Back in 2007:
I understood everything that day.
You gave up your custody rights for me to live a better life outside of Chicago.
Greatest, yet,  most heartbreaking moment of our lives that you ever did for me.
It got me away from the gang life
And I thank you for it every day through prayer.
Because without that sacrifice,
I wouldn’t have became the man I am now....
I was 12 when this all started.

2008-2019:
From a far distance
You watched me grow up under another roof.
My shyness faded
While my character began to blossom.
I learned to express new emotions
Expand my vocabulary
Use my kindness to create relationships
Battle my sins, demons, as well as my own identity
Expanding my mind & soul.
Nevertheless, your baby boy survived.

But the truth is, I never see you anymore.
There hasn’t been a handful of times you came down to see me vs me see you
I felt a lost connection between us.
Those random days/ nights I needed you physically, not through the phone.
Is it because you couldn’t raise me like you wanted?
Maybe it's because I look like my father?
Or maybe it’s because you prefer to start living your own life now that i'm grown.
Which you deserve 100%
I wanna see you happy always.
However, my only wish is too see you more often.
That’s all....

I've spent a lot of time staring at myself
In the mirror, thinking that
Love looks like sacrifice.
See, where I come from,
Devotion twists itself into ****** forms.
Agony breathing between a lust for heaven or hell,
Misery dripping like blood onto concrete.
Love stains my hands red and the offering is such:
Here lies this contorted body,
Begging you to dismantle it.
Gut me of my delusions and
Carve out my smile to mount on your wall.
Here lies this mutilated body,
Unrecognizable in the face of faithfulness,
Staring into the eyes of adherence like
Its got a gun to my head.
Make me stand to look at this body.
Maybe its my misconstrued fantasies,
I bid myself to Love and it burns.
Take these confessions,
This ******,
Write about it like its poetry
When it reads like atonement.
Here lies this shrine of a body,
I flinch when you cup your hands around my face,
A knife pressed against my throat
Slicing into my mumbled apologies.
I am sorry
I cannot soften the corpse I am becoming.
I've spent a lot of time looking at you,
Thinking that Love may look like resurrection.
Rebirth in your softness.
Here lies this reviving heartbeat of a body,
If I am the sacrificial altar,
Get on your knees and start praying for my resurgence.
I'll see you back when it is bloodless and lifeless,
When its been emptied of its contents and is just the frame
Of our offerings.
I've had Love to die for
Your Love is holy,
Something to live for.

I am the lamb
Lead me to the post you prepared
Tie me there tightly

Take your knife from its sheath
Plunge it deep in my neck
Drain me until there is no more

Love me while I perish

I am fairly sure
that
you have given up too much
to procure;
what you considered the healing touch
of my thin fingers.

And I;
unbelievingly realize
that no matter how hard I try,
I may never be able to provide
all that you may have sacrificed
to get me by your side.

All I can do
is to continue
to yield to your point of view
and to share and care
for your dreams and schemes
about life.

But after all this time
it is unfortunate to find
that so much care
robs the deepest love
of its flair
till;
we begin to choke
in our own holes of loneliness
and without intention
your sacrifice
and my devotion
become inside-out versions
of each other......

If that of me which were rubbed away
got retrieved,
then


(Of course, yes,
it can't become "Me" again.)


It could at least be made mine. Arranged anew
as

"An eraser's poem"

I won’t ask you to buy me roses
Or pay for my meals.
I don’t ask that you only look my way
Even if I’m only looking yours.
No need to sing me to sleep
Or kiss me in the morning.

But I will choose to
Climb to the treetops
So I can reach out and
collect the stars for you—
Take them all, they glow more in your arms.
Don’t fret my problems
I didn’t fall in love you to have you share
The weight of my anxieties and insecurities.
You can even leave.
If you told me you wanted something more
Than the stars that I pick for you,
I would climb towards the night sky once more,
Pick out the finest in the sky,
And place them into the palm of your hands
Hoping that I can leave you with something
That you can take with you before you leave.

I love you so much that I would never burden you
With my cries asking you to stay.
I will love you in my silence hoping
That you can walk straight with the weight
Of what you never had to carry.
And even if I am one day left in the darkness
Of my starless sky,
I will still love you in all my emptiness.
So for now, all I ask is
Please, let me love you now.

At the gates of Petal City
Where the winds seem to whisper,
In tongues all too familiar
Knocking just behind your ears

Since the summer they've been louder,
Voices creeping into walls,
Making our sky darker,
And crying out a fog

Between their walls, in shrouded pain,
Defending with their folding shields
It's those who never kneel
For the bear king

They are the knights order
We dream we never have to be

To all those who served our Country
Putting us before your fear
We salute you on this day
And each and every day of the year

Thank you for your sacrifice
To you Veterans we owe so much
Your courage, honor and bravery
For all the lives you touched

Your service made this country
As a country we're in your debt
This country we're privileged to live in
Make sure to thank a Vet

Thank you,

For the freedom
         For this day
For each night.
And for our freely given rights.

Thank you,

For what you did
              For the day you fell,
For the last breath you had
       And the reason I'm alive.

Thank you,

Even though
   We never meet.
Even though
    I don't know
            your face.

But you are on my mind
On the eleventh month
          Of the eleventh day.

And at this time I bow
My head, every year in
           gratitude & respect.