They war with truth
They shatter souls
These Rising beasts
Of lores once told
Be them mighty
Be them bold
As Darkness sings
And darkness folds
Unearthed in pits
Planets old
Apes and imps
These barren souls
Bedtime frights
In Hallows told
Entreat upon us
Brutally bold
To curse us all
In evenings fold
Satan foretold
The demons stole
On nights of old
Poor shattered souls

Caste in constellations
Borne from baby’s breath
The night sky
It’s birthed our death
Once solace stained
It’s tainted now
It echoes the broken dreams
Of my lovers vows
His intonation
Once my lullaby
Rumbles now in silence
When the moon is high
Cinders in constellations
All but disappeared
Were noted in the novas
Skylights in the night sky
Whisper to the world
“The lovers were once here”

It’s been a couple hours
I finally convinced myself I’m breathing.
I overdosed on my anxiety
But my hearts back to even beating.

I’m focus on forward
Steady chanting in my head
The next minute the next hour
The next day that lies ahead.

Loves a tricky fickle thing
It’s sense of humor gone awry
Hopes a tricky fickle thing
Birthed on a bed of lies

I think I might be breathing
It’s been a couple seconds more
I met our future daughter
In never-was and never-more

She smiles at me blindly
Searches my arm for your dear hand
I can’t bring myself to tell her
I just don’t think she’d understand.

He was just a broken dream
I wrote beautifully
The hope in me
Turned artistry
Emptied for ink
We died blissfully.

She will be
Pint sized with bright eyes
Aphrodite in disguise
She will be
A sunrise but
Emphasized
Supernovas fragmentized
See those blue eyes
Will speak of souls wise
A prophecy italicized
My love for her father immortalized
In the rays of her eyes
In the tilt of her smile

I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding equating happiness to a person.
How now am I to deny the victory my loneliness revels in at the baratone in his voice?
The secret smiles that are ever too known by his stare because he looks at me like I am an answer.
In brevity he is grace, sculptor of dreams, in brevity he is a little bit of everything.
How do I reconcile that I’ve sown into my skin, an inch for every encounter, and now I am more him that I’ve ever been me.

Cosmically chosen
Fated sisters woven
Read in stars, bred in sky’s
Red ties, intwined
Soul achingly his,
Purposefully mine.

I’ve always loved him from a distance
This time it just feels different
It’s the indifference
Like, our souls they differ and
Im pondering if it’s deliberate
Ending feels imminent
Love in a moments end
Fate is not discriminate
It’s saying that we’re dissonant
Harmonies on a barbiturate
Subtle lies are tasting bitter as,
My intuitions shaking with a vigor
Cause my hearts feeling ambivalent
I can’t make a decision and
I don’t want this to end and
I can’t pretend or understand
How we got here and
I’ve always love him from a distance but this just… feels different.

He speaks to me in silence
Answers my anxiety in a smile.
Poses questions for understanding,
Finds answers and faith for us, in the signs, In the sky, as we lay side by side, separated by miles, he ignores the divide,
He sings to our souls, guides them at night, I watch them collide, I can’t help but surmise,
Sometimes it’s awful to be loved from a distance

I’ve never really liked candles
They’ve always smelled of a kind of peace that was always just out of sync for me.
They’ve always felt like the kind of gift you get from someone who doesn’t care to REALLY want to know you.

I light a candle every night now.
He says he likes the way the flames dance across my skin.
And now they’ll always feel like I can find peace as I sleep.

For lifetimes I’ve loved him, this I know.
Not always in person, but always in earnest, this I know.
Lifetimes I’ve seen, in passing glances on the street.
In peripheral over a book in a tiny cafe in a corner of the world I don’t remember the name of anymore.
I’ve loved him in mountains of multiverses.
As flowers reaching not for the sun but for each other.
Because he has fed my soul for eons.
I’m convinced I’ve touched him.
Passingly and passionately.
A steadying hand in a meet-cute train ride.
Tantalizing touches under stardust skies
I’ve known him by so many names
In so many seasons and every time of day.
He was once my darling at dusk, my lover at first light. My friend in fresh rain.
I’m convinced I’ve known him every form.
Ever and always, a call to home.
And this I know, this lifetime, it’s my favorite.

Your name,
Sown in a moan,
Evoked on a breath,
In oblivions crest,
I want to call you home.

I’m sensitized to his sensual sighs.
He tows the line, invoking highs.
yes, he scatters time, as he dines.
Those tree bark eyes, my cluttered mind,  
writhing thighs, desperate cries.

I shatter when he demands it

Incomplete,
Drowning sins,
Gasping breaths,
Morsels left,
He found me.
Wading
Treading water,
Skirting surfaces,
Searching purposes,
He guided me.

Broken feet,
Withered skin,
Becoming less,
Nothing left,
She found me.
Fading ,
Drowning farther,
Needing healing,
Barely breathing,
She guided me.

I introduced him to poetry
And I listened as he spoke me into existence.
I realized on his third line that,
Somehow I was softer, safer, sweeter.
I’ve waited my whole life to see what secure in my femininity looks like on me.

He speaks in shivers,
He caresses,
He confesses,
He undresses.
Heady lessons of
His essence,
Effervescence,
Have me so tempted. So
I acquiesce,
A sorceress
I undress,
And I aggress,
As I digress,
That he shines to brightly to be ignored.

Jeez,
He feels a LOT like poetry,
Like serendipity
Like smiling, fully baring teeth
Like clover green, melodious streams, midday dreams
& Lately, I feel a LOT like me
Like no anxiety, like I want to breathe

See, he smells like lemongrass,
Like sails been mast, in oceans vast
Like falling fast, like PLEASE make this last
Because lately, I cannot wait to inhale

She sat, no shrank, on the edge of her seat,
Already gunning to run.

I thought to retreat, but I steadied my feet, seeking solace for this one.

I quickened my step, set my mind, and gently called out our name.

I’d expected a fight, accusations then flight, but she seemed to name my game.

So I sat, no slid, down right beside her, and sang the story of us.

As a eulogy, a warning, of the dangers of naive and misplaced trust.

The tear in her eye, the black of her lip, made me fear I was untimely.

You see this life, our love, it hasn’t treated us kindly.

Our sunshine has set to burn, no break, every bit of us he can.

He kisses with pain, hugs to restrain, it’s all part of the master plan.

To seclude and ******, belittle, reduce, so we are only a shadow of we.

I am here, a whisper of the future, a picture of what you shall be.

If you don’t push yourself up, get out, I shall remain your destiny.

A bitter, battered girl with only a shadow of love for the man you thought he could be.

You are loved, you are worthy, you are making so many mistakes.

You are wilted, you are tired, you are brimming with brewing hate.

Let go, let live, let die, whatever need it be.

Give up, give in, on him but never we.

Shimmy, shiver, she shifts and sneaks
Right, left, she beguiles me.
Moves with music, such blasphemy

I am whiskey watered down
Diluted to tease the taste buds of those, whose acceptance escaped me before my transformation.
Poured into a glass that leaves blistered on my body, all for the sake of aesthetically pleasing those that hold the sustenance I need hostage.
I have been reduced for the glory of impossible beauty standards and restricting gender roles.
I’ve been assaulted with requests to soften my very being, for the sake of saving face for men who cannot feed their own egos with hard work and determination.

I should have known better then.
His eyes twinkling as the books all say they should.
I should have known better then.
Hopes singing higher than I ever thought they could.
I should have known better then.
I mean, we all know a Cinderella story isn’t real.
I should have known better then.
I just couldn’t keep my heart in even keel.
I should have known better then.
Game, set, and match.
I should have known better then.
Magic always has a catch.
I should really have known better then.
When this once upon a time first started.
I should really have known better than,
To set sail, in love, so catastrophically uncharted.
I should have known better then.
To believe in fairy tails.
I should have known better than,
To seek a love that never fails.
I should have known better than,
To accept a petal with no name.
I should have known better then,
To play your wicked game.

Someone once said the poem I wrote was too general.
The description of my pain was not enough for them.
And now I wonder if they knew exactly what they were asking for.
Did they want to hear about the sound the vacuuming cleaner made as it broke my mother’s brittle ribs ?
Maybe the look on fathers face as he swung, or the taste of the tears of all his kids.
I wonder if he would have been satiated to hear me recall in detail
What it felt like to be molested for the first time before my life even hit double digits ?
Perhaps he’d like to hear how I was so desperate to tell, but scared of repercussions that I blamed it all on my own brother.
Could it be enough for me to spew confessions of using my abusive father for candy from a local bodega, because that was all he was ever really good for?
Maybe he’d like to hear a melody written about how suffocation feels at the hands of the one you beg of love from?
Does he wish to know that I haven given my body to the same man more times then I can count hoping to feign the intimacy he wants, but can never receive because the scales on the cells of his skin repulse me?

Mediocrity holds no pedestal, no place
On the body of the haven where my soul hides
Touch me with hesitation, but never doubt
Play symphonies of adoration upon my spine

Count your sheep,
and I will count my scars.
Pick shapes from your clouds,
as I do from my scabs.
Find comfort in your love,
I will find contempt for it instead.
Numb is not a word,
I am blessed enough to use anymore.
Flames lick and nibble me,
while I burn in my own emotions.
Pandora's box could compare not,
to the hurricane inside my soul.

Does thou not seek, a surreal love, unmatched by any poets calligraphy or ink?
A passion that should shame the dearest Romeo and name his sun, not but a fickle flame?
A journey in a seconds span, so bold that it has not yet been given name?
Unhindered, and unwanting of all but itself in every glory one could dream.
A love so catastrophically utopian, a kiss born of it could tear dear cupid from his wings?
Young and scorching, yet as wise and timeless as the story of the beautiful Anna belle Lee.
Does thou not seek, a surreal love, unmatched by any poets calligraphy and ink?

You ruined me, broke me to the core
Belittled every ounce of me and more
Yet, somewhere lying on the dew dripped floor
I found something I had always missed before

My worth, it lay amount the roots dirt stained
Unpolished and tattered, beaten and maimed
Hungry and tired from life's cruel game
Through the harshest of trials bearing my name

I stood taller then, then I had in years
Whispered quietly into gods keen ears
"Its been a while, please listen here"
"Judge him not, and hold him dear"

"He has shown me the path back to myself,
The journeys comfort need not matter much,
I wish only the same serenity for his soul."

Caged, naked, exposed
Windows barred, unforgiving
Soul, bare, disappointed
Exits, blocked, by truths.

In a reflection of your eyes,
In the tight lipped corner of your smile.
I love you for the specks of him,
That fell upon you when our world imploded
So very, very long ago.
It is atrocious to admit,
That I so long for your kiss,
Because you always seem to taste of him.
This bitter truth is what I offer,
For your taking or your leaving.
A heart that broken, barely beating,
But, oh so good at make believing.
I should apologize,
For when I close my eyes,
I have no other choice but to concede.
Your lips meet mine,
and for a while,
I can relive him loving me.

Brittle, hopeless, pathetic is the word really.
No hopes and no aspirations left.
I try to look like all the rest.
With a proud rising and falling of my chest.
I know the jokes on me.
Who do I think I'm kidding?
Hiding behind painful smiles
One cannot escape reality.
And mine is, well, laughable.
At the very least I know why I bother
Why I atleast pretend to breathe.
I couldn't bare to be another burden
Another tear upon another cheek.
So I sit, chest crushed by my own knees.
Holding myself together piece by piece.
I swear this life will be the death of me.
Or worse turn out everlastingly.
Forced to face the raw, naked parts of me.
Ever searching for one redeeming quality.

That is not ever to be found.

I liken your treatment of me,
To that of a marble sculpture,
Chipped away incessantly.
Like waves beating the sea,
Wind trashing the trees.
With your rash words swinging
On that hatchet of a tongue
Careless to the damage you were bringing
Unsatisfied by tears I cried
Head laying heavy pillowed
On your twisted lies.
You broke the pieces of the pieces of me.
Leaving me with a dust of love
That was just enough
To conjour, to muster up
The strength to leave
With whatever I could sweep up of me.
But I must say I see
With every sunset passing me
I look more and more like a beautiful disaster.

I am a few decisions
In a world of choices
And one single eventuality

Like the cries of a burning tree branch,
It's agony in knowing it can be called a home no longer
The frantic flutters of the devastated birds wings,
Patting down the bark set ablaze, each swipe a little stronger
Like hopes sprung high in a child's eyes
As he walks into a candy store
A mother's loving looks, watching him smile with his treasure skipping out the door
Each soul in this ever changing world
With its own piece to say
Even if it's ever changing
Effected by circumstance, day by day
If we'd only take the time to listen
Oh the melodies the wind can play
The wise old words the waves can say

Land **'
And a fisherman's dream
He's eternally been to me
Ever wading, waiting
On horizons I cannot reach
The serene beam
Lighting my dreams
My hearts home
My Land **'

A subtle salty taste to the tongue
There's nothing sweeter than a hard working man getting the job done.
Eyes yearning and burning to change the world
There are only quite so many words

To describe this kind of passion

At seventeen, bright eyed, and naive to  what love really meant spelled out, I met you

We spent long summer nights cruisin' in a car that lifted us up as high as our expectations and as low as our heart breaks, all with the flip of a switch.

Love songs playing so loud through the speakers, we couldn't hear anything but the words our soft caresses spoke to eachothers skin

We lied awake through many nights with ruffled hair and wrinkled sheets, taking turns watching eachother sleep

I snuck in lines of poetry at bedside, wondering how I managed to live without ever feeling this way before

I was so in awe of the waves crashing I don't think I ever saw the riptide coming, suddenly they were my tears pounding the shore

I still have nightmares of the Bobby pins the part of you I couldn't fill, felt the need to leave between the sheets

Like a good queen I stood by you, and I surrendered myself and self esteem so that you could stand tall for the world to see

Bracing myself for the collision, wrists outstretched in front of me, I told myself that I would fall for you

And I did

Over and over, 7 years later I still fall for you. With each day break and each sunset I fall for the image of the future I engrained in my mind at 17

Our love is without question, not a single soul that has seen your reflection in my eyes, or mine dancing in yours could refute it

Call it fate, serendipity, call it naive call it stupidity. I met you at seventeen, and still believe you are the one for me

I could write a Haiku for you
Even a poem titled "100 reasons why"
I could fill endless marble notebooks
And I wouldn't even have to try
I could find obscene amounts of synonyms
To describe the way I feel when I'm around you.
I could use metaphors and imagery, painting pictures that astound you.
Although I'm not quite so certain, about those hyperboles
I find it hard to think I could overstate, the resounding power you have over me.

Has your heart ever screamed so loud, the rest of the world went silent?
A flashbang in your ears, like a love lost that left you blinded?

I'm winded.

Have you ever run so fast, wondering if it's in the right direction.
Scared of the potential of a real love, of a gods honest connection?

He left me branded

Taken for granted, I realize now that self love has to be self taught.
That confidence and happiness are a pursuit of self I never sought.

I could hear a pin drop

Like the other shoe in a relationship I thought would last a lifetime.
Like the expectations I had for a young love that had a short lifeline.

I lay in a mind field

Trespassing on grenade filled lands, full of bitter broken hearted remarks
Attempting to close a chapter in a life, I don't even remember wanting to start

I intimidate myself

This women in the mirror, she doesn't look like the meek, "take what I can get" girl i used to be.
Wishbone turned to back bone, she stands *****, chest swelled with pride as she looks down on me.

I want to be my mother's daughter

I received two of my life's biggest blessings on the same day.
Taking equal space in my heart sharing everything but their own names.

It's all for them

This uncharted journey, risk and all, to keep those bashful smiles on their faces.
Like mother like daughter, they'll know that they are going places

It's not foreign to me

Being last on the list of people I need to take care of in my mind.
At least I know wholeheartedly it will be worth it this time.

The are the fight in me

They are the lesson for the self love i taught myself.
They will know to love themselves before loving anyone else.

It's quiet

The whole world goes silent when their blue eyes land on me.
I will thank them everyday for the women they helped me find in me.

Your lips tracing every bone as if to paint a picture.

Etching it into your sultry mind so you never forget the way I feel.

Adding color to your masterpiece making me blush from the shivers you so intentionally send up my spine.

Out of the corner of my eye, watching your gaze shift from arching back to clenched fingertips.

Knowing all too well how hard I try to keep your name from escaping my kissed raw lips.

I can only hope I never have to live without this feeling.

As it is almost unbearable to feel your touch retreat as the alarm rings just as the sun begins to rise.

Both of our minds and lips alike, escaping only a word, but one that holds all of the power in the world.

"Tonight"

Terrified to rest my eyes
I'm being suffocated by reality.
These days have worn and run me down
They couldn't take much more out of me.

Their wide eyes twinkle
Button noses wrinkle
They grasp my hair so playfully

They babble on about their day
Staring at me as we lay
I thank God for what he gave to me

Loving hands trace tiny lips
My whole world at my fingertips
I wonder how I ever lived without them

I hold them gently
Listening intently
I want to know everything about them

Lighting my life as it quickly shifted
They are the sun I never knew existed
The reason for the fight I found in me

My once dream within a dream
My heart bursting at the seams
Taking every breath right out of me

They are every path I took, never knowing where they leaded

They are every single thing I never knew I needed.

They are what my life was always supposed to be.

An endless love, my daughter's, and me.

Sunkissed, with a farmer's tan
He brandished his determined eyes
A soft whisk, from velvet hair
And lips that don't tell lies
Knees, shaking and ever weakening
A pulse quick to the touch
Electrified, cells on fire
But one could not call this lust

I am you, you are in shadows of me.
Ever dipping, tangling in synchronicity.
I smile knowing yours will follow,
No longer do I ever dance with sorrow

All poetry,
Well it took hold of me
I mean all this poetry
It really grips the soul of me
To read all of this poetry
Well it would take me centuries
Sitting silent on endless balconies
Questioning the whats and whos and hows of me
Lying still on sturdy bows of trees
Reading through perfectly posed symphonies
Twenty six letters making all this poetry
Oh how they take ahold of me
And all of you, authors of this poetry
So distant and naive
Unknowingly knowing me
Unknowingly holding me

I cannot speak,
I write,
You read,
Live through poetry.

I thought i'd introduce myself
Though you'd think that we have met
See you've shaken my hand and heard my name
But we havent had our meet-cute yet
So ill say that i'm impatient
And its nice to see a serene soul
I apologize for my morose
Sometimes this life it takes a toll
You seem to shine nevertheless
Strutting still in that red dress
I just had to say hello
But should I have tried to speak
You would have misconstrued
Looked passed my loving looks
As you normally do
I could not bare to trip on words
Ive practiced in the mirror
So imperfectly for you
So meet me on this paper
My soul open and unbarred
As you do I will wait watching
As always from afar
Maybe just maybe
On a day after youve read this note
You will see through to me
And I will see through to hope

Sweet and tender
Don't you ever
Lose your innocense

This world gets bolder
As it gets colder
And ever more, intense

Always it will be
Hard for you to keep
Your heart upon your sleeve

But darling you will see
When you look within your dreams
That passion overcomes all adversity

Even through the hurting
Life is always worth it
And love will lead you through

Remember to keep learning
Don't you ever stop yearning
To be the best in all you do

There are two options here
Give up or persevere
Love, give anything but up

When your done hoping
When your beaten and your broken
Look up for my love

I know youll probably never see this
Let alone believe this
But even after all these years
Days soaked and stained with tears
Id bet it all on me and you

There are few moments in life
That are worth the kind of strife
That mean so very much
That ever so tenderly touch
The surface of love the way ours did

You just can forge our kind of passion
The fire most loves are lacking
Too bad we let it set us both ablaze
Pity we couldnt sort through the smoky haze
To find one another once again

If one day your reading this somewhere
I cant help but sit and swear
That I will still be ready to fall
Ready to risk it all
Ill always be all in for you

Today I gave you life
And with it so many other things
Of all you will bear witness to
In each new day that the sun brings
Every word I will have said, I hope they reach you
Like every tear you ever shed is meant to teach you
Please dont ever listen to reply
Always to learn and empathize
In this world youll have to fight to keep
Your innocence, your humanity

Today I gave you life
And I do not mean to scare you
But you will find many battles ahead
And its my purpose to prepare you
At times you will see war
Please let it make you cherish peace
Admire bravery
At times you will meet sorrow
Let it humble you
Reveal lifes contrasts
From darkened nights to morning dews

Today I gave you life
In turn so many other things
For some I will apologize ahead of time
But never for the truth real love can bring