We’d talk so long
That we became utterly
Oblivious to the
Concept of time

Conversations about a
Whole lot of nothing
Turned into a great deal
of somethings and so on...

And then
We ran out of things to say

Time was all we had

I write about you still
Not in hopes that one day
You’ll pay attention
And read my chicken scratch
between the invisible lines;

But instead
To commemorate my recollections of you

I never want to feel myself forgetting you
Like I feel you forgetting me

The smell of Spring
reminds me of finding true love
and its unpredictable nature.
In this instance I learned
time is of the essence
Even in your absence I still save you the other half of the tangerine.

When we were together
I listened to a great deal of
Maxwell

Because we were in
our honeymoon phase
Residing in his Urban Hang Suite

Now I’m stuck
Listening to track 7
On a Blacksummers Night

With nothing left but a
Fistful of Tears

Amongst this
Untouched
Skin
and all of
these
Layers
Of emotion
Remain
Undisrupted
Thoughts of
You

He loved me like
He loved he loved
Those action figures
He once played with
When he was a boy

We were both mere objects to him
Allowing him to control our narrative
And dictate our every move

Giving his ragged ego
A stroke or
too many

We taught him
What power felt like

And now he’s unable
To relinquish his hold

Without leaving room
For ifs, ands, buts and ultimatums alike
I’ve designed a space for you.
A space where
The walls are painted gray
Such as the lines we walk  
With a hint of letting go.
A space that allows me
To miss you dearly
And acknowledge that distance
Is where fate led us

I’ve designed a space for us
For you
For me.

It’s called
The Middle Ground

I am intricate
In design
So finely
detailed
with pieces
So precisely
aligned
That even
the most
Minor
of mistakes
During construction
Will result
In utter
Demolition

I swallow my pride
And force you to regurgitate
Yours
Because I refuse to idly stand by
And watch you place toxins
Into your body

Today,
I’m terribly sorry
I’ve neglected you.

Yesterday and the days before her have such a hold on me that I no longer have any desire to break free and pay you a visit.

Tomorrow,
I’m terribly sorry
That when
I prepared myself for your arrival
I did it with much certainty
As if your arrival is promised.

I find myself desensitized
To every “it be like that sometimes” gesture
And passive-aggressive notion
That I’ve now chosen to reject
Instead of internalizing

I want nothing from you,
Because I expect nothing of  you

I just sit still, in my distant bubble

Patiently waiting for the day
That you have the ability  
To disappoint me again

I baptized myself  
In the shower this morning

It sure didn’t help any though

I’m not
Repenting my sins
And I’m
Still too stubborn to ask for forgiveness

It’s like I moisturized myself
With gasoline
And ran into a fire

The anniversary of my birth
Will be celebrated
(or lack thereof)
In 17 days.

I have 17 days
And 17 pages left
To write about

The Things I Lost When I Was 17

I believe in Magic.
The kind of magic that
Enabled my father
To transform into
Whatever whomever needed him to be
For the time being
in an effort to adhere
To the needs of us all

I believe in Magic.
My father was
A shapeshifter after all.

I acquired many fears before you
So I maneuver in cautionary silence
Because of them
hoping one can hear me

Not even you

I’ve waited my entire life for this grudge against you to become undone.
Yet every attempt to reconcile the past doings with the present circumstances is met with another unforgivable happening taking place in a real time.
Positioning me further away from you
Caught between meeting your level of escalation and

Echoing the following sentiments to myself:
“stop taking it personal, it’s who they are"
Over and over and over.

And I’m only left to remember what you’ve done to me.
And how burdened your mere presence makes me feel.

I can only imagine how burdened you feel too.
Far before you were a villain in my recollections
You were a victim in your own right.

It may be true that you are not the worst of what you’ve done
But you sure do bring out the worst in me.

Oh, the grueling beauty of duality and multiple truths existing at once.

I’ve been trying to find ways to express my love for you on a plain white piece of paper, void of margins
Because my love can’t be confined between thin blue lines....

My love is open
It is free
It is unmeasurable.

I’ve been trying to find ways to express my love for but the English language is too premature

Truth be told, every language is really.

The moment
The poet
Falls in love
Is the moment
Your being
Is immortalized
Forever

I’ve been at a loss.
One unspoken,
Invisible,
And even unknown for that matter

It just lingers
Haunting me
in the most
Surreal yet familiar
fashion

And then,
I remember what it
was like
to love
in August.

The first mistake I made
Was allowing you to make me believe
I ever owed you an explanation

The truth is
It was always written in the stars

You chose not to look up and see

Falling in love
Is reminiscent of Maxwells’
Whenever Wherever Whatever
On replay on a sunny spring day

Maybe because I am in Love
Not just in distorted memory
But in vivid reality
And that sunny spring day
Was yesterday
And today

And so on...

Until all the seasons have passed
And days turn to nights

Together
Forever

You remind me
Of someone

In fact
You remind me
Of Him

You even noted
The similar features
You both attain

You remind me
of Him

But my darling
You are nothing
Like Him

You are
An honest man
You are
An unselfish man
You are
A purpose driven man

He is merely
Just
A man

My ability to forgive you
Lied within
The acceptance
And recognition
Of the hurt
that you bestowed
Upon me

And in return
I gave you
What you deserved:

My Understanding.

The truth is,
In all of its essence

Is that

Hurt people,
Hurt people

Rediscovering you in my most chaotic hour is like serendipity
Meets fate
With a hint of Gods will
all coming together to create an undying love and vast uncertainty out of fear of the unknown.

"Will they ever love me at even a shred of the capacity in which I love them?"

Is this even what God intended?

my Love for you runs deeper than any river I’ve cried for the ones before you

This Love is pure in its nature
and that is the most profound aspect of it all

I’m no longer traipsing around in a desolate desert, in Love alone

I am residing in a euphoric forest,
In a requited Love with you

My love for you runs deep.

I’ve always believed myself to be the kind that wears my heart on my sleeve but Truth is I never allowed myself to feel close to anyone unless I was naked.

I was once
Just like you

Complacent
In my own mistreatment
Becoming knowledgeable
Of vile how it was
And then
Projecting
My rightful abundance of anger
Unto the very world
That abused me

I was once
just like you,
Awaiting another calamity
For anything
of the opposite nature to happen
Would mean my universe
Was unbalanced

For I am,
A Black Girl

Disparity and Adversity raised  me

my emotionally disconnected mother and nonexistent father never could

I mourn the tragic loss of my innocence
Just as you do

My upbringing and shortcomings mirror yours

I am just like you

My grandma used to say
That true willpower resided within the person
Who was able to acknowledge when someone had them ****** up
While taking it in stride
Without allowing anyone to have such a hold on you that you lose your religion
Or state of mind
Just be and
Allow God to handle everything that follows.

The being
Of my dreams
Personifies love
In reality

You are a
Gemini Moon
I am an
Insomniac

There was something
About my proneness to
Remain awake at dusk
That attracted me
To you
And the other you too

         My Gemini Moon

I believe in love.
But not the unconditional kind.
I believe in love that understands that love isn’t always enough.
I believe in love that relies on other entities to sustain itself.
I believe in love as it should be:
Fluid.
Transparent.
Reciprocal.

People congratulated me and I felt displaced because I had no business at this affair.
This was no feat. No accolade. Nothing to celebrate.
They congratulated me and every time they did it made you a little more alive. A little more human. A little more of a blessing, and not the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me.
And I hated every minute of it.
Because everyday that I was forced to allow you to grow, I felt myself shrinking as I grew more detached from my own body.
Every attempt to nourish myself turned into a regurgitation session.
Of my meals.
Of my pride.
Of my strength.
And some wanted me to feel guilty because I didn’t desire to gift you with life.
To be your mother.
But my love, it wasn’t you.
It was everything that happened before you that left me on the edge of my bed crying at the thought of being unable to love you in the fashion that you deserved.
So that’s why we can’t be together. At least not now.
But if given the chance again, after my wounds aren’t so fresh And there’s nothing left but healed scars to tell my story... I’d bleed myself dry for you instead of bleeding you out.

I believed I needed
A change
So I enacted
One
I meditated to
Balance my
Chakras
I prayed,
And I don’t even
Believe in God
I sit alone  
With Sam Cooke’s
A Change Is Gonna Come
On repeat
As if that act of insanity
Is gonna bring about anything
Different

I loved you
Long before I was able
To make your acquaintance

Now we are the dearest of friends.
The most dynamic of duos.

And I’m forced to portray a facade
In which I deem my love for you
Simply

Platonic

You may not be able to control the way you feel or react in regards to specific things but you can alter your level of engagement with it.

Focus not on what could’ve been or what was but instead where you are now.

The should’ve, could’ve, would’ve is not at all conducive to your actuality. It’s not going to change the outcome.

Just because your feelings were hurt doesn’t mean you were wronged.

You can be right or you can be effective.

Sometimes you are a villain and perpetrator of harm.

It’s okay to be the bad guy in some people’s recollections.

Engage with your wants and desires in a way that is not detrimental to you.

Believe people until they give you a reason not to.

Don’t engage in discourse with people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

Sometimes a persons behavior has nothing to do with you but everything to do with who they are. Don’t take it personally. Move on accordingly.

In the midst
Of one of
My many
Restlessness nights
In which
I stare
At the sky,

I asked the stars
Why
You were so selfish

The wind whispered
To me

Saying
                  “You cannot
                    Expect for those
                   Who did not
                   Receive
                   To share
                   Anything with  
                   You.”

I shut my window
And got some sleep

He was a simple man
That stood about 5’4 inches high
With light brown skin
And light brown eyes
He was a simple man
Whom I can write about all day but there isn’t enough hours in the day on military time
He was
Always faithful
Semper Fi

In reflection
I’ve concluded
That my pain
Is multi-dimensional
And multi-faceted

Yet,
There is one commonality within it

But it is not you

It is
People
Like you

You were
A shy boy
When I met you.

A not-so- social butterfly

Who, when alone
Pondered upon
life’s philosophies
Questioning the meaning
Of it all.

I loved that
About you.

Because it was in fact
The reserved intellect
Who I believed
You to be.

If I told you I knew how this would end, what would you believe me to be?
A psychic?
A realist?
A pessimist?

What if I told you I’m simply just cursed with the inability to love without conditions?

I got it from my momma.
Who got it from her momma.
And so on...

I remember believing the best way to love was to do it unconditionally...
That to love blindly
Was to love deeply
And to love with boundaries
Was like not loving at all

Love is supposed to be a mere emotion
Not physically seen
But internally felt
And the rest is up to fates discretion

Love without condition.
Love without rules.
Love without boundaries.

Yet when I attempt to replicate that...

the love becomes unsustainable
Intangible
Unattainable

And so called unconditional love morphs into

Love with harbored resentments

From all the flaws I was suppose to learn to love that I could never find myself to
And all of the things I was supposed to ignore that I never did
To accept all the hurt I never truly healed from

Carelessly trying to offer up understanding
When in all actuality I’m not as pragmatic and as patient as this notion insists that I should be

I cannot love you unconditionally

To love you isn’t to just simply tolerate you

It is to confront you
It is to disagree with you
It is be grow frustrated with you
It is to need space

To love you is to comfort you
To love you is to desire you
To love you is to grow with you
It is to occupy the same the space as you
And to feel
Content with you

Not stagnant

But contentment

To love you
I have to do so conditionally
And that’s okay

My mother taught me the importance Of accountability
Meaning, when you do something, own it. Correct it.

Not because she enacted it but because she didn’t.

The most profound lesson that my father left with me is the mere unpredictability of life itself.
Here today,
Gone by tomorrow.
Much to my surprise....

Love is all just a needless want
And merely just a burning desire
Until
The feeling of his gentle touch
Makes your heart skip a beat
Or two
Maybe even three
And the sound of his heartbeat
becomes
Your favorite song
The taste of his lips
Become an undying
Craving
The smell of his cologne transfers
Unto you
Seemingly blessing you
With his signature aroma

And with the slightest gaze at him,
You begin to see love personified
As an action

Love was all just a needless want
Until loving you
Became my sixth sense

They told me that
I was far too loud
to adjust within
the silent confinements
of the indoors

So they relocated me to
the outskirts
in the
middle of oblivion

They told me that
I was merely
far too loud
To belong

So I hushed

And my voice became inaudible

This love
Was a masterpiece
Telling a story so
Significant
That it was placed at the Alter
For all to see
But of course all good things must come to an end

I’ve spotted the vanishing point