I was young when I learned to sing
to the rhythm of fists
flying through the air
like birds too angry
with the season to call.
I was young when I thought a tune
could drown the sounds
of my mother’s sobs
crashing through hallways
in tidal waves and monsoon misery.
I was young when I carved
songs in the wallpaper
and into my delicate skin.
I turned bruises into syncopated beats
and scars into major scales.
My stepfather hated music
but I was an ornery child,
and I sang of joyous things
just to see if his soul could dance,
but instead,
I got two left feet in swift kicks.
When I was was young I was afraid of sticks
because I thought my body was a drum
to be beaten and battered
to a punishing rhythm.
I was young when I learned
that the taste of blood on my lip
was merely the flicker before the intermission;
the finale would be a grand display
of pomp, punch, and unlucky circumstance.
My mother was a tone-deaf drunk
who never learned to sing.
She belted begging in B flat octaves
like it was the only note she knew.
She wept an ocean of sorrow
as I sang my S.O.S.
“God, save our sinking ship.”
“God, save our sinking souls.”
“God, save our sorry stepfather from himself.”
And when I thought to cry,
I sang my little heart out instead.
I sang of devil's meeting end,
and I sang of daughter's finding love,
and I sang of mother's finding
strength enough to leave,
and I sang to the happy families
that only existed in sitcoms,
because my stepfather hated music
but I hated him far more.

Its hard for me to know
where the hell
I went wrong
I never thought I'd see the day
We wouldn't get along

My thoughtghosts linger
on ancient code
with
severed brute vengeance
against your vile
harlot
wickedness.
My eye half blind
from the vicious
bolero
of your deceitful
venom tongue
may see
this wretcheed envy
once unknown
as it is now
an evil I have witnessed
once before
within you,
my divided enemy.
And this treachery is truly
an eye for an eye
when all
have fallen victim
to his own
horrid
lust.
Yet I am but made of youth
and the only trade
that
I have known
is that
of love
for scorn.

i am listless
with the cold creek tears
of post traumatic romance
nestled lightly along
the traces of your velvet flesh.

i have dreamt to rise
with the morning
to the bittersweet taste
of savannah roast
and honeyed lips.

content to lose my bearing
in the fawning
spiral mazes
of woven gold
pinned rightly so

punch-drunk patience
in shallow wonder
of petal scent
and ship sinking
valley hips.

will you expel
your weary burdens
beneath the quiver of my touch..?
so that i may bury them
deep within my lungs
as cancer-smoke
deadly in my breath?

time may watch me
waste no glance
beyond your lonesome grace
and doting bare wander
til i am blind with
Venus lust
for your soul-steal gaze.

The next time you want to ban
brown skin from your white land ,
consider the crimson floods spilt
on burnt clay from red flesh.

You want brownfolk in this country
like we wanted pox in our quilts.
As our history is ripped to tattered patches
and replaced by a white silken sheet. 

But this is the land of the free
and this is the home of the brave.
And when I say brave
I don't mean that caricature
drawn on the front of a baseball jersey,
with buck teeth,
a bird feather
and  a tomahawk motion.

I mean the brave souls
that took a last stand
against the Custers
and the Mayflowers
and colonial white powers.
I mean the Sitting Bulls and Geronimos
who’s histories are rewritten
in Old Spaghetti Westerns.
Where John Wayne is always the hero,
and our people aren’t even cast
to play our own roles. 

Hollywood won't stoop to blackface
but red face is PC. 
Perfect Aryan models advertise American Apparel,
one authentic-looking headdress
and fifty-dollar native design
crop top tank tops
are like spoils to the victor.
It's enough to make one sick.

This is America,
where they steal your culture
and sell it back to you
at ten times the price.
Those faux hide moccasins,
**** on old tradition,
turn centuries old struggle
into a fashion faux-pas.  

I once had a conversation with a girl
whose skin was made of privilege.
She said, ”I thought Native Americans
wanted to live on reservations..?”
Let that resonate. Repeat.
as if we were getting a room
at the Four Seasons.

It was called the trail of tears
not the trail of whimsical wonder.
But in this white washed world
invasion is called settling
genocide is industry
and poverty is tax-free.

Our heritage is endangered,
our veins are *****-diluted
but at least we have those scholarships
which, I suppose, we’ll use
to cram our brains
with a history
that never belonged to us.

Perhaps, all of those centuries ago,
we should have thought to build a wall,
you know, to keep the immigrants out.
We could have stood at the border
with picket signs of self-deluded righteousness
lungs filled with hate
for a different colored human
shouting, "Go home, Alien,
your dreams are illegal here!"

Misogynist pig,
strong and demanding
with entitled eager prowess
hard for anything with hips
“Mami, you smell gooood…”  
This creature, lapping,
tongue dripping word drool
down my neck.
I am dreaming now,
awaken by the ghosthands
of an older man.
"Please.." barely escapes my lips,
"...don't.." makes its knot in my throat.
My spine tingles
with wild impulse,
claws drawn and digging holes
into my seat.
I wanna scream,
I am not your mami,
I am not your baby,
I am not your sweetheart,
Your cutie pie,
I AM NOT YOURS!
and still, this vile swine, undeserving
with his expectant toothy smile
and hot heavy breath
is stealing in my scent.
Wild animals
know no bounds
And He's lucky I stayed civilized.

i saw you in a strangers face
the other day
i missed a breath in that moment
of karmic trickery

i saw you in the reflection of a window
while i was out to lunch
and my lover caught me staring
into the empty space
outside

i saw you in my dream on the night
i couldn't sleep alone
apparently, I tossed and turned
And twitched until
I whispered your name aloud.

i saw you in the waking heat
of the morning sun
the curiousity of envy kept us half asleep
my only groggy answers escaped
the narrow crease in my lips
my unrequited
my muse
my love

my bed left empty
once again.

My mother used to say I was unlovable,
as she nurtured her bourbon garden.

That word was planted in me,
taking root beneath my skin.

Budding lonely leave-me’s
and forget-me-now’s.

Summer’s spent naked
under torturous heavy heat.

Seeking sanctuary Autumn,
relieving seasons past.