You are my ginseng

another ingredient in my antidote:
this conjuring of awakenings and borrowed wisdom that I brew at night

In the cauldron I keep under the bed
next to the mug with your name

No one knows about it
except for you, me and whatever spirits may inhabit the room,

you loom
over me when … naught but a shadow befriends me

You see these sorrows of mine have me speaking in past tongues
back to times so historic, I need to be at the present with you at a time so euphoric

If only you could feel in a moment
what you make me feel daily
could your body even contain the glee?

You’d need 2 or 3 clones


AS I’ve said, you are my ginseng

a treatment prescribed to me by Karma herself
because the beatings and betrayals I’ve endured
ensured that my reward would be a love that made every nanosecond worth it

And I will make sure to take a dose

every

day

you

let

me.

One day while on my front steps
under a Mars red sky
a child’s ball rolled into my foot
he retrieved it
thanked me
and scurried back to his family in the distance

all in one swift breath

In that moment I said “no worries.”

But when I reminisce
about the times when I was in your Velcro kicks
what I really wanted to say
is that I hope they raise you to become a Phoenix.

I hope they teach you to rise from any ash beneath you
I hope they teach you to respect and feel blessed,
to never be the prey of jackals in men’s clothing
to know when life is the boxer or the ring
to know when life is the boat or the typhoon tide you must find a way to swim through

I hope they teach you never to treat a woman like something that can be bought
I hope they teach you what LGBT means
I hope they teach you what BLM means
I hope they teach you what USA means and is
because at times those clash

I hope you never let the words of another mouth
enter your psyche and leave with your pride

I hope you never get dumped on your birthday
I hope you never learn what desperation feels like

and I sincerely hope that they teach you to care about what others face
and that growing older is the farthest thing from a race.

The icicles dance in my glass
the sun’s as low as the eyelash in your gaze
- almost set -
and I feel that stare in my bones
from my temple to my tibia
You’d like to take a peak behind this aura
and see if the body it houses is one you’d hold dear
Open these walls,
what appears?

Because I’m hoping you find a kindred spirit
I’m hoping you see I'm down to earth,
reach beneath my surface,
pick up a lodestone and find yourself magnetized
pick up a grin, borrow it on days that you need one.

But most of all I’m hoping you pick me up like a habit
And I promise I can take you places envied by your dreams.

Alice Coltrane, your music brings something out of me,
Something nameless
something I keep buried.
As I lay on this bare mattress, humming along to “Turiya And Ramakrishna”
I ponder if you knew your legacy.
If during those last days in 2007, you ever thought your work could inspire poets of the next generation
or was that even a question lingering between your tempels?
Perhaps not.

Well as this pen dances to the melodies you wrote,
I think, and think
and blink
and sink
I wonder if my last hours will happen a year from now or a decade
or a month
or a week
And what will remain of my creations
Have I touched enough lives
Have I loved enough souls
Have I danced enough
Gave enough
Laughed enough?

I envy the sand devoured by oceans
because it’s simply moving on to its next life
I envy photographs because their moments last forever
I envy the tortoise’s shell
I envy the hourglass because its fate is no mystery
I envy those who do not envy
I envy the days before sundials
when days simply couldn’t fit onto paper squares

I...don’t want you to worry.
I am a spark
Finite but furious
bright, unstable, contagious
and capable of lighting your way before I fade

At least I hope.

Smoke roars out of your mouth

but you’re no mythological creature

You’re muscle fibers and pure rage

as simple as the digits our leaders made you,

but only sometimes.

Other times your callous sigh calls to the poet in me

asking to decorate your voice with more ornaments than the first weddings

to celebrate your existence the way countries celebrate war victories

screams and pride, drinks and cries, stories beneath lies,

o why?

Because inspiration.

Because ***** needing a reason.

Because the moment is justification enough.

I soar with the zephyrs on a daily basis
Will I ever reach the stars?
Maybe.
At the very least I can spend a day with the clouds I envy so much
and be thankful to see my kin rising to the ozone
We are a generation of generating art rather than splitting the world apart
We can find a plant called hope in a desert with no seeds
We need to add ourselves to one another and witness what higher numbers can achieve.
I mean this world isn’t just in our hands.
Its secrets are deeper, written in our palms
So I pray that when you hold one another
the truths of this world speak
whispering "Us, not I"
among other things
that make you welcome love as if it were a long, lost friend.

I find myself in your arms again and even though it’s silent, all I hear are rhapsodies
Beautiful compositions as you take my gentle disposition and wave it away with your finger
That touch is lethal
It turns the hardships into memory foam
caresses my spine like the kiss of anesthesia
So I beg for you to stay a while
Trying to connect our gaze, to remove your eyes from the door hinges
I can’t resist feeling that we belong
Just like guitar strums and callouses
Like injustice and protests
Like rose pedals and fantasies
I fantasize about a time where humans synthesize
Happiness into pills
So that pharmaceutical bills
Are the only thing between me and endless thrill
Yes, I know it’s late
Your heart can’t fit on your sleeve
So you wear it on those lips
With a shape that quickly deceives
You bring me to my knees
Please.
No word in the English language carried more weight than this request,
Whether it’s the Hulk lifting continents
Or Sisyphus fighting his consequence
So please
Keep me warm in the bliss of your flame