This blank page haunts me
Daring me to fill up the lines
Defining words
To try describing the universe
Transcribing between the lines
A little tool too often used
Softer than a whisper
Sharper than a sword

Blasted manifestos
Speeches lapped up by leeches
Letters of love
Declarations of hate
Signatures for war
Who am I to dictate?
From the scrawls on my little page

But present still is “what if”—
When script fails
What is left?
Nothing but smudges
Faint remnants of faded pasts
Moving to fill blank spaces
Nibs dancing across white pages

a letter spills
into the silent page
no ripples yet

I have the heart of an artist,
but hands that disagree.
So the lined page
has become my canvas,
and various combinations
of 26 letters,
my medium.

We call it “a beautiful hand,”
the trace a practiced pen leaves
on its travels across the page.

Or a fine hand, whose sleight,
swift and surprising, makes
old letters new and delights

the dulled and scampering eye.
Swash and tail entice the reader
to look again, slow and consider

what it is that catches the breath
just where a spur leaves the stem,
or where the spine curves.

Men and women of letters learn
by inscription: the shape and space
of an O teases the mind

to a place just beyond reason. The S
summons us to a winding way and the T
offers a place to alight.  Alight

and watch the alphabet unfold
its thicket of veins and tendrils,
its solid declarations, its secrets.

I play one more game before deciding to logout.
I lay in my bed with a book and tune out.
After finding a good place to stop,
I roll over to my back and see your letters from the corner of my eye.
I can't help but look over and read
*"for my homeboy"

Dear soul,
I think I can hear you cracking.
I'm not used to addressing you in these, but I owe you an apology for everything I've put you through.
Little did I know, through every heartbreak, you cracked a little more.
I was hurting you in the process of healing myself.
The more I tried stitching myself through people's love, the more you yelled out in anger because no one fully understood what and how you felt.
I think the best way to describe it is,
You were drowning slowly; as water filled your lungs & fire burned your skin to char.
I think I've given up.
Honestly, truly, it feels like hope left me stranded in an airport and I don't know who or where to yell, to ask her to come back for me.
Hope gave up on me...when I still haven't.
I think he really did a number on me.
I think, whoever comes next, if he does, is going to have a wall higher than any I've ever built before
I've named the concrete after all that I feel; some bricks mark hate, some mark love, anger, fury, sadness, avalanche, hurricane, thunder, depression, hurt, save me...
I've lost myself in my emotions so much that I've forgotten what it feels like to be happy
He, came up whenever I felt it.
The thought of him always crept through my mind at the thought of happiness, as if I were climbing a cliff or mountain; as soon as I reached the top I couldn't help but stare at the beautiful scene before me, proud; admiring how life brought me here
But now,
He crept onto my thoughts with sadness...
Him and sadness walk hand in hand as if betraying my trust was nothing more than a small bump on the road
Soul,
I'm sorry if I fall to my knees unaware, unsure of how to band your bruises
I haven't given up on you, and maybe not on Love,
I can't give up on love..
I may have given up on him.
Yet you don't understand how,
I've never felt so alive as I do with him.
The world makes sense, if for a little period of time, with him
The stars, they all remind me of him and his eyes and I can't help but lose my sanity looking into them .
Soul, please somehow regain hope.
Knock on her door and ask her nicely to help you, slowly
To show you what it's like to walk through the fire without so much as a hole becoming of you
Soul,
I've wondered what it felt like to never have to depend on anyone,
I guess this is what it feels like;
Complete and utter ****