"Back in my day," he began, swaying forwards and backwards on the wooden front porch bench, "we had to work for our cent. Traveled by foot and shoveled ****. Y'all kids have it too easy these days, I say!" I could not help but laugh. He always went on rants like this, it wasn't anything unusual. But usually, I never respond. Usually, I am hardly listening but today my blood stream was still so drunk from this morning's strong *** of coffee that words tumbled out of my mouth like *****.
"Hmm.. really? How'd you land that job?" I muttered sarcastically, desperate for conversation and painting cartoon flowers with faces and people and trees onto the driveway with chalk, my curly headed baby sister, Shelby by my side.
"Land? Kid, I di'nt land no job! I was forced the job! Family owned a farm, but o'course you already knew that!" He winced.
"Oh yeah.. I forgot." I returned apologetically.
"Yeah.. but everythin' was a lot less 'spensive those days. Got more bang for yer buck. Although, we never really had much buck anyway." Surprised, I put down the chalk and wiped my powdery, multicolored hands on my jeans, leaving a yellow and pink handprint just above my knees, but Shelby spoke before I could.
"You mean you were... poor?" She asked innocently.
Instantaneously, he stopped swaying and looked at Shelby and I blankly for a moment and then looked down at his bare feet. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw his lip quiver. Feeling ashamed by my baby sister's tactless impulse, I picked up the blue chalk stick and stared at it, unsure what else to do. Many uncomfortable seconds passed when he finally spoke again.
"Poor? Naw. I was never poor darlin'! The size of yer wallet don't mean nothin' bout wealth. I had a roof over my head and shoes on my feet. Corn and bread and milk at the dinner table served same time every evenin'. My mama and papa tucked me in at night. I hated my brothas and sistas just as much as I loved 'em." He smiled to himself and fiddled with his fingers, hands in his lap. Glancing at the sunlit, open field view in the distance, it was obvious he was lost in retrospect. "Pfft! Poor? Never. And then I met yer grandmotha..." he giggled genuinely and shook his head. "That was it. She was like a diamond in a coal mine, that one. Her wit as fiery as her hair and a stare as sharp as her tongue. She had me at 'Get lost!'" He chimed, cackling. I couldn't help but match his laughter with my own and Shelby quickly joined, but once it died down, my thoughts did too and words escaped my mind. As well as his, it seemed. We sat quietly, silenced by the whirling wisps of wind that sung through the autumn air. Chatter wasn't necessary at that moment. Then, leaning back and resting his folded hands behind his head, he grinned and began to sway once again.
"Naw. I was the richest man alive."

I have exhausted myself writing all of these home and seasick poems where I'm the bottomless ship and you are the cruel and vigorous waves. I convince myself that each word that drips is my attempt to come up for air and that maybe if I empty enough out... I can breathe. Even just for a second, even just with a sentence the deep blue surrounding will cease to swallow me whole but it's there. You are there. To ignore is ignorant and to notice is notification and to hold onto it is ****** and gruesome like the sharp double edges of the sword bludgeoned into my spine; the only thing of yours you left inside me that I can call mine. Selfishness is trying not to forsake swimming, to continue letting it rust and rot, but I do not care because it is the only that you have given that I got. So-so, so be it! I'll allow you to fill my lungs, drown them if that means my hunger for you is diminished. Finished, but will enough ever be enough?
No.
No word has ever spoke so well, no, and salt has never tasted more sweet. Amongst all this time I have tried to remain afloat I can finally admit there is nothing for you I'd **** but me. But it will do if that means I have the opportunity to sink into you.

The first sleep on a hospital bed is always so cold underneath my fractured body.
It makes me wonder what story the warmth that once occupied it before is telling,
Or whether or not he is the story being told.
I guess I consider myself lucky to tell my own.

Survival is a funny thing
You either want it or it wants you and luckily when you work together, sometimes you pull through.
Maybe the light can only enter the soul through an open wound.

You told me once,
“Your eyes no longer shine of summer like they used to.”
“Your hands are frozen.”
“Your heart is black.”
You never believed in affliction that ceased to be lethal. 
Anything else, you'd say, is curable.
You witnessed your grandmother suffer slowly;
You watched your mother move on quickly.
“It’s not that hard,” You would say.

Unexpectedly, one day I called.
Finally this time, you answered,
“Hello."
“I took a bullet.” 
Pause.
“I’m on my way.”
You could not have arrived any quicker.

Why does it always take a cut deeper, bloodier than sorrow for you to realize you could be the stitch?

Human beings do not speak in tongues,
we speak with fangs

I cant tell a lie, not as well as some. Regardless of what words come out, my eyes will be rather lazy when it comes to hiding distress.
What impresses me is jest, you still have not noticed, and for that i owe you. I'll mark the debt in my little check book inside my head, jot it down like the others, put it aside and pretend it tended forth some tangible result.

Now all is overflowing, the pages ripping and crimped. Used up like the excuses we made to sway away rependence, but the only sorries given are the ones saved for ourselves. Poor modern-generation children, they really let us off the hook. Tucked us in to sleep soundly in feather down little beds resting our little heads, crying over little spits we regretfully didn't have the guts to spat. All told to hush up and pretend, fall to slumber and sleep and forget. Refrain,
You'll wake up to morning rain and tell your lies all over again.

Grungy, tip-toed fool
The bottoms of his shoes laced with eggshells
His guts the consistency of yolk.

Too many minds occupy one head
And so he decides instead,
His own company was more than enough;

Recluse

“I hate the sunshine.”
“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Can you hear me?”
“Keep quiet!”

Chatter turns to whispers.

“I’m too sober to listen.”
“I’m too drunk to care.”

“When does it end? “
“You know when.”

“Now?”
“Do it.”

Whispers turn to silence.

***** footmarks marble the milky white carpet,
even with the muddy soles(souls) left untied at the door.
They sit motionless eating dinner with empty plates rested on a table top so dusty it leaves a print when it's palmed.
Dissolving,
Decaying,
Love deflating
in a shabby room,
walls inching closer with every word unsaid, inching closer til their dead.

Renovation is no longer
in question;
Cleanly on the outside, polluted within.
Their pure eyes fog blacker than
burned, leather skin;
Recycling into a ruddy shoe, only to repeat its course in that shabby room.