you were a ******* masterpiece;

a shattered hurricane
of broken hands
and ****** knuckles
and mascara stains
that never really washed out

so impeccably broken
so wonderfully flawed

you tore the ocean to shreds
you scattered the sand
and ripped apart the sunrise

like an old picasso lost in the basement
like that ******* whisper in the oven
like poetry written in broken bottles
and empty sandboxes

i guess i've always had a penchant
for a beautiful disaster

i've always touched the edge of the fire
and waited for my fingertips to burn

but i didn't mean to fall into the flame

now i've got ashes in my bones
and embers in my skin
and when i touch the fire
it just ******* freezes me

i didn't know what it was like to miss something
until i felt it in every single cell in body

i didn't know what it was like to miss something
until i didn't know how to feel anything else

we broke twilight in half
and crawled inside the empty space
and somehow it still doesn't feel like home

nothing feels like home without you anymore

i'm still ticking off the calendar backwards
for when i can finally count time
on my own hands again;

i want to count for you
but my fingers just don't bend that way
and i want to prove to you i mean it
i always meant it
but i can't make my knuckles turn past
the black and blue

i'm sorry i couldn't love you like you meant it
i'm sorry i couldn't make you believe it

i hope the roadkill in your driveway
at least makes it to the graveyard
since you never did lay me to rest

i hope your own dreams at least get a eulogy
even though god himself knows you don't deserve it

it's 1619*
& the boats are all docking, bodies pouring onto the land as freedom pours out to the sea

it's 1724
& the shackles are all rattling beneath the beaten but unbreakable who never gave up

it's 1864
& the abolitionists are all cheering, but lucky 13 never translated to equality

it's 1870
& the voters are all gathered, but the bleached out crowd still managed a loophole around the number 15

it's 1896
& the crows are all preaching. separate but equal, they say, like you can really separate equality

it's 1955
& the front bus seats are all taken, white hot anger sparking 381 days of determination

it's 1957
& the students are all shocked, the little rock needs a thousand Feds just to blend

it's 1963
& 200,000 people all have a dream,
gathering in unity for the 'greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the nation'

it's 1965
& the voting booths are all open, the wealthy pallid mass finally forced to share their ballots

it's 2008
& the white reign is all done pouring, the flood is still flowing but at least people have the chance to try to swim before the drown

it's 2016
& the trumpets are all singing, waning out the songs of the last 400 years like we still haven't learned anything

and maybe we haven't,
maybe i've just been too
hopefully ignorant
to hear the paralyzing
sound of the TRUMPets
all along

maybe i'm searching for a tomorrow that doesn't exist
because the sound of the trumpets is thrusting us all back into yesterday

but i refuse to join in on the symphony




*'this is the new sound just like the old sound, just like the noose wound over the new ground'

I keep finding bullets stuck between my teeth
The same ones you bought the day you decided the ceiling would look better covered in blood.
Maybe that’s why everything I say
sounds like it’s is trying to **** me.
But what do you do
when you stand in front of a mirror
with a gun to your head
and your reflection smiles back at you?
What do you do
When you stand in the middle of a busy road
And every driver is a different version of yourself you’ve tried to ****.
Every version of yourself
No one could love.
My mother used to get in fist fights with the mirror and expect to win
She says I look just like her
Maybe that’s why I wake up and can’t recognize who I am.
I checked the obituaries this morning
Trying to find myself again
It’s a habit I picked up from you
But I never thought your name would end up there before mine.
Sometimes I imagine what death feels like
Sometimes I imagine kissing you instead
By now it feels like I’m imagining the same thing.
Someone once told me that begging you to come home
Isn’t the same as praying
Maybe that’s why God stopped listening
and started smashing the windows of every place I thought we could be happy in.
Your smile looked a lot like the light at the end of the tunnel
Right before the train hits you.
I used to squint my eyes when I looked at you
Like I was looking at the sun
Or a car accident I wanted to be part of
I’m sorry I ever thought you could be anything ugly to me
You were the only beautiful thing in this hideous place.
I couldn't look at you clearly,
because I knew I would see my own face staring back at me and
your eyes were the only place I never wanted to be dead inside of.
You can only break your knuckles so many times
Before you cant hold yourself together anymore.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking since you left
I don’t know how to tell them you’re not coming back.
See, I used to say I never wanted to end up like my father
Now I have to say I never want to end up like you,
Which means I can’t leave without saying goodbye
But I tried to write my eulogy last night
And realized it's hard to write about someone I never knew.

It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever

To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to

These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming

Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense

Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white

Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.