I wish flowers
would go extinct
if only for a day,
from both the earth
and my memory,
just so I can pluck these
thorny comparisons
from out my poems.

And while we're there,
sunrises can also take the boot
with their predictable
eastern risings and
western settings,
intrusive summer heat,
and their connection to
the feminine glow.

Why not try
rising in the north
and setting in the south,
dare to relate yourself
to the screech of a car?

Don't get me started
on the diverging
roads and your
forked choices
or a bustling stage
you call your
world.

I want to lean
on over to Andromeda,
and see what kind of
terrain they have,  
weave my words
based on their cold suns,
that are actually called
moons or flubberdygoo,
that never set and
mimic the sounds
of migrating birds.

Or maybe peek
on over to Neptune
with her five rings and
get a better idea
of the color blue
and how wind can
actually feel like
seduction.

Because my dear
however lovely
your lips truly are,
I can no longer go
forward relating them
to the red rose nor
compare our
premature parting
to the setting sun.

I remember fondly
when you asked me
if I knew French before
our first dinner date.

I lied and said yes,
just to hear the
sparkle in your tone.

I lied and said yes,
just to see the smile
from your face
vanish when
I confronted you
with an obvious truth,

to see if you felt
embarrassed by
your misplaced lust,
or at ease with your
perpetual enstatement of it.

as you slowly realized,
it wasn't me you
were chasing,
but maybe a cute
Parisian girl
in a striped turtleneck
eating a croissant,
under some beige canopy
who vaguely resembles me,

And while you were sitting
there wondering of that girl,
I easily slipped into
my Marie Antoinette accent
so I can practice it on you.

"serious art is born from serious play"
Julia Cameron

The problem with artists
is the way they look
at you as if
you're their
next meal.

You were never
flesh and bone,
a creature of feel.

You are a blank canvas
of space to roam,
the layered onion
for them to peel.

The unchartered map
left to explore,
until you are all but conquered
and turned into words on a page.

But when two artists meet,
I wonder if their agendas
dance with each other like
the bull and a matador.

one waving a red flag at the other
enticing the other to make a move,
and discover just how well
they can defend themselves

or if they both
bow in submission
in accordance to the laws of
"meeting your match."

or do they toggle back and forth
between bow and blow,
arching the horns into the
air with independent defiance

to kneeling their heads
into the sand with
doted reverence.

just two chemicals dancing
and inching around one another,
questioning whether
or not to form
a compound.

To not
know whether you
are black with white stripes
or white with black stripes

carry on without a mirror to investigate
or a care for that matter,
for nature has embedded
the answers into your veins.

the code of your creation,
of your knowing
is buried in the silence
in between your thoughts.

I want all my lines to pack a punch
but all I hear after each line's jolted rush,
is to crawl back from whence I came,
to remain there with a hush.

your gender won't allow it
your race won't allow it
privilege soaked woman
with fair skin, pretty mouth, oval eyes

stay in your corner with your hush
line up like the rest of them,
in between the dazzling city lights
allow your clothes to hug you tight

stay in your corner with your hush
dont speak of your misery into the night
when they have learned to scream louder,
crawl into dank spaces with a lofty smile
and hand out compliments on your grandma's gilded platters

stay in your corner with your hush
allow the woman to side-eye you
allow the man to side-eye you
while the world remains all ablaze
and the women fix their hair on murky bar mirrors

stay in your corner with your hush
don't speak too much, you'll give it away
that you are a breathing living entity of
fire, earth and water.

Don't dare relate them
to me or you
to he or they or them
for they have found more comfort
in separation than in likeness,
remain as unsharpened pencils in a box
dazzling in a row, ineffective for the prose,
stay in your corner with your hush.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

And so i waded at the fork
in the woods and recalled
these oft-repeated words,

i aimed my shoes to the left
for this was the road
that was undoubtedly
less traveled

but i hesitated and my thoughts
turned to "conformity" -
the merry subject
at poem's hand.

for although the thick
brush was denser
on this part of land,
i could at least understand

conforming for uncomformities
sake was in itself ..
a conformism,
and the real
unconformity was uniforming
yourself to you.

i want to make a toast
to the pause in between the wind.

a sweet dance
i partake in of
man and nature,
willingly i observe you
& then
silently retreat into myself.

i will always dance
this delicate waltz
which allows me to
examine the ways
in which i am the
same and different to you

your love was actually
just attention disguised.
& my reciprocation
was just the need
to feel admired.

your compassion
was just
little gifts of generosity
with an agenda,
and my acceptance
was just
a mere hope of
your possible change.

who still needs to hunt
when injured,
so do you.
need to fix repair move
faster than ever
on your own
without your pack.

laser movement
in the dark
blind to whats ahead,
instincts guiding you
more than you know,
passed down
in your bones
from the
generations before.

you cannot
write poetry
because
you cannot
be honest.

your words are
manufactured
from the minds
of others.

i hope to one day
see you shine
the way i know you can.

i hope you wipe the smear
from the
mirror i know you
so desperately
seeks answers from.

the need
to create
& connect
is strong
with
this one.

no need to be scared little girl
no need to fear your change.
the woman who you
need to become
is already inside you.
this is not your
transformation
this is your
reformation.

i haven't come out yet
and i don't know how else to say it
especially to
my mother, the nurse
my father, the electrician
my brother, the politician
my sister, the wise ***
i don't know how to say that
i have an affection for words
i have been hiding the paints under my bed
and staring at the guitars from
outside the window
unable to resist how hard
the urge is to touch

i am a closeted artist yet to come out
and admit that i've had an affair
with a few museums and paint brushes

that i have been memorizing poems
from before i could read
committing some verses to memory
as my mother recited them to me softly before bed

and as i stand here waiting in the closet
im sketching a small butterfly on the wall next to my coat
ill most likely wear to the off broadway show tonight.