who knew that in about
4 years time,
or maybe
10,000 years lost in
10,000 multi hued tears,
id be on the same trip-
dancing to the same
shimmering inner grove as before-
braiding fresh cut
flowers-
delicate genital-hands, unfolding in prayer
into my subconscious mind
or perhaps into my hair-
saving colored prism fragments
of knowledge or nonsense-
digesting intoxicating
incense smoke into the
deep throated green streaked
laughter chasms
that are my lungs-
spinning vinyl, spun mind
unwinding, undulating
through string music-
contemplating the sunset's sweet
immaculate form, reoccuring
and balancing itself right outside my window-
dressing in shells, bones,
and beads; kaleidoscope fabric dripping from
the ******* like mother Kali in a Fellini
flick-
peeping out at heads slinking down
the ****** pavement streets-
my hairy angelic form grooving
intensely, spastic-
body flung, strung out in
hot patterns of
mirrored arms and legs-
brain brew bubbling; wicked, fantastic-
limbs waving and grabbing at
tangible tasty morsels,
smelling strongly of indigo
and patchouli-
the East smiling on me and
my intrepid journey to the ocean city-
head thrown back in
tranquil madness-
pipe smoke curling like
ancient hound howls from the corners
of my lips-
smiles spread like insanity, a wicked disease
lost in the forgotten finger painted
confounds of creamy
****** milk consciousness-
basking in lamplight
of the golden glistening
                                  Now.

goodmorning
the **** convinced me
not to move the black bracers-
killer whales wanting to dance
but i stuff them with threads,
knots of ebony and fishnets,
so they hang over my body
at night during my journeys.
are they looking after me or
are they after that red bead
in my center?

burning woodsmoke now, patchouli
melt creamy- as venus sways one
hip from the fire pits of aries
she ends up on the other side:
the dirt finger grove of the steady
bull chanting "hold and touch and stay."

goodmorning
when has the sun glided his way,
as if upon the hips of a sea nymph,
across miles and angles of what
was a dark night?

keep your water, i am weaving.
i am breathing every taste of it
i am touching infinitely that center,
so sought after, like the walls of palaces
when tongue touches lip
i am rubbing every color through me
i am watching your scent drizzle gently
all over my pools of skin.

tend me like the earth, goodmorning
string me like the grape vines bursting forth from soil.

I feel your absence like the sound machine in my therapists office. It sounds like static, white noise, I know it’s only there to distract me from what the person inside her room is discussing.
An elderly woman walks out and folds the blanket she has wrapped around her body and places it gently on the ground. She is laughing to herself lightly. I wonder why she sees my therapist.
I clutch the tissues in my hand and look at the floor. I don’t want her to look at me. I smell like patchouli because of this stress relief spray I found sitting in the waiting room that I decided to spray all over my skin. I want to open up the bottle and drink it. At this point, I want relief almost more than I want you.
I hear her typing on her computer and wonder how long it’ll take for her to open the door and tell me to lay on her couch. I haven’t seen her in a few months and I wonder if it’ll be awkward, but my senses are on overdrive so I’m sure I’ll just end up crying.
There’s a circular table with six different teas, coffees, Emergen-C’s and a jar of honey sitting directly in front of me and a box of affirmations to my left. I shake my foot because I can’t sit still. I shake my foot because the sound machine is giving me anxiety. I shake my foot because I’m in a bad spot, again. I don’t know who I am, why I’m here, or who I’ll become. I miss you.
You made me feel grounded and I know you felt the same from me. I loved that feeling, you hated it. I need that feeling, you try your best to push it away.
I don’t feel like I’m panicking, or anxious, I only feel sad. I want your skinny little lips on my neck and I want to feel safe in your bedroom. I imagine what you and her are talking about in those green text messages and my stomach goes into a knot. It’s gotta be something surface level.  Disgustingly surface level, the kind of small talk that makes me puke. Small talk is comfortable to you.
The analog clock ticks loudly and I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose. I want her to open the door fifteen minutes early and allow me to start crying sooner, I feel these tears deep inside my chest and I don’t want to stuff them down. But I’m going to, outside in the real world.
I wonder when we are going to talk again and I have to acknowledge that it isn’t up to me. Most things aren’t. I wish I had more respect for myself so I could hate you for what you’ve done to me but I’ll just call myself overly empathetic and understand your actions instead. That hurts, you know, always trying to find the good in people. It hurts because sometimes there isn’t any good, but I am still here searching. I hope there’s more good because I want to go to the pumpkin patch and make out in the corn field again but you want to do whatever you want, whenever you want it and I’m only an after thought. I wish I was whatever you wanted.
I still have twelve minutes until she opens the door. I want to have a therapy appointment three times a week, I want to have a therapist who tells me what to do. I want the love of my life to not hurt me so bad, I want to be loved gently. Kindly. Carefully.
There’s a difference between want and need and gentleness was never something I put on my to do list. Instead I wrote independent, tough, hard to love, detached. I wrote difficult, stubborn, distant. I wrote down every single bad quality you have and decided to love it more, decided it made you YOU, decided I could walk through the mud as long as I got to lay on the beach the next day.
It’s been a full week since I last slept at your house. We’ve talked everyday but it has felt like the static the noise machine is making. I still have nine minutes until she’ll open the door. I still have days on weeks on months until you’ll consider opening yours up one more time.
You did this, but I’m here hurting. This isn’t what I asked for, I did everything right. I don’t have as many tears left as I thought I did. I’m going to go to the gym and lay in a park and try to push off feeling sorry for myself until I have no other choice. I want to push away all these feelings, maybe it’ll lessen them. Maybe the wound is still open and blistering and I just keep pouring patchouli stress relief spray right inside it. Patchouli is your favorite scent. One time you told me you were only tobacco and patchouli and you bought me a candle with that scent for Christmas. You’re the opposite of stress relief.
I miss you, but I know not speaking to you for a little while is going to help me. I don’t like talking to you when I can’t call you mine. I don’t like the way it feels to kiss your small lips and feel your jaw tighten. You hugged me so tight and I took one more step and leaned in. You said goodbye, and I said that was a mistake, I shouldn’t have done that, and walked hurriedly to my car.

If you date a poet, you will know the true meaning of 'swoon' and you will do it often. They know the power of a stunning phrase and it's way hotter than the Hallmark lines a non-poet will default to.

2.  They see the raw beauty in things that others take for granted.

3.  You will never ever need to worry that they aren't telling you something. Poets are ALWAYS trying to tell you something.

4. They're quite handy if you need a graceful way to tell someone off. They can tell em where to go and how far to stick it without using a single foul word.

5. Roses are pretty sub-standard and typical. Instead, you will get hand written love letters and sticky notes with one line *****-wetters. (Yes, I said *****-wetters. You know what it is.)

6. You will never not know the deeper meaning of something. Anything. There is nothing at all that a poet cannot analyze the hell out of. There's an underlying meaning behind EVERY single thing and if you ask a poet, they'll be elated to share it with you.

7. Poets tend to be minimalists. They don't always need a lot to set the butterflies a flutter. If you can come up with a couple of your own expressively charming lines, that will pretty much substitute a $125 dinner date.

8. Poets make curiously good alcoholic beverages. Because poets drink a lot of alcoholic beverages.

9. You'll never be without somewhere to go at any given moment. There's bound to be an open mic night, a poetry slam, a house party centered around poetry, a poetry in the park event, etc. There will always be something poetic going on. And they will know about it.

10. You will know what a true apology sounds like. Poets can apologize like NONE other when they know they have done something wrong.

11.Making love to a poet feels like syllables being whispered along the curve of your spine as you unravel into a million pieces.

12. Poets like smell good stuff. But not obnoxious fruity scents. Poets don't like to smell like fruit baskets. Poets like sandalwood, and amber, and lavender, and patchouli oils. You know...the **** stuff.

13. Poets cherish quiet time. Meanwhile, most non-poets you date will probably have the television blasting, music playing, friends climbing over one another and a cell phone conversation on speaker phone...all at the same time...every day.

14. You will always have a crowd-pleaser on your arm. Not all poets are attention ****** at parties BUT all poets know how to say at least one extra deep/witty thing that will have everyone else envious that you are the one dating the poet and not them.

15. Poets can wear the color black during all seasons, during thunderstorms or sunny spring days and make it look extra sophisticated and intentional.

16. Poets break rules...but also enjoy the process of making them. Keeps things interesting.

17. Poets shun conformity. So you know that if your poet bought it for you, said it to you, wrote it for you, etc...it's gonna be something edgy and unique and outside of the normal (boring) box.

18. Poets are great with their hands and even better with their mouths. Enough said.

19. Poets are the gatekeepers AND the rallyers (is that a real word?) of the community. If you don't know what a gatekeeper is...you aren't dating a poet. If you don't know what a rallyer is, it's because there's a possibility that it's not a real word. But you get it.

20. Poets like to make up their own words.

21. Poets don't like to be told that they can't do something. Maybe it's the whole submit and rejection process of writing. Who knows? But tell a poet NO and they'll keep trying until they get a yes. Persistence is way more handy than what can be explained here.

22. Poets read books. Book readers tend to have better vocabularies. A broad vocabulary is usually a trait of a good conversationalist which means no lame dinner convos.

23. Poets can write ugly things beautiful and can ***** up a pristine scene like nobodies business. In other words, when you need a different perspective on something...your poet can provide that for you.

24. A well-written poem can be the most powerful and therapeutic dose of truth and self-realization. Poets write poems. Therefore, dating a poet is like getting free therapy.  

25. Poets don't need a list of 50 things to prove why dating them is the best thing you will ever do.

I shalt not fall in love with the hand of one god
For many oversee my world.
Nor listen to the lies that dance off your tongue
In a way so distant and curled.

See I live in a way so peaceful and kind
As these spirits around me say.
For seeing through the eyes of one powerful man
Is like selling my soul to the grave.

Your love-
Your captain-
Your savior of beast-

Although whoever betrays him is of ways-
Of crafts and horrid slurs to keep
Me locked in with devilish dismays.

The fate that lies if I do not drift
In love with the hand of your kind.
Of a man that promises all and hell
If I don't sync with the ways of his mind.

So go on and tell me the ways I should see
Although I feel it deep in my heart.
For if I succumb to the ways of your world
My life will diminish and fall apart.

Surrender my soul for one who sees all as sin?
I'd rather vanish into the depths-
Of whirl winds and tragic mystics that spin
Down the treacherous dismays of man.

So go on and tell me the things I should feel
Just because you were brought up that way.
For it doesn't mean I shall appeal to his eyes
For mine turned opaquely to grey.

If hell is what I'm given for my love
Of many spirits and gods-
Then let this reign of "darkness" devoir
My body-
My heart-
And my mind.

                                              Alysia Marie 2015 ©

Dark chocolatey skin bears the flag of red
Coloured, a sin; these feelings are cultivated and bred
So they're brought to toil on white soil
Reminiscing the scent of their native land, the sweet patchouli oil.
As they trudge through barren land, lost hope and ****** soles mark their path
This coloured discrimination instigates fair feelings of wrath
A helplessly agitated mind and yet they stand still
With wistful eyes, devoid of their free will.
At night, they sing to themselves songs of a land far away
As they drift off to a restless sleep, dreaming of being back there someday
Scalding feelings of entitlement and vengeance have taken birth and clouded minds
Working on indigo and cotton fields, on merriment and mirth have been drawn white blinds.
No matter how clean the records, the message is loudly heard
"When looked upon as a blue jay, you can never be a mockingbird"
These words passed down through generations deny them their say
Day to night and night to day but time couldn't change the black man's dismay.
Wanted is colour in life but shunned is coloured life
This clash of colours holds no value, only adding on to people's strife
So while i stand here trying to fathom out the meaning of it all
I hope, someday, realisation will take down this coloured wall.

We were the ones,
Self-chosen ones,
And we had seen enough.
And we had heard enough
To be tired of the drama;
The games that our mamas
And our Papas played
The plans they laid
That so often did not work.
The pensions and the perks
That so often left them bitter
Mumbling curses about quitters
As they argued over parking spaces
And carefully averted their faces
When people were denied rights
Because they were not white
Or sometimes because Jews
And non-whites could not be
Members of their sororities
And country club amenities.

They demanded no dark skin
And objected to what we dressed in
And wanted us to cut our hair
And go find a decent job somewhere
To start an acceptable career
And get a decent nine to five
To work as long as we were alive.
We knew they were trying to protect
To drive us to the life they projected
That would help us get a salary
And develop the kind of misery
And sense of hopelessness;
The exact kind of mess
They were living
And they weren’t forgiving
When we rebelled and fought
And shunned the trinkets they bought
That they thought would tempt us
To buckle on the harness;
The long-term promise.

We rejected the temptation
To join the workaday nation
And get into the drinking
Nine-to-five way of thinking.
We swapped the whiskey
For something they found risky.
We smoked our marijuana
And talked about nirvana
In our love-beads and batik
We left family homes to seek
And ultimately to find friends
Who wanted the same ends
And would work with us,
And they would walk with us
To the love-ins and protests
And help us pen requests
For marches and gatherings
To demonstrate our misgivings
About who got what
And who did not
And how and when
And which were not seen as men.
But we saw poorly disguised slaves
We knew we wanted to save.

We were going to fix the world
So, we waded into insults hurled
And high-powered fire hoses.
They broke our arms and noses
And trod on our signs
And drew a line
Between us and the public.
We were criminals and suspects
In crimes they invented;
We patchouli oil scented
Hippies wearing Birkenstocks
Without any socks
And jeans with protest patches
Singing our snatches of songs
Like “We Shall Overcome Someday”.
They couldn’t hear a word we would say.
They just cursed us and objected
And made sure we were subjected
To as much stonewalling as the law
Could put up against us all.

We were going to fix the world,
And we got LBJ on our side, like Jack
He went on the attack
And changed things for the better
Still not to the letter of the law
But a bit more spirit
Began to exist in it
Because blacks were acknowledged
And could finally go to college
In white schools
Adhering to the rules
The bigots had always ignored.
And unlike before, the police
Actually kept the peace
Unless it involved demonstrations
Against the crimes of our nation
Against another nation
That never attacked us
Never even threatened us.
These protest made us criminals
And that is what the cops thought of us.

Yes, by the time Nixon was going
After everyone began knowing
What a rat he was and because
He got caught, we saw
Him get on the copter and leave
And without a thought to grieve
We wanted our country to cease
Being some kind of insane police
In an Asian country few of us knew.
To stop what they put our troops through
And bring the people back here
So they could end the killing and fear
That our country was generating.
The debating was through
And the country started anew
By ending that situation.
Peace descended on the nation
And we took credit.
We did do some of it.
Then, we quit.

We started small companies
Selling handmade gifts and soaps
Not becoming the dopes
We fought our parents not to be
But more the people we ought to be
Living in hippie enclaves
That turned into yuppie enclaves
And we got fatter.
But that didn’t matter.
We had our memories
And we had our old war stories
Of marching, and protesting
And they were interesting enough
That we lost the will to be tough
And let the objections slide
And hid inside our mini-farms
And ignored when people were harmed
By many of the same atrocities
That fueled our animosities
Just a generation before.
We decided it was not our war
And sat on our hands.
And drifted like the sands.

August heat rolls in unchecked
I dab softly at my neck with a hint of Autumn whispers
Already yearning for cardamom and patchouli
Winds to blow Chai kisses my way