he still doesn't realize
that beauty has a price

he plucks roses and
wonders why they wither
when he's never learnt
to check their roots.

with thorns between his lips,
he speaks softly about
the way love has eluded
him over the years.

his palms like written verse,
scarred and coarse, petals
falling delicately out of
time from his fingertips.

he sees beauty but he
does not see underneath

he has always been
one to see the flames
but never feel the heat.

Exquisitely flawed in all the right places
Like the keys on the piano that  sits abandoned
Your ebony keys complement my ivory so well
But dust collects and you never notice
So I fall away quietly
Retreating like a soldier
Who knows he will not win the inner battle before him
Quietly quietly
Silently go
Where no one sees you
Nobody knows
I built up my fortress
A place full of pride
Full of hatred
Your pent up lies
A promise broken
A heart is torn
I'll stay in my castle
Where my poetess is reborn
*Quietly quietly
Silently go
Where all the others fear to tread
I will lye down this weary head
Exquisitely flawed in all the right places
You are the man with many faces

believe whatever you want to believe,
but as for me, I believe that love wins.
Always.

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

01:52 am
have you ever asked yourself like why you so lonely?*

01:53 am
or empty?

that maybe you give too much of your essence to people and never leave any of you for yourself

01:55 am
i know i do

02:05 am
and like that's maybe why i get so attached to humans

because in them,
i find myself

02:07 am
i need to change, because things shouldn't be this way

02:10 am
but it's hard sometimes you know, when most days you don't leave the house because you feel unworthy of the space you take up

02:16 am
so you'd much rather disintegrate into soil because you've become all too familiar with people stepping over you and admiring the outcome of your beauty but never the roots of your pain

02:19 am
i spend so much effort watering people in order for them to grow and hardly get enough sun shine to feed my own soul

02:25 am*
because i don't know how to do anything else but care for everyone but myself

sea of mystery
and dark desire,
harbour of peaceful blue,

mirrors like apple peel
twisting their reflections
into a song of me and you,

the leaves fall down,
everything falls down,
little alleyways of our love,

i promised you desire
and it was my weeping eyes,
my torn hair,
my dance in a poet's grove.