The day we fell in love, the world stood still for the first time.
No movement other than the midsummer air humming electric,
the warmth of our words rising up into dense clouds
and gray atmospheres of sticky potential.
I remember thinking, as our dewy skin melted into the grass,
how strange it was that the world kept turning constantly.
Cars speeding on hazy interstates, babies being born in porcelain bathtubs.
Screen doors slamming in distant houses, ivy crawling across
the windowpanes of writers who will never see their name sprawled
across musky paper spines. Houses torched, brakes cut, hair trimmed.
Somewhere, an arthritic old man sets his newspaper down. It is raining.
He dances, flood water cascading around his ankles. He only thinks of her.
City lights paint taxi exhaust bright green. It is nighttime in the city
and teenagers drive recklessly through underground tunnels,
hands raised through the sunroof of their father’s cars
as the yellow light bleeds into their corneas.
Everything is set in motion, the day’s suffocating inertia of color,
a spinning top cacophony of mindless rebirth.


It is different today. You kiss me softly, velvet-lipped and eager,
and the world stops turning. The streets of Mumbai are silent.
There are no babies screeching in the quiet rooms
of church services, no hearts in the midst of being shattered.
The old man stops dancing.
His eyes are closed, her face still sketched on the backs of his eyelids.


The sky sees nothing but us.

You said, as if that is the only aspect necessary for preserving humanity.
There's a sense of decency in all the things you choose negligence:
Sincerity, honesty, acting with someone else's interest in mind, thinking without malice,
Walking outside and onto the patio at your grand pity party.

What would you do with no attention at all?

You'd shrivel up and die.

Just be nice to people, it's as easy as that,
If your portion of sweet words are honest,
Yet yours are meant with such fake intent,
I look through your Saran Wrap smile, synthetic *** appeal,
To know your ex-bestfriend has great understanding and ****** insight,

It ends up that you were seeking my vulnerable brown eyes and not my cheap wine when you told me to come share with you,
But what I shared were a few too many buzzed secrets.

You, on the keyboard struggling to play songs of romantic tryst in no sense of irony.

Our last communication: road to Huntsville, called to yell at me one final time. I didn't need it.

You drove to play with rockets, the kind you'll never be entrusted to operate,
And the high you can only use to escape your pitiful exhibitionist existence.

This is the portion you're getting of my blood.
Simply a leech...
Don't you know I'm full of poison?

You, the ever-brilliant astrophysics girl, you failed to research me and my contents to know that I am coming down, down from vindictive respite...

I told you at the Bell tower that I once thought I was God. And I am.
I'm the Old Testament God who you never should have ****** with.
I will hang you with your manipulation and feel all the remorse you cared to show everyone,
Plotting for the spotlight.

But, "Just be nice to people".

This one time, I'll pass.

I remember the first time I discovered poetry,
bolts of electric affluenza coursing through soft fingertips
and into the skinny blue lines of fascination
meaning nothing at first, yet transforming into the spillage
of emotion, the invention of color,
the budding metamorphosis of the artist’s apprehension.


I remember telling everyone about the honey-tainted metaphors
that exhaled yellow pigment through our film noir madness
of ravaged years cementing over irises
and I remember the revelation, saucer eyes and trembling hands
after discovering the faultlessness of magic
that tore at heartstrings and furrowed brows,
the mumbled prayer of stitching entire blankets of words together
to keep our souls warm even as the frigid ice of Time
burned in desperation to freeze our heartbeats.


You are a poet
but to the world, you are wasted opportunity
you only know of words that slip through tied tongues like silk
and mending excuses to make up for heartbreak
You are a poet
but they never stop reminding you to keep your feet glued
To hollow ground, shaking
To find something that tastes of reality, the human flesh
sweat of long lost longing
You have to stop living in your head
In the spaces where you breathe life into promises
You are a poet
But that has never been enough.


The poet is used to this--
the knowledge of failure always shoved under the doormat
numbers that collect under crumpled paper,
the rotten look of misunderstanding as they wonder
where the science of living went missing
When did art decide to invade your insides,
Leaving no room to calculate meaning with mathematics?


Oh, but only the poets understand
That there is no formula to meaning
No theorem to calculate suffering,
Only words that get stuck and disintegrate into whispers
only all-consuming madness, write me a storm
That rages through afflictions
Write me an ending where
We are older, in the house we dreamed of, buried
Under blankets in the forgotten fog of Decembers
Write me an ending where my voice is steady
Instead of constantly wavering past the silence of goodbyes
hellos
heartaches


Love me
And I will love you
Lose me
And I will turn you into poetry
stretch your bones into feelings,
follow the lines in your palms into futures
Where we end up together
I will hold up your eyelids
so they will never feel heavy at the sight of destruction
I will shelter your heart to keep it beating
As we watch  as the words I could never say
flutter at your fingertips like moths
with broken wings


The world does not understand love


nor the poets that create it.

Is your ego abused? Should I apologize for not wanting to live as a trophy on your wall of women hung out to dry? Is your ***** hurting because I dare say NO? As if my ****** is the only cure for your savage behavior. Should I apologize for being female? A black female with curves so dangerous if I got wet you might slip and fall, breaking apart your massive ego?

Is your need for dominance anything out of the ordinary? Because men will be men and they don't deserve to be punished for being men. Right? Because I asked for it, Right? Because my shorts in this heated summer day is a plea to be ****** right? Because my ******* do not belong to me and if I dare go without a bra, it is seen as a neon flashing light signaling my readiness for your **** right?

Young boys sit back and watch in awh as Fred establishes his dominance over Wilma. They watch learning the ways of cavemen. this, these cartoons are teaching these young boys to treat women as inferior and teaching our young girls to know their place as a housewife with no say.

From the beginning we are taught that our consent does not matter. We are supposed to behave like a woman or get ****** and left out to die like trash lift for the raccoons to rampage through. From the beginning we are taught that our voices do not matter and men will be men. So therefore we must bend over backwards to accommodate them or be bend over backwards by them.

No wonder women are scared to speak out. I was afraid to speak for fear that my voice would be washed away with the tide never to return to it's bold state. Besides my friend, that one professor whom I sometimes think is too good for this world and the counselor she talked me into seeing. No one else knows.

No one else knows how my knees rubbed against the dirt laced with tiny rocks and sticks. Or how I cringed when his ***** exploded in my mouth leaving behind a taste so bitter, black licorice could not compare. Or how I could not get on my knees in the first place because the only time I got on my knees was to pray to a God I only hoped was listening. But where was that God when this boy put me down on my knees and told me I had to. Told me this was the only way of redemption.

That naive young girl was on her knees in the dirt because she did not know she could say NO. I felt as if saying no could get me hurt or worst ruin what fragile reputation I held onto and 14 year old me could not withstand the blow.

Within those 10 minutes it took for him to be pleasured, I silently prayed and prayed that God would let this boy know how wrong it was or will him to stop. I prayed to a God I was taught watches over all his children. To a God whom didn't care of your sins as long as you repent. But that God was nowhere to be found.

I held back my tears as my neck when back and forth like a chicken pecking at it's only source of survival. I didn't cry when I choked on it and gagged for air because within that moment he made himself my savior. He feed me my daily bread with a smile upon his face.

No one knew about this moment, how I held back tears when he told me it was good for my fist time. How I held a brave face when I climbed the bus that morning with a white stain on my purple dress. I told no one because I believed i liked it because my constant was not needed so I must have approved. Right?

So I ask you. Does me saying no to you damage your ego? Does my no mean nothing to you as if no means yes in the fantasy world you live in. My silence is does not enable you to go forth and conquer my wondrous lands. it is not permission for you cross my flooded seas and take refuge within me. I will not apologize for being a woman in charge of her body.

Do not look at me
with sad eyes
reflecting a life
you choose to hate

Good intentions backed by bad juju

I see it
behind your dead end job
hidden in your lack of hobbies

There in the emptiness in your mind
is the remnants
of the dream you let atrophy

As it got weak
you got stuck in a place
you thought would be another stepping stone

Do not look at me
with eyes shooting bile
behind a smile that breeds contempt

I refuse to be touched
by your silent hope
of my failure

You cannot **** my dreams
just because
you let yours die

Do not look at me
with eyes that plead for me
to carry you along for my ride

It is mine alone
My dream
cannot feed you

I will not lay it at your feet
to sully it's purity
with the soles of the shoes
you use to walk
through your own crap

Do not look at me
with the hope that my dreams
With give their life for yours

"Smile and the world smiles with you"
only works
when hope springs eternal

There is no hope
in that job that grows
while watching your soul die

So I do not smile
as I walk down the street

I look straight ahead
holding fast
to all that makes me whole

And if I do look at you...

I look at you
with kindness
and I am happy for your success

I look at you
with understanding
for we are all going through
the consequences of our choices

I look at you
with hope that you see me
and remember you once had a dream

I look at you
and wish you love and peace

and maybe

Reflected in my eyes
You can see
the best of who you are

The Wicked Witch from Woodhaven,
It's quite an obstacle being your offspring.
Never have I been so self hating more when I listen to your heart-knifing words and unsympathetic demeanor.

Undermining my warm and graciousness as if I am some ant just waiting to be burned by sunlight through your magnifying glass,
I pray that some day you will change.
But a person so mentally unstable cannot change,
As you have passed those genes down unto me.

You have me riding some emotional rollercoaster at a carnival that Goblins should attend,
And not the normal, lively human soul.  
Thankfully, I've decided to go elsewhere.
But the clowns that you call ailments won't allow me to leave.

I vow to change my ways, aiming to stand up to such an evil and love-deviating woman,
Yet your words freeze me up like your mouth is Antartica,
And your brain is scolding due to your visit to your throne in Hell.

I've suffered many tragedies inside my own mind,
Sad songs that are on repeat.
Carelessness and forgetfulness has brought me to decrease my envy of you.
You've devoured the confidence of your once favorite child for more times than he can count on both hands,
And both feet,
Twice.

I can appreciate the fact that you've raised me,
As it is nearly impossible to raise such a troublesome child.
Though wishing you had never even birthed me in the first,
I hold you responsible to why I am subdued.

Nurture has been long forgotten,
Since I had last treasured it so.
A mother's love is all that is good and holy,
But what is it worth to Satan?
You would know,
Since he is in fact, your creator.

Wicked Witch,
Stubborn *****.
How awful these words sound to me.
They come out in frustration as you lead me to temptation,
And insecure I shall always be.

Crotchety old ghoul,
You've treated me like a fool,
For far too long I've counted.
Everlasting therapy is in order,
And forever you and I will be separated,
Separated by a border, That I have built,
In order to salvage some sort of a stable mind.

Kindly accept my creed to await,
The finalizing version of myself.
I've longed for such mortality,
Due to your immorality,
As guardian of my unnatural life.

Snarly and ferocious, this dreadful child has been gifted to me.
At age 3, I was cursed with a responsibility to protect and mentor this devilish girl.
Fourteen years of pure evil and malignancy drives my mind to a state in which no man should ever have to feel.

My heart shrieks with vengeance as she so deliberately tries to inflict pain on it.
My conscience refrains me from doing the harm she does to me,
Reminding me that I am the bigger person.

Little girl, you devious and vicious soul,
I've dreaded the very day I first glanced upon your face.
As your ruthlessness and your carelessness towards other people causes heartache,
When words fly out of your mouth.

You sadistic young twit,
I must correct you for your behavior.
But I hold no authority to do so,
Yet I have been branded your guardian ever since the devil himself has spawned you.

I listen and feel for your struggles, I do.
So I must question why you don't respect mine?
Is life all about you, little girl?
Or is it you just find joy in driving me to insanity?

No longer will I entertain these loathsome conflicts,
As you are my unchosen inferior.
I will fight the urge to play your game,
And find the humor in your desire to leave me discouraged.

Little girl, you silly child.
One day you will be mournful,
When the time comes where I will not be present,
And you will nevermore have me to fulfill your barbarous needs.

Life is an ever changing subject that I’m not sure I’m ready to continue.
I have spent my days in places that I am not. I have spent my time ignoring the distance between me and the rest of the world.
I can try to write my demons away but god only knows that I can’t just run from my thoughts.
Transparency does not mean there’s no vacancy in my head.
I can’t think of a time in my life where I wasn’t thinking something along the lines of negativity, discouragement, or getting after myself.
I am transparent but my mind has so much vacancy for each one of my demons, I dream while I am awake. I imagine a world in which I am happy but in a world where I am happy I am also still mentally ill.
A man I look up to once said you can’t imagine a color you haven’t seen, I’m starting to see that that’s more than the truth.
I’ve started to wonder when my life will become what I want, or if it ever will.
I’m starting to wonder where life will take me or if I’ll even be around long enough for it to take me away from this ocean filled with my own self-hate, my house built out of my thoughts.
I’m starting to wonder who my life will bring me to. Or maybe, I won’t be around long enough, maybe I won’t be here.
That isn’t to say I will **** myself. We don’t know that yet.
But life is an ever changing subject that I’m ready to continue.

Do you ever feel overcome?

A work of art made of a million layered stencils
Where nothing makes sense until the last dot dries

Nothing, no one,
                               abstract, confusion,
                                                      ­             dot dot dot,
                                                                ­                        and then,

there it is.
                       THE MASTERPIECE.


A violent bruise of emotion that is so
                                                              ­      S T R O N G

You see colours.
                            Light peels across your eyes

Fazed. Dazed.

Feeling everything at once
                                             you take nothing in

Numb to everything
                except -
                        your heartbeat

beat
We are so perfectly broken -
                                        that it
                                                  
           ­                                        almost

                                                        looks like we are complete.

And we are.
I am.

In so many way.
                       So. Many. Ways.

But,
It's just,
            I mainlyyy

                           Kindaaa
                                         Don't feel
                                                         okay.

And I spend most of my time,

                                  Left wondering,

Is it just me?