Sometimes I'll
come to you in pain
but I won't know
how to tell you
where it hurts.

Sometimes I think of killing myself
How the end would be so nice
How the darkness would swallow me up
And how the numbness would suffice
My need

For all the voices of the feelings
That constantly keep me reeling
To softly slow to a hush
As my brain starts tur-tur-turning into mush

How wonderful it would be
To have that powerful silence
Not even grasshoppers would bother
To wake me

My cells would stop dividing
My brain would stop the lying
Myself would stop denying
What I truly want

But but but
This is just a reckless fantasy
A way to elude one’s own reality

Because as I sit here on the floor
Tears drip drip dropping
I realize there’s those who care for me more
Cherish me more
Love me more
Than I love my own self

The crickets chirp
I put the pills down

This wasn't the first time
But it will be the last time
I create an identifiable pain
To numb the persisting wounds,
That I let my hollow stomach
Swallow all of my sorrows,
That I go to bed hungry
Struggle to wake up again,
Just to Pace around my kitchen
Afraid to open the refrigerator,
I promise this is the last time,
It's always the last time,
Please let this be the last time..

I thought                                         you'd left us, long ago
desolate on a swing
                       rocking stale, dry grass and still air
                      
                      crossing
never quite                  the hurdle

                                                               ­                                                    lost

unaware
sweating youth in this humidity

I thought we'd never make it past the
rusty red and brown of weathered fences

                            like
              felt                        moun
   They                                  
                                                     tains

                                                               ­   Made of dirt
                                                                ­                       (guilt)
and an endless turmoiling scent, still fresh



I thought you'd forlorned us                  
h     e     a     v    y       r  a  i  n   and warm bodies
standing next to oxidized hoops
                                                          one adjacent to the other
The haze of the heat hard, but not impossible
to withstand                swaying like the gust of wind, swaying  
                                            the blazing sun and my open palms swaying




Why was it here                                         that it felt like you left us
                                                              ­                                              stumped,  
unaware,­
consuming  with no  
                                              idea of the Greater



2.


                                                W­ H A T was it about inner cities
And skin that would tan
Or resist the sun
   that made you  mutter murky words  


judgement
                   that made me hike a

                                  K
                       A
            E
P
that for so long made feel like a (lost) traveler
unable to come find my way   D O W N.

Still on a mountain top
Never quite crossing the hurdle.
That’s how you wanted me
A
     B
          A
                N
                     D  O N E D.

3.

But my tongue made sounds
copper pots and plastic measuring cups
became the pious  accompaniment
of a song sung inwardly
until it manifested
Words on lips
                            Lips willing to kiss the purple clouds made out of strange fruit and a high border walls over my hand and back

4. A Swimsuit and a pool that could cool
me
small children see the cicatrixes
      But I walk towards the water; I have long abandoned shame.