A poignant question rooted in rhetoric.
How do I define myself when there are so many images of me,
Through the eyes of many I’m  many things,
Through the echoes of history I’m liked to nothingness,
The essence of misfortunes my forefathers bore.
How I define myself? An enigma  wrapped in an mystery.

Through time I held  this truth to be self-evident,
To defy history, to condemn the distorted truth about me,
To nullify the justification of my existence, I objected to the
Classification of race perpetuated to the minds of those who cannot reason,
To those with misguided arguments at best and irrelevant at worst,
How do I define myself? Colour has nothing to do with it.

Looking to define myself, I met myself.
A pervasive, facile definition I was  fed since infancy was to be questioned,
As I looked deeply  into myself, disregarding the Eurocentric ideologies of my
Existence. I came to define myself by not subjecting  myself to any definition.
How do I define myself? I Stay undefined like God in who’s image I was created.

Kissing you was like swallowing
the salty, salty sea:

I have corals for ribs,
and seaweed limbs;
my bones are ship-wreck saves
and wishful pennies.

My heart is a sea-shell:
if you put your ear to it,
you’ll hear me screaming, shouting,
pining
for you.

She awoke from a series of nightmares, and glanced up to look at his face
Just to reassure herself she was in the right time and place
They went out for a midnight stroll to get her mind cleaned out
She let him in on what all of her nightmares were about

They wandered up to a high spot where they could feel the breeze
As they looked down and saw the tops of all their favorite trees
And everything was beautiful as she looked in his eyes
The color blacker than even the darkest midnight skies

She still had some uncertainty, could this all be a dream?
There's too much peace and beauty from the sounds of nearby streams
She turned to kiss him once more as the night faded to dawn
But when she opened her eyes, she was in bed and he was gone

He hopped on the first train out of Philly to surprise her
He bought a ticket as he smiled and spun around
Giving a quick high five to a complete stranger
And anxiously traveling to her town

She was packing up her bags to travel his way
Because she didn't know that he had done the same
They both bought train tickets on the same day
It's so sweet that it almost is a shame

The trains quickly travel in opposite directions
As they're heading right toward one another now
The lovers both thinking of their affections
As they end up on the same train track, somehow

At the very same moment, they both close their eyes
And they see each other in a flash
As the lights fade and black smoke fills the skies
And they both surprise each other with a crash

Searching through my circumcised conceits
ransacking allegorical nature
a more outlandish metaphor
alluding to your eyes glistening,

Though Shakespeare, were he to hear,
would revolve over over again
in his graves, may he feel free
to make jokes of.

I say with poetic assertion
confidence, no other allusion
would come closer to truth,

to my purpose, than me saying,
your eyes contain the sparkle of ten million diamonds:
they are far

far brighter than any sun.

Pictures of dead people I know
are smiling and are so full of life
hanging on my wall
reminding me
to seize this day,
because it's not cliche,
and it won't come again.