Should we remove the flowers
from the stem where they belong?
would they not weep to be snatched away
from home and their loved ones? Don't we do them wrong

in violating their rights to be left alone?
the vase is their prison and for freedom they sadly long
while we pass by without even giving them a single look
celebrating our party in wine, dance and song.

my head is full of dark thoughts
so i better stop thinking
before i lose my mind

You waited for the storm in my eyes to pass
and wreck someone else’s home for a change
you waited
ever so patiently
until it became a routine chore
but if you had looked up for more than a second
you would have realised that
Winter raised me
**I am the storm.

I may have taught you to dance
To put yourself in the headlights
How to laugh and be seen
But you reminded me how to dream
How to love myself, let alone
How to love someone else
You are my first text good morning
My last text goodnight
You clothe yourself in humility
And you stare through fogged lens
Perhaps that's why only you
Can make me so happy, yet so angry
That someone as fluorescent as you
Cannot see the bright colors they emit
You call yourself grey
But I call you a painters palet
The world is a muddy muddy place
And it'd be that much harder to live
Without seeing your tracks in the dirt
You've taught me that as hard,
And as challenging life can be,
It's all worth the low melodic vibrations
That create a beautiful unified hum
And without your hum, and without mine
*The world would be that much quieter

the daisy in the vase
sits by the window
with its feet dipped in water
its drooping head
drinking in sunshine

yet
it doesn’t stop
the blush pink from
littering the countertop
in hues of brown
leaves now,
shrivelled prunes
ripe of its
existence

love me
love me not

the daisy in the vase
remains only
a single stalk.

i.

Baby's got those California dreamin' eyes that
are just two shades left of San Jose and just as sand soft.
He's got those Brooklyn lips
muddling sugar cubes and bourbon and bright red
cherry stems, all shy smiles in a West Side bar this short of
profane, and oh, you burn.

ii.

Flyers and missing posters:
My name, your mouth.
If found, please call.

iii.

He wipes me off the picture frames with
cold water and vinegar.
I leave my fingerprints everywhere:
on wine glasses and cigarette butts,
takeout menus and the window
leading to the fire escape.

this is my way of saying I am still here.
this is my way of desperate you will not forget me,
your hands still know me,
my name still lingers on your tongue --
but he still cleans the frames and
locks the window and
goes to sleep in a bed
I have never spent the night in.

She looked at me, tears filling her eyes
With sobs, she whispered to me with her heart breaking
He said I am not good for him
He said that I was cold, a housewife material
But not the kind of lady he would show to his friends
My crime was from my belief, I would not expose myself
To any man unless my own husband.

I comforted her and told her the Lord has a way of sorting out things

After 3 month's, he comes back, calls and writes her
She now asks, why does he call, why bother to write
He ended it all didn't he?
He failed to find that dream lady, who he can show to his friends
He now wants me? I've moved on with my dignity intact

Girl, I told her, the good Lord has a way of sorting out things. Hang in there friend, your Prince is looking for you and he will find you, with your dignity intact