christmas tree when you're getting an MRI. on the bad days i try to hang the lights but not from the ceiling i want them to turn off. my bones beg to be brittle the fat that hangs on is suffocating them. my ilium believes the fat is the reason why she doesn't receive love. but ilium is wrong. ischium try's to remind her about the men who pinned those hips down before placing their hands on her mind give me your hands and feel my city. we could build our on world. our city will be for us and you can help me appreciate mornings and i can show you the night and i'll hang the lights where they belong. my heart is racing and this city has drowned me in nostalgia and now i don't know if i have someone to share my city with and then you never realize how lonely you are until you shut the lights off and the light music plays and it's like you remember having someone to share the tranquility with but yet you never really did. you never shared the way music is what's flowing thru your veins and what's pumping your heart. and i can see the look in his eyes and he doesn't get it. he doesn't understand that at night when i lye down i don't hear my heartbeat like he does i hear banana pancakes,cry baby, miss mirage, big jet plane,wait for me, only love, i hear music baby i hear the voices of artist that have constructed notes that soothe my mind their pieces have become co workers who are trading shifts because their not sure if there tunes have what it takes to pump oxygen today

19 trips around the sun
I have conquered 6,935 days
burnt caramel skin hiking the nights
where I thought I would never reach Everest.
Lists of trials and tribulations laced
through my pantyhose
another trip all the way home.
Awake with the owls
scribbling poems and sketches
of the singing animals.
The buzzing of the bee kissing
the nectar of the new morning.
Another rebirth.
Another step closer until
this Arie burning goddess
can caress the sun.
A full embrace fire passion meeting star.
I have a star.
In a universe bigger than me or any problem.
I am a star.
Learning how to love and lift
the flowers in all gardens.
Planted in all different soils
but still will be sun kissed by my sugar lips.
A year of another chance to full bloom.
My petals open wide to possibilities.
A chance to unravel the hidden
petals of my mandrake.
To taste the juice of fruits
I did not know existed.
In a garden filled with wounded flowers
I will choose to love and honor this Eden.
To be a guru for those in need
of energy healing.
Using my garden therapy palms
to bless the scared soil of every
beaming brave being.
Coating their petals with lavender dust.
Relax my flowers I am here to love you
down to your roots.
A chance of courage.
I am warrior here to take on
the battle trips around my sun.
I will hold you in my palms.
Let your fire ignite
my dreams into realities.
Between sun and waxing crescent moon
I will chant the seven chakras.
Shout to my spirit guides
to take me on this adventurous ride
through the garden
under the sea
rocket ships to outer space.
Until I can make all my flowers believe
in this energy we hold in our stems
waiting to breath.
An inhale of tree and exhale of free.
We are flowers.
Dancing in the garden of life
Illuminating in the art of self love.
Be here with me in this very moment
as we embrace the
holy sun in gratitude.
Thank you for forcing me
to wake every morning
to triumph the days into the sunset
so that our fiery hearts can meet again
every April 8th.

give me your hands
let me lather them with love
plant me in the rich soil
i promise the flowers
want me to grow with them
they told me
they told you?
i closed my eyes
took deep breaths
the gardenias climbed out of the garden
their petals molded
a flower crown around my head
my curls bounced with bliss
frolicking with the flowers in my soul
this is a garden music festival
where else would i want to
spend my saturday morning
my toes twirling
through the meadow
dancing through death
this is a lovely mess
my mother cried when i left the nest
she got a tattoo for her flower child
mama dont stress
im thriving with nature
im blessed

i remember the boy
who told me
"wow you look great,
you used to not have a neck"
his words sliced through my throat
like mirror glass
i could not let out a cry
but now i will
let out at roar
that will shake his cruelty
out of his bones.

nostalgia has become my best friend
the smallest things will make me relive this memory that i never really had. like when i hear the vibrations of no one ever loved, i have this aching in my bones and my heart feels like spears are flying in at every direction and i cry out for someone i never really lost or the way pictures of places make me yearn to go back to countries i've never seen. i've been homesick for the place we never had and longed for someone i could never have. home the scent that lingers to the bedroom i can smell the  batter of the aunt jamima. syrup is expanding on the kids plates, sticking like the glue they will soon discover their first day of preschool. and as i stand here in front of you now i can't fathom if this is another one of my vivid dreams. i've been in a mental daze for years now my mind is scattered like a meadow of sunflowers who can't seem to shine through my orbit nerves. the painting of the paris that dangles like saucepans behind my bed is yet another country i've tried to crawl into, but it's painful my knees are developing carpet burn and my elbows are full of red mountain ridges. and i can't seem to reach the summit of this mountain. honey do you remember the glue sticks we have hidden until the kids first day of school? give the glue to them. let them learn how to unscrew the cap, pop it off like the corks of the first champaign bottle they will open on december 31st. give them ropes that will leave a ribbon of red on their palms by the time they reach the clift that their mother dangles from. tell the kids to use their little muscles they've been strengthening with their daily glass of milk, to push mommy to the top and glue my feet there and make me promise i  will never jump. home the first place the kids got to use glue, the new place where whey will build a foundation of trust with their father on a mountain where glue wasn't enough to hold their mother down. mom. yes sorry, i was just washing the dishes, go color a picture for your father. soap drips from my prunny palms leaving ***** dish water memories. when i see the steel sink, i hear the garbage disposal weathering the rocks down of a mountain i've been struggling climb. breaking down every memory i've ever had. slicing them like apples except there's no juice. but there is aunt jamima batter, enough batter to linger scents to my room every morning. enough syrup to stick to the cheap paper plates, from the corner store. corners i will turn until i reach the summit of this  mountain.

i watched the rain.
admired how quickly
i saw the plants
smile with green.
i wondered what
i would like
if i watered
myself in what
i need to grow.

when you find someone,
who can love you
like you love you,
thank the universe,
for true love is
sensational.

i said i wouldn’t write about
anxiety
told myself that it was over
tucked in the treasure chest
and threw the key
in to outer space
because i just wanted
to make some
******* space
told myself that anxiety belongs on a
planet of pure
vacancy
vast open with a welcome mat that
says
welcome
but its funny
because i never said thank you
in the first place
allowed my tree trunk to split open
and let you water the roots inside me
because i told myself i would grow
when you turned on the water hose
my roots shot up
they were thirsty
this was always the scary part
never wanted my roots to grow leaves
to plant seeds
at least
not for a while
i take daily trips
tripping over the cucumbers and watermelons in the garden
hoping to find someone to tell me
what’s wrong with me
tell me why i keep finding bruises
because she thinks it’s low blood sugar
tells me to stick my arm in the
cylinder of results
glued down in all pharmacies
i tell her this pharmaceutical ******* has got to go
i ask the chrysanthemums
how come when i drive my body shakes
and i can feel my foot on the peddle wobbling
no one in the car feels it but me
the gas peddle keeps jumping under my feet like a jack in a box
told it to chill the **** out
this isn’t a nursery
this is 2am showers to rinse the hate of the world off of my body
or the fake hate for you
fruits of eden dangling like
ornaments
on a burning christmas tree
i am the burning christmas tree
people decorating me with jesus popsicle sticks
hiding all of me with glass shaped memories
my sticky branches and pine scent has never been enough
welcomed you home with aroma
as strong as
your hands during bickering
i lit the mohnagny teakwood candle
watched the hot wax spill
and melt a mount
on the dinner table
figured why not make this a forest fire
of truth
burn all the lies
while my carmel skin clings to
my brittle bones trying to
keep them warm as i
continue to shake
in the timeout corner
but then i remember i said
i wouldn’t write about
anxiety

i want this flower to bloom.
i want the bees to **** the nectar out of me
like, a good morning kiss,
wet and addictive.
i want your fingers vined around my throat,
as I puff syllables of smoke out.
i want the hummingbirds to caress my ears in lullabies.
i want my stem to arch on the flower bed.
i want your hazel eyes to dazzle in mine.
i want the stars to constellate us under the moon.
i want to find you in these sheets of darkness.
i want to collapse on you like a sunset,
slowly and then all at once.
i want to end with the scream of a mandrake root.

i did this thing where i flushed all of the people and memories into a bottle
a bottle of gin
my dad used to tell me
you will forget everything
i watched the rip tide of *******
relationships
drag the things and people i thought
i loved the most
into a missing side of the ocean
no coordinates just space
thank you whispered my soul
i opened the chamber of gardens
welcomed new visitors in
smelt oils of lavand
as my mind wandered into a
psychedelic horror
at night corners open up in my dreams
enough to fill the carved puff mist with
walking nightmares
an apocalypse of creatures
who have forced my eyeballs open
took away sweet dreams from me
i don’t even say
sweet dreams anymore
i just let the bed bugs bite

his scalp
is stitched
with the odor
of shampoo
and
***** secrets
and god
i have never
wanted to wash
my
hair more

i think i’m addicted to pain
almost like i’m addicted to mint
an inhale of nicotine
is an exhale of anxiety
it gets rid of that **** quick
but nicotine doesn’t get rid of
you
it makes you stay
it makes me stay
i know i shouldn’t ******* stay
you haven’t changed
you’re cruel
you’re manipulative
you’re hungry
for the meat on another girls bones
i think you already started eating her
you ate me forever ago
no meal etiquette
just your filthy hands
but i guess you don’t need meal etiquette
when you only want a quick snack
before we go out for recess
i’m on the swing
swinging away my slippery beginnings
there is absolutely no ending
you run out to the playground
ready to play with
me
you just forgot to wipe the snack crumbs from the last girl off your face
he kicks the mahogany mulch
like an angry uniform school boy
i kick my life away
like an abandoned woman
i’m the only one who should be angry but i’m not
i don’t know what emotion it is when
when i collapsed a long time ago
and yet i’m still collapsing
a cold cheating collision
you are always
the instigator of the collisions
he says he loves me but i know that he’s lying
he just loves the *** and he knows i supply him
now supply me with the truth
and you’ll tell me half of it
while holding me down on the couch
so i don’t run out of apartment 16
it’s like a sleeping cycle
you just don’t sleep
we scream
i get up and throw stuff
and keep hitting you
you’ll wrap your hands around my throat
to tame me but
ill just carve my fingernails into my legs
i just drew a maze
i shake profusely
while you yell about how
crazy
i am
we finally come to end
i inhale nicotine
i exhale anxiety
while you breathe normally
and wait to see if i come back this time
i think i’m addicted to pain

Clearly, I am a woman.
I smell of honey and oats.
I am curly hair laced with laughter.
I am a little black dress.
I am curvy,
Legs thick as a tree trunk.
Skin of the earth.

When they fear my heritage
I chuckle at their ignorance.

I am active brain.
I am lips of language.
My mother’s tongue spiced with sass.
I am mother natures song.
Radiating melanin at the cheekbones.

I taste of Sunday soul food.
I smile like them but for different reasons.
I shout like them but,

Clearly, you will never understand what it means
To be an angry black woman.

i wonder
how i can be
both happy and
absolutely petrified
to fall in love

the moment we are born
we are dying.
mortality forcing metamorphosis.
a road-trip of adolescence.
slipping into cali oceans,
baptizing bodies in
*** and drugs.
aren't we all sinners?
the bed creeks with
sounds of passion,
gasps of breath.
zippers unzip, shirts are peeled
off skin, like bananas.
a monkeys favorite treat.
lips meet neck.
tongues weave through organs.
the pulsing addiction for the
forbidden fruit.
the garden of Eden is now swirls of
vanilla and caramel,
intertwining fingers
between passes of a j.
time feeds the day with
sunshine and fear.
while sinners accept mortality.

Where is the market that makes Sunday?
That makes soul food.
What are the broken buildings?
With boys and street corners.
Stop signs plastered with milk cartons.
What are front porches, what are they?
Grandmas in a flowery silk dress,
You can smell ebony.
Children wrapped around Mr. Oniels house.
Mama is cooking Sunday dinner.
Where is the culture, it is here.
Skin is not skin,
Only a threat is a threat.
Styrofoam plates aren’t soul food.
Collard greens and baked beans
Are police sirens.
Funky blues blaring is a target on his forehead.
Only a blue and a red are a mug shot.
When the reporter asks where?
A neighborhood distinguishes it.
A neighborhood just distinguishes it.

a mapquest
of stretch of marks
across my belly.
i am connecting the dots
until i learn to
love this destination,
all the way home.

living in the sea of trees
filling my lungs
with sativa
so i can feel at peace

a note for you
written by
me
when i talked to you i wasn’t
trying to hurt you
i was trying to tell you that i’m hurting so bad
i forget that lying in a grave is sad

mother natures whimsical winds
brushing yesterday off your shoulders.
she takes your palms
lathers them in lavender
singing lullabies
until your night light in the sky turns on.
stars laced through clouds
wishing to hold on to the moons hand
a little longer.

when they say
you feel like home,
smile, welcome them
into your garden of youth,
but if they start plucking
your petals off
tell them it is time
they plant their own garden
some place else.

how do i tell you about a girl
who does not even know
who she is

lost myself
in a whirlpool of *** and drugs
let my fat cells absorb it all
came down and crashed
bathroom floors covered
in me
a trace of forevers
stamped by the odor of
pheromones and detox
i have never wished to be dead so much
pinky promises that this was the end
walking on tight ropes
this acrobat could not even spell
balance
if she wanted to
get lost to find yourself
what if who you find
is just someone you want to cover up
hide her behind closed doors
one door closes and it stays closed
the acrobat remembers
why she locked the door
the first time
who gave you the key?
who let you into this barbaric aftermath?
the acrobat will do tricks along the rope
of nightmares
until she wakes up
awaken by the prince charming
she always wanted
the acrobat does not believe
she is worthy of a prince
there are no glass slippers here
just bruised feet
from the mountains she had to climb
to even find the castle
she wants to burn the castle down
set match to the architecture of this
imaginary home
fill it with flames
so they will never remember
who poured the fluid on this dream

You dipped your fingers in the honey ***.
Your rose lips dripped thick.
You squirmed with sweetness
You knew this hive was yours.