My days are not exceptional
I get up, I eat, I breathe
And I go back to sleep.

I am simple.
I'm colored in gray.

She is the sun,
A brilliant, bright yellow.
Her face has color.
In her eyes,
There is light.
She is young.

But I
Am not.
We share our years
In number alone.

Because my bones
Are heavy with time.

She is the moon.
She pulls,
And I will follow
As she commands.

Burning brightly as fire,
I am ensnared
By her haughty gaze.
I will share with her the beauty
Of the world around us.

Once she emerges
From her personal bubble,
From her small
World of self.

With age comes patience.
I can wait.

She’s going clean
She’s going sober
After the high from chase
Is all but over—
It’s not the envy
But hypocrisy that stings:
We both agreed we’d worry
About more important things—

****** up going 45
I’m lucky enough just to be alive—
Her lips are sealed
She’s all she’ll ever need
I’m seeing double
Looking retroactively.
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)

Call it stupid
Or call it fate
20/20 vision
Is too little, too late—
Purse my lips and wrap my arms
To the closet thing around me
And give my vows
To slick roads and sneaky trees—

****** up going 45
I’m lucky enough just to be alive—
Her lips are sealed
She’s all she’ll ever need
I’m seeing double
Looking retroactively.
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)

I guess I found the question
To an unsaid answer:
What is hate
But a little love with anger?
I’ve had to stew in shame
As a judgment was made
Right above my name—
There it is,
In my crumpled dashboard:
These black thoughts
Spelled out on my record.

****** up going 45
I’m lucky enough just to be alive—
Her lips are sealed
She’s all she’ll ever need
I’m seeing double
Looking retroactively.
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)
A three letter ball and chain
(I should have stayed)

This night's been cold,
this night's been warm
bringing me back to a memory
of a summer's parting.

So difficult as it left a trace.
The sun could have risen,
Everyday, I become someone different,
Someone else, 'til I never realized...

How I've lost "me".

Grow up, they said
but even as I did
I lost some child like wonder

Now. All I could ever want
Is to grow back down.

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.

just like a seed,
i will continue to grow
tears will educate me
and sunshine-like people
will motivate me
to be a better person
i am today.