The Oppression of my people
can not be summed up in one word

A word that flies
Flies like a hummingbird

He eats soup
As I cry

he prays
As I sigh

You Do not KNOW ME
You only know my struggle

How Dare You come to me?
In your time of Need.

You need a fixin?
God Bless Juan Dixon.

She's staring at her favorite scarf and weeping away at her life.
Mother doesn't love her,
Father doesn't understand her.
And the image of her scarf is constantly appearing in her mind.
She has come to the conclusion that she'd look best wearing it,
Hanging from one foot from her ceiling.
Funny how something meant to make someone so warm,
Can be used to make a body stone-cold.
Should she wear the scarf with butterflies on it?
Or the one her sister gave her for Christmas,
The day they stopped talking to each other altogether?
Should she wear the one she wore on her first date with him,
Or is that too much?
Mother is screaming at her,
Telling her that her room is too cluttered.
There are scarves laying everywhere on the ground,
The girl is comfortable with it.
But I wonder what she'd do when her mother sees her cluttered mind.
"Mom, how does this scarf look on me?"
The girl will ask from up above,
Or maybe down below.
But she won't care, because she's too preoccupied with the girls flaws.
Her room gets too explosive,
Shes not exactly like the mothers firstborn.
She hangs out with friends too often to avoid being home.
Scratch that, at her house, because a home is where the heart is,
But all I see are carbonated feelings being bottled up,
And shaken,
But the girl doesn't dare pop open the cap.
Now the mother is pushing the girl away
And throwing everything she has,
Both literally and figuratively,
And the mother officially wages a war against the girl.
The mother is armed with the girl's dear father,
And her words,
And all the girl has to offer are scarves.
She has an assortment of 13 exactly,
But she doesn't know which one to wear.

My heart
dies, an ancient
awful death inside
this chamber of
silence.

I forgot what's it like to
trust whole-heartedly
in someone, or something
to raise my hands
and close my eyes
and know
know for absolute
certain what the story
is, that I'm acting in
and how it ends.

When I go every week
to sit in pews to remind
myself what I'm supposed
to be believing
I can't even sing.
The words fall like
raindrops and needles
soaking and bleeding
my eyes as I read
them, my anxiety
overflows.

Here I stand empty
and coming here
adds emptiness
to my emptiness
till I'm carrying around
more containers than I
can hold.
They're strapped to
my back and my chest and my feet
and I can hardly
believe no one
notices.

How do they not
see all the rain
that never hits the
ground?

I stopped coming
to this place for
answers, they're
too hard to find
and I'm starting to
believe they may not
exist.

So I sit here with
my questions
burning holes in my
heart, or maybe
they're openings?
Sometimes they hurt
so bad I can't stand
it anymore.
And sometimes I just
listen, resting my
aching soul on
someone else's
trust for a minute.

If I can't believe
anymore, than maybe
someone else can

It's a funny thing
giving up
or almost giving up
but at the last second
finding a touch of
peace or grace and
turning the whole
train around.

The stillness scares
me and haunts me
yet it's the only
place I feel safe.
It's become my new
home, here in the dark
with little flashes of
light sometimes
coming in around the
edges. The quiet
here is calming
a cool balm to
my wounds
little shelves for my
questions to rest
upon in this waiting
place that's become
my friend, my solace
my hope.

When I leave here
the room fills up
with panic, coming
in on all sides
with teeth and
razors and voices
screaming and
judging and trying
to fix what can't
be fixed, and I'm
not even sure is even
broken.

This is
the end. This is
the end of where
everything that was
can take me, and if
I step over this line
will it be gone forever?
Or will I come back
around?

Will there be a time
when the stillness
leaves, and light
floods my darkness?
Or will I only know
sparks and sputters
from now till...

Some days I can live
with that, most days.
And every once in a while
I'll come across pure
trust. Certainty.
And I want to whisper
to that person

Stay here.
Cherish this.
Because when it's
gone, it's ******* gone

And maybe it's an
illusion in the
first place, but it's
still nice.
I can't go back
to black and white, and I
wouldn't, if I had
the choice.
But sometimes I
wish I could have
that peace of mind
that isn't built on
paradox or mystery
liminality, the
in between.

But here I am
wading in and out
following the waves to
the edge, or the center
I can't be sure.
Surprised by who I
meet floating along
out here.
Maybe my little boat
can bump into your's
and we can just
breathe, knowing
someone else feels
this same suffocating
peace.

And sitting around
the table
we can be together
in our aloneness.
And if we can't
touch a little bit of
light, we can at least
sit together in the
darkness.

If there is one thing I will always be grateful for,
It is how I was raised and who I am.
My mother taught me that there is no such thing as a *****,
And if I am called that by anyone not to give a ****.

My ****** expression and who I decide to let inside me,
Does not define who I am and my worth.
People may not like what I do and won’t always agree,
But my sexuality is as natural as grass growing in the earth.

And probably the biggest double standard ever,
Has to be the praise men receive when they’re laid.
They get called “badass” and “stud” when they pull off that endeavor,
But if women do the same they are met with lots of shade.

The saying it takes two to tango comes into play here,
Because if a man’s getting laid so is the woman.
So let’s get **** shaming to disappear,
Because after all we are only human.

I wake up in the morning and put on a pretty dress,
My goal is to stun, amaze, and impress.
I make it about halfway through school without fuss,
But around 5th period I’m written up because cleavage isn’t a must.

I’m getting punished for my own set of double D’s,
Because the men around me get erections from a passing breeze.
If kids in high school can’t control themselves,
Why should I be the one punished for my huge shelves?

Why are men not taught to respect women,
But I am told I look slutty once again?
You’d think boys would be more than their ***** by this time,
But as of now cleavage is still a crime.

You use my greatest fears
as slings, rocks and arrows
meant to draw not blood, but tears
hitting the earth like meteors.
You bend and twist my limbs
in a figurative way.
You train my hopes like a dog,
telling them to stay
and you never come back for them.
You stockpile sharpened words
and hails of insults.

You used to be what I called friend,
but I was always aware of your simplicity.
Perhaps it was how explicitly
you framed desire and hatred
in the same portrait.
You made sub-cultures fit into your own identity
and always found a way
to make me feel unwanted.

You were a ****** friend,
but the way you brought about the end
like a hammer crushing the skull
of the decades I have left to live,
THAT,
I'm not sure I can forgive.
But when I wake up tomorrow,
and I look into the mirror,
I will not see your face staring back
but you always will.

And for this reason I still find it in myself
to feel pity for you.
The same pity I feel
for those short of food and clean water
because for every time
you put my dreams to the slaughter
you put another notch in your belt.
The same one that keeps you fastened to your hate.
You'll be padlocked there until you find the key,
hidden in your own humanity.
To win against hate,
you have to not want to participate in it.
When it comes to mine,
it's still there,
but everyday it grows dimmer.
Not dim as in, you,
but less strong.

So this is our swan song.
You asked me to write you a poem
and after today,
I just couldn't say no.

I don’t see people anymore,
only shadows.
I see their past and future
trailing behind and ahead
the constant lagging and catching up of them.
I am the patch-work mish-mosh
made-up creature-being
with Past / Future / Present
silly-goose whatnots.
I am the girl you laugh with at Starbucks
because you’re too ****** bored to live for coffee.
I get it.
Let your smiling teeth do the talking.
I am the one-liner two-timing
*****-less wretch of a lady you call friend.
I am the cigarette loser who watches your dogs.
I will burn your children alive.
I am the tree-hugging
nonchalant ******* handing out flyers.
I will plant a seedling then rip it to shreds.
I will wear its bark for armor.
Your precious ******* oak
puts out cigarette butts now.
And from its death we grow cancer cells for fun.
Hell, we’re past time for past-times.
It’s all coffee and cigarettes now.
Coffee and cigarettes
and honking horns.
Coffee and cigarettes and honking horns
and shadows.
No more people.

I once had a boy
Who loved me so
much he had
memorized every
freckle I had on my body.
He loved me to the
point that when
our own demons wouldn't
let go of our heads
he went to a mental
facility because he
couldn't stand how
wrong things were without me.
He told me that.
I heard it straight from his mouth
and that boy is gone now.
Moved on and moved away.
And even though that was
so long ago i can't
help but wonder if
I will ever be loved like
that again.
Will someone ever want to
spend that much time
memorizing every freckle
every scar, every inch of skin
on my body.
My stomach collapses
on itself thinking about it
because something in me
doesn't think it'll happen
or that I even deserve it.
My stomach acid burns my
throat as i up heave my
emotions through my chest
and wonder if I will ever stop
being thrown out in the
garbage like a used
******.
Everyone says that
everyone deserves to be happy
and maybe deep down I
want to believe it but
something aches and whispers
bitter tasting words
into my head that say
no one will ever love you
longer than it takes
to reach ******.
I'm not looking for perfection.
I am damaged goods and i know
other people are damaged too.
I know some peoples heads
are like hurricanes
and I am aware that
no one is perfect and
yes, I know that I cannot
be perfect but I don't
need to be perfect.
I don't need someone perfect
either.
I want to love like that boy
once did.
I want to memorize someone and be
memorized back.
To me the sweetest type of love
is the kind when
you just waste time.
But you love every
second and you
want nothing more
than to sit and
admire the beautiful
thing you have
right in front of you.

I wake up in the morning and put on a pretty dress,
My goal is to stun, amaze, and impress.
I make it about halfway through school without fuss,
But around 5th period I’m written up because cleavage isn’t a must.

I’m getting punished for my own set of double D’s,
Because the men around me get erections from a passing breeze.
If kids in high school can’t control themselves,
Why should I be the one punished for my huge shelves?

Why are men not taught to respect women,
But I am told I look slutty once again?
You’d think boys would be more than their ***** by this time,
But as of now cleavage is still a crime.