when they don’t love you back
and no poem, no movie, no book on this good earth makes you feel strong enough to walk away
you will stay.
dig your feet into the sand.
you bury them.
and wait for the tide to rise

you’ve tried it all before, haven’t you?
you’ve tried to be every person they ever loved, and they still don’t see you
so you think
maybe if you just yell a little louder, they’ll turn around and meet you halfway
you think maybe
maybe if you set yourself on fire they will pull you from the wreckage
giving anything for you not to turn to ashes
but it never works that way

you always thought heartbreak was hidden in silence
until he introduced you to the earth shattering symphonies made from the echoes of a dying heart and a soul’s last breath
you are alone but you will not leave
because you think the false idea of his company is better than not having any at all
so when he calls, you will answer
you will tuck your pain into your wallet
hide it into your back pocket
only to take it out when you want pay for one more night in his ghost presence

when he reaches across the table to hold your hand
you will notice his hands aren’t the soft memories of release you had once grown accustomed to
you will see how they’ve become cages and you are the entrapped songbird
writing melodies in hopes of discovering any trace of love left in him
but all you will find are broken and scratched records that don’t even get stuck on your favorite parts of the song
but you stay
and you can’t bring yourself to cover your ears
because some noise is better than none at all, right?

when he asks you over
you don’t want to but you will go
wearing his favorite outfit, his favorite perfume, straightening your hair because the curls were too much
you have found yourself a slave to an unwilling master
you will knock on his door and he won’t meet you at the top of the stairs like he used to
he won’t stand to embrace you when you walk in the room
you will sit in silence as you watch him work and convince yourself that this is exactly how it used to be…how it should be

when he asks if you want to stay the night
you will not answer
instead curl into a ball on the side of his bed you once called your own and try to find familiarity in what has become foreign territory
he will spill words down your throat that you will believe are remedies to your self hatred
you will breathe out “i miss you”
and he will tell you to stop saying that
you will mistake this for love

when morning comes you will find yourself hoping when he wakes and rolls over to see you sleeping
he will believe you are angelic, wake you with a kiss, and tell you he prefers to see your face bathed in the sunlight so he can admire every detail
but you know, he will not
you know, he likes hiding you in the cloaks of midnight where he can make your face look like anyone else’s but your own
and morning is just a reminder of the regret he chose you
because you are nothing but a cemetery to him
a place he goes to when he wants to reminisce over what is already dead

when they don’t love you back
and you can’t bring yourself to walk away
you will stay.
dig your feet into the sand
you bury them and wait for the tide to rise.
let an ocean of unrequited overtake your body.

a part of me drowned that night when you said you never loved me
i am still trying to learn how to resuscitate her and stop calling her murderer a past lover

i am made of forgiveness
and you break my bones like they are promises
my anatomy depends on how many times a day you say
“i’m sorry, i will be better”
and i dress my wounds accordingly
this whole time i thought your kisses
were like drinking the cure to my pain
but you were the poison festering a disease

**** you.

before i met you,
this pain was my only comfort,
now i find myself reaching for you
as if i’ve forgotten how it feels.

And **** you
for finding every lonely crevice
and filling it with your light;
now whenever i cry,
these holes fill with stars
that poured through the sunroof of your car
the night we talked for hours on my street

**** you even more
for making every sunrise this week about you,
and every dawn a new page
to be filled with your name.

and **** you
for showing me what love is
and for proving how wrong i was
in believing it wasn’t for me

but **** you most of all
for making every experience unreal
until i shared it with you
and ******* you, my love,
for giving me a second chance
to fall in love with everything
that you’ve found in me
and i only say **** you
because if there wasn’t the distance that jammed himself
between us causing an ocean’s divide
i would’ve said i love you in due time

i should’ve known
our love had died
when your lips
started tasting
like those of a corpse

on july 13th, 2013: George Zimmerman
a florida native with a history of violence
was found not guilty for the ****** of unarmed 17 year old African American boy Trayvon Martin claiming self defense

on may 8th, 2012 African American, Marissa Alexander:
a florida native with no history of violence
was sentenced to 20 years in prison for discharging a warning shot out of self defense from the wrath of her abusive ex- husband

marissa,
i often wonder how you felt on july 13th when you heard the Trayvon Martin verdict
did you feel the heaviness of invisible shackles weighing your hands and feet down like you had stepped into the 1600s?
did you feel a surge of anger burn through your throat like i did for you?

did you ask yourself if you should’ve continued letting your husband play picasso on you?
Letting your body be his work of art as he splattered blotches of black and blue making a tie-dyed canvas out of you?
because the jury treated the bruises you wore as if they were the plague
saying beware of a black woman who protects herself
it takes 20 years of solitary confinement to cure her of this disease

marissa,
are you afraid of the skin of bullseyes your two children were born into
knowing that society will use them for target practice every day like they did for you?

can you not sleep at night out of fear anytime your child pulls a hood over his head
that he is marking himself as sacrifical lambs to our legal system?

did you tell your mother the next day to burn your babies black hoodies
because on July 13th it was made known
being black and wearing a hood means danger
that being black and wearing a hood means you have a hunger for ******
that being black and wearing a hood means you have cosigned to a persecution?
and yet…we all seem to forget the ones in white that fit the same description

marissa,
i hope you’re starting to see America has OCD
wanting to color within the same lines, with the same two colors
segregating black and white
neglecting to realize that blood and blood shed never bleed out in the same two colors
just look at the crime scenes of Trayvon Martin and your ex-husband

marissa,
from now on when you bite your tongue while eating
don’t spit the blood out
leave it, let it settle, then swallow
and let it be a reminder of all the trayvon martins, all the emmett tills, all the james birds, and all the little black boys who died for standing their ground like you tried to

marissa,
i know you feel like god abadoned you
as if he stabbed you into the back and sent you on a suicide mission
but please
know you are my symbol of hope
you are my hero
the woman i wish to emulate and be
you are the one i pray for at sunday night dinners while holding the one hand of my black mother and the other hand of my white father
hoping one day america can sing free at last and actually mean that
hoping one day america can be blended and still be considered alright
hoping america will stop painting pictures in only black and white

we were born nameless
using words to create meaning
for what we cannot understand

so
if i run out of words
to string together and send you
i will create new meaning
from the things we see

i will swallow constellations of stars
shining for you to gaze at in the middle of the night
i will expose the mountain ranges, rivers, and hidden valleys of
my inner soul
i will allow you to be the captain weathering the sea of myself

come as a traveler carrying nothing
i will guide you
for when you carry another’s heart
as you know
it feels weightless
so let me guide you with more than words

write your heart out
that’s what they always say
so i did
i bled her out entirely
i turned my chest inside out
severed my stomach and coughed it up
onto a silver platter meant to be served

poetry is taste testing
watching each person who reads
take a bite
savoring the faint beat of every memory
too sweet for some
too bitter for another
too spicy
too rubbery
so raw it’s become impossible to swallow

sometimes writing makes me feel helpless outside of my own body
watching my heart die in the hands of others
she once used to beat
long before i wrote her out