"I wish I had a cigarette."
The man as he looked down
at his half empty glass of whiskey
at the bar in Paisley Town

Little did he know what that dear
cigarette was bound to be
In the form of a strawberry blonde
no older than twenty-three

- J.S.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Mondays are 1 am cigarette smokes
2 am poetry creations
and a lack of sleep
It’s raiding the fridge but not eating
It’s going outside in your underwear because it’s a MN winter and 55 degrees!
It’s looking in the mirror until each flaw disappears
It’s a bath
a shower
and one more  bath
to feel clean
It’s purging over the toilet and working out
It’s 2 gallons of water
and the pill addiction
no one yet sees
or maybe they just can’t believe because of what monday mornings used to be

The world doesn't feel real
Like a million of us could fit in a measuring cup
So make something good,
Something sweet.
All the odds and ends adding up to something,
Something that could be beautiful when it ends.
Even though I feel so lost,
I know I have it all together.
Little pieces like a puzzle,
I just can't figure out where they belong.
The wisdom will come to me,
I know it.
Through a cloud, the universe or age.
It'll all be alright.
Someone kiss me through the night.
While I hold a few bottles of wine in my young hands.
Someone hold me till I can think straight,
Someone hold me until I am whole.
I'm finally a real person,
I'm finally alive.

I've tried to write you a sonnet so elegant
but like daggers my words are too sharp, too harsh.
Crumpled pages liter the floor and all of my ink is spent
from my attempt to twist phrases into proper English.
Nothing can better describe your eyes but the color blue.
Perhaps the ocean or the sky? Every metaphor is too cliché.
I can’t capture the rich color with words as I see it on you,
everything I want to say defies the rules I’m to obey.
Sure, I could compare you to a vast and cloudless sky
but I’d be missing all of the nuanced details of your face
as you send a silent wink and an expressive smirk my way.
My inability to describe your eyes has made me into a mental case!
I've tried cyan and azure, turquoise and sapphire too,
but nothing compares to the beauty I see deep in you.

I don't know why I
Have this constant itch to express myself
When actually I'm unaware of
What exactly it is that
I want to *say