Words die little deaths,
Hopeful kamikaze runs,
Endings on windscreens.

i'm calling your name
i don't think he notices
but can you hear me?

his body is warm
a heart of gold, but stone cold
fingers trace my skin

hold the dial tones
wrap it tight around my neck
tell me you love me?

i want to hear it
it'd so be easy to fall
for your words again

calling you again
no, you don't have to answer
i just miss your voice

                                voices in my head
                                it’s harder than expected
                                i’ll finish alone

I feel it in the tenderness in your expression,
when you call me baby over the phone.
I feel the  charm of your masculinity.
Something deep inside of you transfers esoterically
inside my soul.
I want you to get deeper into our merger.
I want to be your dream come true.
I want to cradle myself next to you;
a blanket on the floor, a pillow on the bed,
a tent in a back field in the middle of the night.
it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as I lay next
to my man.

I will be happy, I will be whole.
I like it when you call me baby, I am fully aware that
I am yours.
I am dedicated to my African King, and I know that you are
devoted to me.
When you call me baby, I know you mean it.
You arouse a fireside of warmth inside my wet harbor,
and when you call me baby, you make me feel like Black Beauty!
I feel the sensations of your heartbeat, jiving to music that
only we can hear..

You make me melt like heat to ice, when you touch my lips,
and kiss me goodnight.
I feel exclusively special when you call me your Lady!
I can’t help but hold a torch for you.
I like it when you call me baby, it makes me feel rather
profound for you.
When you call me baby over the phone,
I want to add your sentiment as my preferred ringtone.

Hi, you have reached the voicemail box of Syreena Phelps. I am either working, sleeping, or too depressed to answer the phone. Leave your name, number, and a reason for me to live, and I'll get back to you as soon as I am mentally able. Thanks!

An incomplete face
in its glass slab,
pulls a distance over me.
Mournful, I watch the neighbors
streaming down the toothy walk
in black and brown coats,
their laundry massed  
on shoulder tilt,
or in little onion cart.
They are all right here,
in this winter identity.
Washington accepts them.
If they should crane
& launch a coup d'œil
into this hunched pane
they'll know I am not of them;  
what body I have
stalls on this laminate -
the black fume
behind fastened eye
has already bolted
to keels of poetry
across furrowed Atlantic:
completing a glass face.