i don’t know if you were in second
or third grade. or what your favorite color was.
i’m not sure if you liked playing dress up or soccer
or if you were an only child or the baby of six.
i don’t who you had a crush on and i’m not even sure of your gender
but what i do know, is that today you were scared because you saw white
and then heard the noise of the explosion, and the screams of the injured
but i’m not sure if had learned yet in school that light travels faster than sound.
i don’t know why you were watching the marathon, but i know that you were excited
and impressed
that all these people were running for twenty-six miles, which happens
to be the distance from your house to your
grandma’s.
i don’t know if you died squeezing tightly to your mother’s hand or
if your last breath was taken alone, while hundreds ran in a flurry around you.
i do know that when you fell to the ground, no longer breathing,
you tripped a wire that pulled out
your father’s heart and sanity.
i know that you hadn’t yet felt someone
trace their lips up the divot of your spine
and i know that you will never get to sneak out of the house at
three am to get drunk in a park.
you will never see the next president or even what your best friend will wear
on his wedding day.
and i am sorry.
i am sorry that someone was sick enough to put
an explosive in the trashcan and let it detonate
i’m sorry that your death was the product of human selfishness and greed.
i am sorry that today you had to feel a warm liquid leak from your body
and that you lost so much of it you
couldn’t bear to keep your eyes open.
i’m sorry that you were eight years old when you died,
and that you barely got a taste of the world before it was snatched out from under you.

Wait between the poles like fingers of forsaken blue accusing a painted sky
Lonely color cast aside to film across a water like light spread thin
The ink abandoned in lazy dribbles
Clouds riding muddled indigo

Wait for me there.

This is a poem about any teenage girl.
When she tries, sometimes she fails,
But most of the time, when she thinks she fails,
She really didn’t.
Even so, when she fails, she cries.
When she cries, she hides it.
When she hides it, she’s pretending.
When she’s pretending, she isn’t being herself.
When she isn’t being herself she becomes one of millions,
Lost in the sea of girls who are only trying to become people that they’re not.
Tossed by waves of propriety, undulating in the tears she keeps to herself and those of others.
She can’t find solid ground to stand on; there’s no way she can stay afloat.
She reaches out her arm to try and grab onto someone, someone she thinks is strong,
Only to find that they are slowly sinking too.

There's a provocative quality to poems, don't you think?

Even though they are merely words upon a paper, they drip with a sweet and sticky seduction.
Passion and lust immortalized in black and white, capturing a carnal moment.
The words do tantalize and tease, for those unafraid to read it.
Your breath even hitches as the poem screams of those vivid teenage memories.

It's you inside the poem, digging your nails into his back, begging for the release you desperately  need.
It's your back that's arching, as he pushes harder and faster into you than ever before.
Who's screaming in heated passion as pleasure explodes throughout the body?

Is it you, sitting there, breathing slightly erratically?
Or is that only me? That feel the words come to life.

But after reading this, how can you not agree, that poems have a certain ****** quality?

Click…
Click…
CLICK…
Earsplitting silence surrounds me
As I waste time envisioning a new setting,
Where my paper, pen, mug, and coffee are still there,
But the paper is bursting with passion,
And the magic of espresso beans enable the pen to float along my rapid thoughts.
Right now it is used to stimulate the monotony.
Unfortunately,
Money cannot be bled from words on paper and,
Beers are not bought with dedications in hard cover.
Click…
Click…
CLICK…
Yogurt wrappers opening, spoons being slurped.
***** expanding atop their encompassing chairs.
These are the thoughts that fill my head,
As co-workers plan the next birthday party,
The next lunch, client dinner, and snack.
It seems that bars do not enclose me at my desk,
There is no guard at the door and,
Above me the exit sign gives warmth.
Click….
Click…
CLICK…
Not today, today is not a good day.
There are presentations, Power Points, data to analyze.
Analyze feels like a ***** word in my world,
It covers my neurons and destroys imagination,
Synopsis seize to fire.
It seeps into my blood until I become a replica,
But it is the word that takes my balance off negative,
And applies charming labels to my purse,
I wonder if this is how it starts out for everyone,
Humans are adjustable, no batteries allowed.
Click…
Click…
CLICK.

When Peace evades me
     and Hope fades to a memory.

When Frustration and Grief become my only friends
     and Weak and Weary try their best to settle in.

Just as Hatred is knocking at my door...

My knees find their way to the floor
    
      and I cry out

I NEED YOU LORD, like never before.


© Tina Thompson

Kiss me
The way you usually do
Hold me
Tighter than before.
Hug me
Close so I can feel you
Listen to your heartbeat.
Touch me
In ways that make me moan
It's only you that can
For we are bound, you and I
Make love to me
Every single day.