Passion behind words is something I worry I feel alone.
I’ve tried sharing my passion of vocabulary,
my passion of poetry with others,
tried showing them the entire novels only
a few lines can write,
and I worry that I seem insane.
I worry that they don’t understand me,
that I’m misinterpreted.
No, I am not saying I feel smarter than you,
I am saying I find beauty in these words,
these stories.
My father calls it beatnik.
He believes spoken word poetry exists nowhere but a paper,
that it is not meant to be spoken,
that it is a lesser version of rap--
which he also hates.
I pattern my syllables or rhyming to create what I see as art,
only to have others raise an eyebrow and wonder
what my “damage” is.
Distinguishing my deterioration is not the objective at hand.
"Words" can be so easily misspelled to say "swords,"
and swords can impale.
I suppose words can, too.

I was born a sickly, screeching baby, two months earlier than expected. The doctor and midwife did everything they could to keep my little limbs moving and to keep my tiny heart beating, fluttering like the wings of butterfly.
“Is it a boy?” my mother whispered through her pale lips, as they bathed my naked body in hot water.
“No, ma’am, it’s a girl” The midwife struggled to add on something that would make the wailing creature seem more desirable. “With exquisitely shaped feet, so perfectly miniature”
She let out a croak of conflicting emotions: the joy and pride of a newly-founded motherly love, the fear of presenting a girl as a first-born, the relief that the hours of agony in childbirth were over and the dread of facing her husband once he found out about me.

My mother was not healthy after my birth for a long time; and when I was only one and two months old she fell dangerously ill, and the house whispered footsteps running to her room late at night and muffled voices of different doctors. Mercifully, she survived but was left barren and forever unfertile.
I can not imagine my father’s fury. He believed in having sons to carry on his old last name of thirty-one generations; it was his religion and had I been a son, I would have been worshipped as a god. I can imagine how my mother prayed and thanked her ancestors that her dowry was of a large one.

He could barely tolerate being in the same room as me during my toddler years. Every time he entered a room I was playing in, nurse would sweep me to our garden out side; answering to my startled queries, “Be an obedient daughter, don’t bother your father and don’t ask questions”
My body had been born frail, but my natural spirit was as healthy as could be, full of inquiries, wonders of the world around me and everyday I would learn something new just wandering around the neighborhood observing things, with my nurse trailing with a worried eye behind me muttering, “Girls are not supposed to be exposed to this” she spoke the words as if they were sour, “you should be sitting at home and accompanying your mother.”

Every day at dinner, the two females of the house, me and my mother, were silent while my father ranted on and on. My appetite being very delicate, I often just sat there as still as I possibly could and listened to my father talking about politics, jobs, money. Things he called ‘men business’. I longed to ask questions about these ‘men business’, especially ‘university’ for I had an inquisitive sort-of nature but was refrained with a sharp, piercing look from my mother every time I opened my mouth and sometimes, she pinched me under the table leaving purple splotches which flashed, “Don’t question your father”
Sometimes, he would talk about the future he had decided for me, “You will marry off, sixteen at the latest, to some one rich and beneficial to our family. You will do as I say till I marry you off, and then you will do as your husband tells you.”
“Yes father, for I should repay everything you have done for me” I replied as sweetly as I could.
“Yes, you’re a good daughter. Bear lots of sons for him and your house will be one of happiness.”
I was proud that he had given me a compliment. “Yes father, for it will make you joyful as I always wish to make you so”
My childish heart did not understand why my mother turned her head down while her left eyebrow twitched, and why that night, as she tucked me into bed, I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek and why as she kissed me that night she whispered, “Do not love me so; love your father. The men in your life are your gods.”

My physical health would constantly limit the desires of my free spirit. I could not to do what others who were as free of spirit as I was could do, and couldn’t socialize with them and the rest of the children in my neighborhood had their siblings to mingle with, causing me to become the pitiful outcast.
I saw children around my age, around seven or eight, climbing trees and wanted to do so as well, but my white feet did not have grip enough to grasp onto the fat branches.
Father caught me once trying to propel myself up a tree and his expression was both of a resigned anger and sadness before he turned him and his face away and back into the house without a word.
That night, mother told me not to climb trees ever again. I noticed a faint bruise on her cheek bone that had been covered with white powder.

When I was eleven or twelve, and was allowed to wander further out into the neighborhood with my nurse I saw the boys fishing in the nearby pond and wanted to do so as well. Starting that day, every week I pocketed the three coins mother gave me until I could buy the best fishing rod in the little store and ran as fast as my skinny, weak legs could carry me to the pond. I mimicked the way the boys flung the fishing rod out over the water but the metal pole was too heavy for my pale, shaking arms. I tried over and over again as my nurse watched, biting her lip in anxiety. I held the fishing rod with trembling sore arms till  I felt a bite; I pumped my small arms to reel it in, but they were so tired and I was far too slow, losing the fish I had spent half the day trying to catch. “Ah, just bad luck, don’t worry! It was a smart fish, I tell you!” nurse exclaimed, though her eyes flashed a look of pity and I knew she knew it wasn’t just bad luck or a smart fish.
In anger, I sold the fishing rod to one of the boys for two-thirds of the price I had bought it for. He was delighted with the bargain and I watched with a lump in my throat as he caught three fish with the tug of his healthy, muscular arm within fifteen minutes. “This is a beautiful rod, and the pond is just filled with fish today, Little Sister!”
Wanting to spend the money jingling inside my pocket, money that to me was just a reminder of a painful memory, I headed off to the collection of little shops close to my house where I was guaranteed distraction. Nurse, sweating and complaining of the heat, followed me.
An ageing man with a bunch of filthy hair working away on a piece of thick, rough paper with wondrous colors inside a shop caught my eye as I peered inside the window. He turned the picture upside down and continued blending in the dark colors of the shape to create a shadow along the curve of it. I entered the shop. “What is that?” I asked of him.
“A face” he replied back absentmindedly.
“Doesn’t look like one to me” I confessed with my honesty.
He looked up at me, “No, it does not to you, and maybe, neither will it at the end. To me, it looks like an angle of a faded face. But slowly, with time, it will become clearer and clearer, yet only to me, and as it does, I will be able to choose more colors to make it yet more beautiful. The outcome of this painting is entirely up to me.”
I felt my challenging self rising up. “But what if you imagined a certain color in your head but couldn’t find it or be able to mix it to your mind’s perfection?”
“Then I would create my own paint color.”
“You know how?”
“No, but if I could not find the paint color already made I would make it myself, and no matter what, would learn how to. So far I have always been able to compromise and mix different colors to please me.”
“You do an awful lot of shadowing light colors with dark colors”
“Why do you think I do so?” he questioned me this time, with bright eyes.
I pondered for a moment to give as good an answer as he had given me and then told him my answer.
He nodded with impress, “Yes, yes, absolutely right. I never thought I’d hear that from a child” and looked at me with his head cocked in curiosity.
“What would you like to buy from here, Little Sister?”
Still deeply interested in our conversation I pulled out the coins I had in my pocket. “How much stuff can I buy with all this money? I’d like those crayons, I’ve tried them once before and they are so creamy and smooth.”
“Oil pastels?” he asked, a little confusedly.
Feeling ashamed of my ignorance, I nodded. The tutor father hired evidently bent to father’s strict rules of what should be taught and what would not be taught. Father disapproved of women painting, and would’ve dismissed nurse had he known that instead of taking me out for a little walk to smell the blooming daffodils, she in fact let me explore the environment around me to the best of my ability even in disgruntle.
The man gave my red-patched cheeks and undeveloped translucent frame a sympathetic look and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Little Sister, I’ve a whole basket of oil paints that I’ve used but rarely and so are still in perfect condition. Would you like to carry the whole basket home for all the money you have in your pockets?”
I handed him all my golden coins, “But first I must see if I like it.”
“You won’t be disappointed” he chuckled and walked with an imbalanced limp to the back of the store. I noticed a wooden stump protruding from the bottom of his long, black pants. My heart throbbed achingly; he was ****** limited too. I turned to his painting and smiled from deep inside, a smile I rarely wore.
He came back tugging a huge brown basket filled to the brim with sticks of oil pastels, some longer or thicker than others. He lifted an orange one up and showed the tip of it to me, which was stained with a black mark. “Sometimes when you blend colors this will happen, but it’s easy to rid off. Just softly, and patiently rub it off on a cloth until it disappears.” He demonstrated upon his black pants.
“Thank you. It’s kind of you. But...I can’t carry this home myself. It’s heavy.”
I turned to nurse and smiled my best pleading smile.

The basket was toiled up as nurse undressed me from my shower and father and mother were otherwise occupied. That night, with my precious basket safely under my bed, I cleaned all the multi-colored oil pastels on an old shirt, and as soon as the house was ringing with silence, I locked my door and flicked on the lamp light, and started pressing the smooth colors into the paper to blend and make a picture of kissing colors on a relatively large piece of white paper. A thrill ran from my finger tips and along my arm, and made my palms tingle as I held the colorful sticks in my hand to the paper. I hid it underneath my bed just as a rosy sun was rising.
*
I was sixteen, and I was thought beautiful: for now, at this age, it was considered beautiful to be so pale of skin, so small of feet and hands, graceful to have tiny limbs and charming to have little strength for it was now considered ‘feminine’.
It was three weeks after I had turned sixteen and for dinner, father had brought over an ugly man with a bulging waist and shiny bald head who continually made ****** jokes at the dinner table while he believed I did not understand them. He was infamous for the two wives he had had (before they died from sickness), and how he not only hit them but kept other lovers too. Yet he was desirable for his vast richness. He leered at me obnoxiously, in an attempt to smile.
Father caught him looking at me, “She’s incredibly silent, never says a word of defiance and will be a most dutiful wife.”
“Yes, she is beautiful”
My heart froze and my brain was stimulated to work twice as fast. Him?! Him?! The man who’s wives were killed through an illness called ‘abuse, neglect and disloyalty?!’
I cast my eyelashes down in order to appear a calm, modest young lady while my heart hammered in fury, disgust and a rising hysterical panic. I shot a look at my mother whose left eyebrow was twitching as she stared down at her dinner plate, and I knew she was having the same thoughts as I.
“I would be glad to have you as my son-in-law. You would have no trouble with her, and would be embraced with open arms into our family.”
They continued this path of talk through dinner while he eyeballed me in a way that made me cringe. I felt his foot nudge mine under the table and in haste tucked it under the chair with a little gasp. His eyes glittered at my gasp and I was furious with myself for letting him feel a rotten triumph. Though I had always felt an extremely strong dislike towards him from what I knew of him and sometimes saw of him with an immoral lady, something pushed in the pit of my tummy, and I knew it was pure hatred.
When mother tucked me in she was being strange. On closing my door she whispered, “I love you… so I wish you to know… don’t ever contradict men”

As I was secretly drawing a picture as I did every night till dawn, I heard my father’s voice roar in the dead of the night. In a sudden, I shoved my portrait under the bed and threw all my oil pastels into the basket, hid it, and switched the light off. I heard his voice roar again, accompanied by a thud. I was wild with fear as I crept to my door and pressed my ear against it, barely even shocked at my own daringness as my instinct, love, took over- my instinct of must knowing what was happening to my mother.
“How dare you say I’m wrong!?” there was another thud, and this time I heard a soft whimper. “She is worthless to me, not a son. And I will marry her off to a rich man who can actually benefit this family.” He roared.
There was a whisper which I strained to hear, “He will **** her”
“From the moment she was born she wasn’t made to live!” he yelled.
A hiss escaped my tongue and I coiled like a serpent, flinching as a thud was heard yet again and an immediate cry of pain escaped from both my lips and my mothers’.
A fire awoke inside me, burning my temples and my whole body and my eyes stung with hot tears; tears that burned my face as they splashed down. My whole body was shaking and my tightly squeezed eyes were going through spasms. I was no longer wild with fear, but with anger.
I turned my light back on and tugged my basket of oil pastels out. I yanked my portrait off from a thick of pile of different pictures I had drawn.
My breath was coming in quick short breaths as I finished my portrait to the utmost perfection, using every oil pastel in the basket. Every time I heard a thud, I colored with more fiery… shadowing my jaw line with the fat black oil pastel, in the crook of my ear, the corner of my mouth… where the light shone upon my fore head, how it reflected in the color of my eye and glowed on my cheeks.
When I was finished, the house was deadly quiet again and dawn was breaking. I looked down upon it and realized something that changed my life.
In frenzy I swatted out all the things I had ever drawn and stared at them in an awakening.
The colors on them were the events of my life, the things that characterized it, the decisions. They were beautiful for they had been chosen and controlled by me … I had chosen the colors I wanted and thought best for my pictures; and spent thought over how to blend different colors to the color I wanted.
And everyday, as I worked into the drawings with time, they became clearer and clearer on what was the right thing to do, and how it should possibly look like in the next stage.
I leaned over and kissed the thin lips of my portrait that didn’t look exactly like me for not even the most skilled artists have complete control over what they draw.

Then I remembered what I had told the one-legged man in the shop a few years go:
“Lights not only illuminate, they also cast shadows. The contrast makes you able to appreciate the power of both.”
Now it was time to truly let the light illuminate my life, and let the shadows let me appreciate the light that shines upon me; I color my own life, and choose my own colors.

To pull out the colors underneath the darkness of my bed…
And spill it to the world outside.

People find it weird when I say that
twenty years from now
I see myself single.

It's funny,
how they incredulously raise an eyebrow
as they try to explain me
"honey, don't say that, you'll find someone someday"
as if falling in love was some kind of unwritten rule.

It may be a little rush to think
I'll spend my whole life with only myself as company
but it's actually curious to see how everybody is so into telling me
that by no means I'm going to be a sad fourty-year-old cat-lady.

Because if no one loves you when you're fourty
you surely are a sad cat-lady,
right?

Because failure means
turning thirty-five and having no marriage in sight,
turning twenty-five without at least one ex-boyfriend,
turning eighteen and have never been kissed,
right?

Because everyday I hear more and more teenage girls
worrying about turning sixteen without a kiss to remember
and that gives them so much shame they don't even mention it
as they go past other girls with a single thought running inside their minds:
"is this normal?"

This is very normal, dear.
You're not doing things wrong, on the contrary, you still have a lot of time.
But you are scared you might not be desirable.
You are scared you might turn thirty-five and still have not been desired, not even once.

But the people who love you don't define your value,
in fact nothing and nobody does
the only value that matters is the one you give to yourself
and once you value who you are,
you will be truly able to love others
and to love them deeply: a kind of love that is worth to receive.

Unfortunately, it's common to get confused
and think you will never be happy unless someone wants you.

Don't believe that,
or you might become thirty-five
married and with the feeling you're not complete and something's missing
as you go past other mothers with a single thought running inside your mind:
"is this normal?"

And that shouldn't be so normal.

I know you want to,
I know you need to,
Catch and pull again,
Catch and pull again,
I'm telling you-
Everything's gonna be alright.
Just draw another line
Above the eye,
Again,
Catch and pull again,
Scratch and pull again,
Brown pencil smeared-...
A threat,
To the norms of beauty.

Whyever did you do it?

A fear they're gonna see you as you are,
Is part of the morning routine.
Does the pillow have
What the face should hold in?
And do eyelashes grow
From one magic roll of woven hair,
And does it ever end,
And will I know it?

I am afraid...

Is this the part when,
I go to the mirror and say,
The most genuine "sorry"?

I might as well just save it,
What a glory!
Hot mess with dark circles,
With patches,
Best,
Just save your breath,
I know you're phony.

I am myself's
Worst **** girlfriend,
Cheating and then saying I'm sorry...
Just to fall again.
I have lost faith.
In what I say.
Oh, what a story...

I have to buy more eyeliner,
And brown eyebrow pencil.

Mental note:

One day you'll be above it.

As I looked into her glazed blue eyes
I suddenly became very tired.
Every inch of my body
felt weighted;
heavy.
I had been doing this for
13 years,
hoping, waiting, trying, believing.
Most of the time, I succeeded.
I saved them.
But when I didn't,
when I
failed,
I can't take it.
When I go out with my husband for dinner with friends,
or at parties,
I get asked what I do.
A furrowed eyebrow, a gentle easing voice follows,
"Isn't that hard?"
It's all part of the job, I say.
Taking care of these babies,
making sure they are healthy.
You get used to it, I say.

I wish that were true.
I wish I could say it were that simple.
When my work is dragged, forced in
unannounced like a estranged aunt
in
in
into my personal life,
my husband grabs my hand,
gives me a knowing look.
He thinks he knows how I suffer,
how it pains,
how it rips at my soul --
he has no clue.

Most days, my job is not overwhelming.
Is even rewarding.
Saving lives,
keeping parents' new-born, struggling miracles safe,
trying to make them perfect
like parents always imagined they would be.
On days like this,
when I am forced to look into my responsibility's
eyes
and realize I couldn't save and perfect them,
realize that blank stare will be with
me forever,
I hate my job.

Light brownish **** lip stain to match the season,
Gold eye liner to make my brown eye color lighter,
Concealer and foundation to even out the skin tone,
bronze pink blush to add a bit of color and define my cheek bones,
Medium brown eyebrow pencil to perfect my eyebrows,
A stripped black and tan shirt with a brown scarf, blue jeans and black boots;
Hair is in a delicate curly updo so that my face gets more attention,
Burberry perfume to bring a soft delicate trail of her aroma,
my make up looks natural yet it adds color and defines the beautiful features of my face.
I do this not to cover my flaws,
not because I am insecure,
not for attention,
Simply because I want to pamper myself.
simply because I deserve to look pretty.
simply because I want to be as beautiful on the outside that I am on the inside.

He gave me the look of "really, "really,
Scuffing his paws as if covering filth.

"What's a matter snoopy?

Then looking at me, raised an eyebrow
"Didn't know they could do that?
I went to rest my head and in a puddle it
Did land soaked fermenting upon my head.

"He was their licking his fangs,

I threw a slipper bouncing off the wall
Ricocheting and face planting me instead.
I changed my pillow cleaned my hair, and
Slumbering I  once again rested my head.

"Scratch, scratch, scratch,

Morning awoke as I heard noises grating
Downstairs? I got a bat and in my white fronts
Edged down to find My EP player on.
"Hello anyone there, I know karate? "what,

A new word for scratching was born, whisks of
Clawed plastic on the floor. My best record now
Worthless recycle. And there he stood on the fire
Place his claws tapping in rhythm is what I saw.

From that day on I never gave him the cheap food
A lesson learnt, I thought I was the boss and he
Was just a pet. But a lesson learnt never *** off
Your feline friend there smarter than that.

Snow, snow, snow,
Gratitude and a blow.
The big white screen,
Snow I,m keen.

Snow, snow, snow,
you eye, your eyebrow,
From the sky,
Snow you can,t buy.


Snow, snow, snow,
I don,t know.
Clean like a carpet,
Snow for your cat.


Snow, snow, snow,
A perfect show.
Smiling to the sun,
Snow a great fun.

Watching The Signs Of Aging

Watching the signs of aging;
Ultimately,
Finally
An end.
Notice, I don’t say THE end.

Not a film, a flimsy bit of flimflam,
A clouded artificiality, life imitated, intimated.
As stated:
A downgrading: witless and insensate,
Thinning at the temples,
Eyebrow hairs a crazy zigzag;
Tummy more rotund and round;
Fingers, which, however trained
No longer want to grasp or grip.
Compression of the whole foundation
Underscore the downward trip.

Aging signals watched with care –
Obviously there!  Involuntary!
Glasses that you never needed;
Tender spots you never heeded.
Fragile scenes that make you weep.
Couplets which you once thought cheap
Resorted to, which you now keep.

Compensations: pensions, patience;
Many words that end in –pence
Because, and just because
All signs become a Santa Claus:
Signs of good –
That is, when you are in the mood.
Stiff fingers finding newer ways to play piano, open jars,
The mental auto-search a galaxy of syndrome-stars
Bursting unused.

No longer worrying ‘bout standards,
You’ve your own.  
No need to join
The middling crowd,
The mediocre: in reality, the herd.
Small ambitions,
Minimized conditions
All good and fine, but still
Signs of aging ultimately will
Win out.

Watching The Signs Of Aging 12.5.2016
Circling Round Aging; Birth, Death & In Between II; Bath Book II;
Arlene Corwin

I don't want to talk about school or how your last test went or any small talk for that matter

I want you to tell me about that new book you've gotten lost in or the way your father's voice shakes as he erupts in anger and blame for the third time that day

Tell me about the scar that's just above your left eyebrow and why a candle is your favorite metaphor

Show me the hidden parts of yourself and for you I might do the same

He:~ I look in your eyes and read the words. you never said, You always have a thousand ways to find me when I am lost in your eyes.
She:~ you know what I feel, I’m lost! I’m drowned somewhere,and I guess it’s your innocent but cunning smile.
He:~I can hear you when you’re not speaking,I can feel you after you’ve gone,again Meet me, there up on the roof at midnight, there are so many stars to count,
If you won’t then Somewhere between, the moonlight and the sunrise, I will meet you again, and we will dance.
She:~I’ll reach to you I’ll find you,just stand with the open arms,let the breeze bring the message from your heart.
He:~I believe in you not just because you don’t believe in me but because you make me believe
And without you, I don’t think closing my arms is good for my hands.
She:~ Do you know, How much pain I bear,these distance these words..Do you know my left eyebrow get raised,when you told me full of these types of puzzling words. Ha ha!
He:~Your smile is the sweetest fairytale. Keep laughng.
She:~Each I see you observing something even my smile,I rejoice to see your smiling face..
He:~If you could see, through my eyes, you would believe, how beautiful, you are to me.
And when You were pointing at the sky but I was looking at your hand..
She:~
I know everything and because you were watching to me my hands were able to point so beautifully that all the stars choose to surrender among us.
He:~ If you listen very carefully.you will hear the melodious sound of falling in love from a distance..
She:~I’ll not let your love to fall I’ll hold it and then your love will love to rise together .
He:~Loving you is a battle I won’t surrender A constant battle between loving you from a distance and loving you in disguise.
She~ your Love can nurture me like this was even unknown to the masters,your love is twisting there pen to write a new story.
He:~Let’s play a game called ignoring-each-other-­­­and-pretending-not­-­t­o-care Our demons will give a golden trophy to the champion.
She:~I can play all the games and I know to win but my love knows no battle but just to love.
He:~ In a parallel universe, you’re quite busy missing and loving me from a distance, Now time to finish it. One word for me and three words for you.
And my next magic trick I will look into your eyes, and all of a sudden, you will amazingly be paralyzed and be mine….

Thursday crushes my gold
My gold flattens out, at first paper thin
First paper thin, then immediately invisible
Immediately invisible, but after, she has growth
She has growth that itself grows, in an exponential way
In an exponential way into infinite-small
Into the throughout and ethereal pig sty, combinahybrae
The pig sty tells me to charge green with second-degree maturation

Therefore my left eyebrow is heavenly and my right, flash-shoots by earthen core  into opposite space.
My eyelids reveal paper and these eyelids, still tight and rubbery, stretch over what some might call my infernal youth.

Technology fraught with rot

Let technology terrorize the terrible illogical ideologically daft and shallow whose facts are fallible and beyond logical rabble. And it does, to me, induce reality rattle.

True rhymes are for ******* who want stitches or who'd rather itch neath' ******, in pain, teeth which retain and spew the words of inane... times two.

i- insecurity is an odd coat to wear.

it- we all wear some type of it...

i- i raise an eyebrow to that statement and take pause at its implications.
if only to acknowledge that the time and place for that is alone in the closet at 430 am.

one time it was two am and i was outside a bar
when the air was just crisping from its summer bake
and naked trees matched shivering girls in micro-dresses
you asked if i lived in the city
i was a pumpkin-beer-drunken, kohl-smeared mess
so i grinned sloppily and fumbling, lit a cigarette
while i replied "for now"
how ******* mysterious am i?
i am patronizing this well-meaning boy in a polo shirt
but thank god for liquor cause luckily
he laughed and snorted smoke out his nostrils
"heading somewhere?"
i took another drag and exhaled
maybe for emphasis?
am i that ******* contrived?
"i'm thinking australia?"
there that felt sincere
did it look sincere?
and he asks why of course he asks why and now
i can laugh and say
"it's very far away"
because jesus christ i need to pretend i have depth i guess
i'm a mirage begging for substance
he taps his cigarette and grins at the ground
"running away from problems?" he asks, suddenly mischievous
i try to match his smile but i have to think fast because
i don't have the kind of problems that make you run away
my family is loving, big, rooted
my friends are devoted, they better me
i could stay in comfort if i had the patience but
my feet just want new pavement
and my eyes are snow-blind by now
so i demure, i think.
if that eyebrow quirk and downcast gaze
is what demurring is
captain morgan chucks my chin and i am
all smiles again
i stick the cigarette in my lips and spread my
arms wide
"i prefer to think of it as running towards different problems."
i smile the way i know shows off my dimples
because i can't help but be a facade
i guess he's charmed because he texted me a few times
for the next few weeks
until my silence
exhausted his interest
he failed the test marx talks about
no not that one
groucho
i don't want anyone who would want me
since i'd rather be a story
sooner a paper-thin memory
than an illusion revealed.

I am a peripheral *****.
I brandish my notebook
Like a chef brandishes his dish-rag.
Where do wizards keep their wands?

I build worlds out of words
Universes out of silence;
Universes that can be destroyed
With a single eyebrow.

I am a calculator.
I am a thermometer.
I am a clashing painting on the wall.
I am a question.

I am as much as my pencil.
I am as much as my frame.
I am as much as my stains.
(I am as much as the buttons unbuttoned on my shirt collar.)

I've been thinking a lot about
cherry coated kisses, and
the sunlight in the evening.
I've been dreaming about
the scar on your eyebrow,
how I'd always brush my fingertips across it.
I won't step into parks without nostalgia's
fleeting ghost, and
I can't taste a lovers lips
without your impulse running in.
I guess I could forget even the smallest
parts of you, but
my body knows your ghost and
just can't seem to let it go,
or how I pulled you in so feverishly
and slammed my lips to swap the spit
with yours and,
you smiled like a little boy.

Here at Kinkos
We have a saying, “copies of copies”
You are trained to always ask for a source file
The digital file of the picture the camera took
The negatives of digital cameras
You see because when you print a picture from that file it’s the best it will ever be
Every detail captured in that moment stored in bits and bytes ready
If you make a copy of that picture it will never be as good
And if you make a copy of that copy it’ll be even worse
And if you were to make a copy of the hundredth copy of the ninety ninth copy you might not even recognize the image
Whether it’s a speck of dust on the scanner
Or a crease in the print out
Sun stains from prolonged exposure to the elements
Or simply from time
Copies never look as good as the original
Even if you try and protect them
And even if you were to magically protect that photo from any external forces
The next copy still won’t be the same quality
A scanner can never pick up every detail from the print on the glass
Copies of copies are never the same
Sometimes the printer is calibrated different
Sometimes it’s a heavy magenta day
Sometimes it’s a saturated cyan day
Maybe you touched her face when you handed it over
And now every copy has a feint of your thumb print above her eyebrow
You had him taped to your rearview mirror for a whole year
And now every copy you make has a glare where the tape used to be
It blocks out his heart shaped hands he was making you from the bus window
Folded in your wallet and now all the copies have white spaces where her face was
I mean where the creases were
I’ve heard that when you remember something you are simply remembering the last time you remembered it
Memories of memories
So that after you’ve remembered her a thousand times you’ve forgotten all the details you forgot to remember the time before
So that the more you remember something, the faster you’ll forget
Maybe that’s why we forget exes faster than family
Maybe that’s why we forget the great parts of high school before the painful ones
I remember that you had red hair, that your eyes were kind, that your hands fit my cheek
I remember that you were bad at pool and that it felt like love, and if it wasn’t you’re the only one that knew it
And now I’m wondering after all these years what I’m forgetting to remember
What I forgot to remember last time
What did I forget this time
What won’t I remember next time
Memories of memories
Like copies of copies
Fading over time
If I never wanted to forget the best moments of my life
Should I never remember them
Is the fastest way to forget the bad ones
To remember them often

The irony of having funerals
in churches with immense chapels
is that they can hold a congregation,
and the viewing line looks half a
mile or longer, perhaps to eternity.
The closer my family gets to the
polished box, surrounded with
flora and photos and an American
flag, the harder my stomach knots.
I can’t quite remember the last
time I saw your face—not including
the card I’m crushing in my hand,
and that terribly beautiful video—
and you’ll know, they’ll all know,
that I’ve forgotten its features,
the gentle curve of your jaw,
the purple puff under your eyes,
the tiny scar above your left eyebrow,
even the dusty freckles on your cheeks.
My fraudulent tears could be spotted
from space and everyone will know.

But I have this memory, it’s been
haunting me—no, you’ve been
haunting me, following me.
I was just a kid, maybe seven, so
you would have been fourteen,
and I was playing in those Fisher Price
skates that strap over your sneakers,
and we were in the church
parking lot, trying to skate faster;
I was always wanting to move
faster, faster, faster back then.
You had a new bike, and a soft
spot for the younger children,
so we found a long tree branch,
and you towed me around like
some sort of first-grade caboose,
until I lost my grip and flew
careening onto the pavement,
scraping my knee open—
a gaping mess of blood and flesh.
As we snuck in the back door of
the church, and dug through
the outdated first aid kit,
you begged me not
to tell our mothers what had
happened, and I was just trying
not to bleed on my favorite shoes,
so when, after cleaning me up, you
gave me his favorite model, a Captain
America action figure, I couldn’t
help but smile through my snotty
tears. “Don’t worry,” you said,
“You probably won’t have a scar,
and now you have an awesome toy!”

I’m turning this scene over and over
as we come up to the casket—
you had friends your own age, but
you always seemed to make time
for me and my siblings, the runts—
until, for the last time, I see your face.
It is serene and sallow, too quiet, too still;
your eyes have been closed, chin tucked
against your uniform, and I notice
the insignia on your cold shoulder—
Sergeant First Class, US Army—
and for some reason, that brings
forth a flood of tears so vicious
and relentless, I can’t control myself,
so I just stand in front of your corpse,
heaving, wracked with violent sobs.

After a few minutes
of this humiliating display,
somebody tries to push me along,
so I put on my best crazy lady face
and hiss like a cornered cat,
planted firmly, a weeping statue.
The hand is removed,
and I cry until I am
dry heaving, the chapel spinning.
I place a hand on the coffin,
hoping you don’t mind that I’m
causing such a scene,
reach into my pocket and search
until I find the figurine, placing
the old Captain America toy in
the crook of your elbow.

I am the embodiment of all
things good and trustworthy,
I have a devilishly seductive
smile.

Come on you know you can
trust me, look in to my eyes,
there hypnotizing wouldn't
you say.

''yes I understand''  

You know what to do, just sign
on the dotted line, repayment in
ten years then you owe what is mine.

'' I'll sign so it can be mine''

Sign in red on the dotted line,
as he smiles with a raised eyebrow
the deal nearly sealed, you can
trust me, as the black feather tip
scratches across the line.

I am the embodiment of all things
good and trustworthy, he says
and the deal is done, devilishly
he smiles, see you in ten years,
trust me ill back now the deal is done....

I.
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-***** sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in the house of Lord's
your hollow voice changing down a hospital corridor
     yea, though I walk through the valley
     of the shadow of death
     I will fear no evil.

II.
I rummage through the deaths you lived
swaying on a bridge of question.
At seven     in Barbados
dropped into your unknown father's life
your courage vault from his tailor's table
back to the sea.
Did the Grenada treeferns sing
your 15th summer as you jumped ship
to seek your mother
finding her     too late
surrounded with new sons?

Who did you bury to become the enforcer of the law
the handsome legend
before whose raised arm even trees wept
a man of deep and wordless passion
who wanted sons and got five girls?
You left the first two scratching in a treefern's shade
the youngest is a renegade poet
searching for your answer in my blood.

My mother's Grenville tales
spin through early summer evenings.
But you refused to speak of home
of stepping proud Black and penniless
into this land where only white men
ruled by money. How you labored
in the docks of the Hotel Astor
your bright wife a chambermaid upstairs
welded love and survival to ambition
as the land of promise withered
crashed the hotel closed
and you peddle dawn-bought apples
from a push-cart on Broadway.

Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?

When my mother's first-born cries for milk
in the brutal city winter
do the faces of your other daughters dim
like the image of the treeferned yard
where a dark girl first cooked for you
and her ash heap still smells of curry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one?
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load     whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense conversations
were you practicing how to tell me
of my twin sisters     abandoned
as you had been abandoned
by another Black woman seeking
her fortune     Grenada     Barbados
Panama     Grenada.
New York City.

IV.
You bought old books at auctions
for my unlanguaged world
gave me your idols Marcus Garvey Citizen Kane
and morsels from your dinner plate
when I was seven.
I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw
the free high school for gifted girls
no one else thought I should attend
and the darkness that we share.
Our deepest bonds remain
the mirror and the gun.

V.
An elderly Black judge
known for his way with women
visits this island where I live
shakes my hand, smiling.
"I knew your father," he says
"quite a man!" Smiles again.
I flinch at his raised eyebrow.
A long-gone woman's voice
lashes out at me in parting
"You will never be satisfied
until you have the whole world
in your bed!"

Now I am older than you were when you died
overwork and silence exploding your brain.
You are gradually receding from my face.
Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm?
Knowing so little
how did I become so much
like you?

Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.

Eros:
the days leap as they should,
over serrated blades of grass: brightly,
transcendentally.
i open the voluminous page
of the twilight: it is October bruised
with brindled water.
white is the color of your laughter,
nourishing the noise of heart, crumpled
over the virginal sheet.
in the staring mirror dizzy with life,
shining with a sudden image
in sempiternal fume: both of us,
twining, entering each other
even before the world was complete,
heavy with your hair, lithe with
your embrace, eyes gorged with
  naked visions,
hands flayed, full of hours—
i make your ample sea my scarce wave's
anchorage, erasing the twinge
by habit of shores.
i weep: you are filling the world with your own light now drowning the shadows
in the depths of their caves, choking
the silence, wringing out the leafage
of your body's inflorescence.
in vivid decree of your smile, you have
made me the cargo of minutes
rummaging across the dunes of lust:
the tousled sheets,
nearing, coming to me, swarming
soft body: we fell into the hollow of sleep.

Thanatos:
here at the lip of the bed
receiving our smallness, the days—
felled into the night, stilled,
in this finite hour a darker blue
is given; i speak not of love.
how are we alive here?
raining inward, above the brim
of an open window, do you wind-hover?
your voice has escaped the dungeon
of my mouth, and the twining of
our fingers give birth to a forest of specters and a moonless love demanded.
i beat through your harsh curve;
i go tracing your eyebrow
engulfed in the festering fever
of half-light marches and the faint spark
of autumn leaving no tawny scent—
there is only silence peregrinating
in the room before you and after I,
it began to pour in our room,
both of us struck down to mortals
together with a feint recall i cannot parry:
we fell into a bottomless hollow of eyes,
chasing our chained breaths, wordless.

She pulled her chair close to the bedroom window
This time she did not see the beautiful red roses in the lawn
Neither the shiny dew from the eastern golden sun
Her day was gloomy, mistier than Limuru’s fog
The birds’ twits were as noisy and messy as her Twitter
She had virtually nowhere to turn to
Her face could not tolerate the embarrassment on Facebook
Her instinct made her avoid Instagram like the plague
She was on the spotlight, yet her heart was dark
The lacuna of her being
And the confusion of her personality was eminent
For a week she cried and ate nothing
Drinking water to keep her eyes wet and allow herself to cry more
The world was bitter; the embarrassment was unbearable
She went through her contact
Out of the two hundred contacts, she saw no one worthy of talking to
Her WhatsApp status received an average of one-twenty views
This used to fascinate her, but this moment it did not
The statuses were full of memes, inspirations, and bitter statements
Most were also seeking online justification
With tears dry, she went back to her bed and took a bible
She stared at it for a while before closing it
She also tried to sing along the midi of her hymnal app
However, life oomph, enthusiasm, passion had vanished
The mustard hope was almost decaying,
Crying and sleeping were the only active verbs
While at the verge of collapse, her status read
Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus; Tomorrow will never be mine!
As usual, I scan through my WhatsApp statuses
But this got my attention because I love hymns
Unbelievably, I sang and replied to her status
One day at a time! Which she only responded with smiley emoji
I cared less and proceeded to twitter- my favorite app
Days went by; the active virtual user turned dormant
Nobody bothered to ask why,
Her wet eyes were now dry, crimson red
Her smooth skin was now pale,
Her beautiful dimples had almost disappeared
She could not believe that the man she loved,
Could play with her emotion in-front of the camera.
That fateful day she had put on her fitting pink, khaki pants,
White top with pinkish flowers and striped jacket
Off she went to Sarova Stanley Hotel where she was to meet him
Unlike before, this time he came half an hour late
After meals and pleasantries, he was on his knee
'Will you marry me?' he asked with a red ring box in his hand
Yes! She said blushing as the flashing got intense
He opened the box, lo and behold, 'twas empty
I was joking; he said while smiling
He stood, went forth and kissed another lady
Who was sitting on the adjacent table
Shocked, embarrassed and angry, she stormed out
Since then she swore never to step out nor contact him.
Seemingly, he dared not to phone or checked out on her
Her house was her new cell,
Though the caged bird sing, she was mute
Her gregarious personality faded as she longed for the worse
The date attires were still laying on the poorly spread bed
She went to the bathroom mirror and looked at her miserable self
She was a perfect embodiment of depression and sedentary lifestyle
Death where is thy sting- she hissed and smiled.
But this was a new day, a day that promised rejuvenation
After cleaning herself and refreshing her body-with water
She wore a red dress, applied a dark red lipstick
Which excellently marched her skin tone
The stencil drawing on the eyebrow was neatly done
Her black heels perfectly fitted her heels
She looked at the mirror again and smiled
And whispered, goodbye my dear friend
She stepped out of the self-imposed cell with a little optimism
Looking for those people she perceived as friends
She chose to visit her former classmate
Unlike other days where she could cry and sleep
And wake up, and cry, and drink water and sleep again
She looked happy, she smiled and laughed at the slightest provocation
They talked, and slandered, and laughed and ate
She never mentioned her boyfriend
And evaded any discussion that would make her remember it
Since it was a long time since they saw each other- physically
She decided to accompany her classmate to catch up with her colleagues
In the company of other acquaintances, she took wine
A ****** experience for the ******
After a moment of absent-minded conversation, she excused herself
When the time came for them to leave she was nowhere to be seen
Her phone was on but seemingly deserted
They grew impatient and desperate
No iota of her whereabouts was known
Not even the security within the premise could locate her
Her friend decided to text her through WhatsApp
Her' last seen' was just a few minutes ago
Her status read:
Somethings are too heavy to feel
They don’t let you breath
Neither do they let you forget
Your heart may be crying in pain
Beg for forgiveness, genuine love and care
But no matter how hard you try
They slowly eat you alive.
The status was concluded with smiley emoji
After searching for forty-five minutes
They gave up and drove home
Arguing that she was a grown up and could trace her way back
Hours later during the prime-time news
They were astonished when they saw the place they were broadcasted
The headline was 'suicide in the tub.'

Curiosity is a silver eyebrow,
Raising itself to question the world.
It stands upon being asked something,
Curiosity is an eyebrow being curled.
Curiosity is made of silver hairs,
Of the aged people of this life.
Living longer than the vibrant colors,
That haven't yet faced struggles or strife.
For curiosity is a silver eyebrow,
A feeling making the world unfurled,
an aged question wondering why,
We do what we do in this world.

Please forget me, you were right dear
I am cold and self-involved
And though I'll miss you, recent lover
I am weak and therefore fold

Get distracted by my music,
Think of nothing else but art
I'll write my loneliness in poems,
If I can just think how to start

Dot my I's with eyebrow pencils,
Close my eyelids, hide my eyes,
I'll be idle in my ideals,
Think of nothing else but I

I'm not a fan of sailing Optis.
But right now, we're just sitting under a grey sky
with no wind to blow life into
the sagging sails.
I glance across the boat, right into the
accusing eyes of Myself.
She has her arms crossed and so do I.
We're the same person, thinking the same thoughts.
I stare into my green grey hazel eyes,
which are cold and hard like concrete before snowfall.

"What?" she asks, her sharp words like knives, piercing me.
I look down and say,
"You know what."
"Yeah, I ******* know." I look up again, to see her eyes flash pale green grey, the color
of the water we rest on.
"What's your problem?" I yell at her. It's not really a question. My nose tingles, as it always
does when I get upset. I see her tug at her nose, too.
She answers quietly. "You're my problem."
"How can I be your problem when I'm you and you're me? We're obviously stuck, Gen."
She lowers her eyes, and pulls at her eyebrow. I do the same.
We're creatures of habit, she and I, I and she.
Me, myself and I.
I, myself and me.
She shakes her head. "I don't know what to do."
"Neither do I. Obviously."
Then suddenly, we look up at each other, a new light peeking behind our irises and dripping onto our cheekbones.
We both stand up, the boat still completely motionless.
"You know we can't swim," I mutter, looking into the murk.
"Doesn't matter."
She looks at me, and I at her. Something in her eyes tells me that it'll be okay.
Maybe.

A Woman's Reflection on Her Reflection (Valence and Value)

one poem, written by two authors


~~~

Ever the analyst,
A mirror functions as surface to
Parse the fleeting constant
Of youth's beauty.

From genetic gift
Of symmetry and bone,
To technological tampering,
Until the equation is solved,
As experience and character
Models and maps the result.

The answer, a reflection,
Of individual valence and value

(written by S.D., a woman)

~~~

(written by N.L., a man)

unbidden and unannounced, a
"not fully formed poem,
but a simple reflection"
inbound missile arrives inbox,
armed with silent power,
the lethality of the
Holy Unexpected

the man reflects
on her mirror-on-the-wall's
fulsome reply,
parsing the words of a
woman's reflection,
while gazing on her own

every human's momentary glass notation,
but an instance of summation,
a human poem, whose editing,
unceasing

a comma here,
a period inserted,
an eye shadowed, an eyebrow tweezed,
a eye dark circle line added,
to tree-mark time's authorship

all  these
but a person's
excerpted extraction,
notarized,
then auto-erased and revised,
as out of date,  
instantaneously compromised

but,

it is upon  the conceptual,
valence and value,
more that the man reflects perpetual,
less on transitory morphing changes of
exterior mortality

while overlooking her
glassine realization from behind,
he concludes:

every reflection,
no matter how oft the snapshot,
the unfleeting constancy
of the combining of the

princes of principles,
valence and value

that he witnesses,
in the calming pool
of her eyes,
(those borrowed windows into her soul's well,)
so well reflect
her unchanging greater finery,

her character

this reflection,
metamorphosis transformed.
into a planetary permanency poem,
high placed in his the firmament
of their conjoined sky

I was born twice.
Once out of my mother in the late winter of 1986 at 1:52pm in the afternoon.
And then again
the day Samantha Li died.

That may sound more dramatic than it is or just as dramatic as it was.
I wasn't a fancy baby. I pooped like all of them. Was a little underweight. Up through high school.
"Pointy."

I didn't know her well- Sam. Just a sweet-faced angel with a cloud of black hair and questioning blue eyes who went to my
University. She always looked like a china doll unexpectedly caught in a sale at a vintage clothing shop. She played the violin.

When you lose a skill you've had all your life, things start to morph and mutate. You feel superhuman and alien at the same time.
Waking up with my right arm bones in pieces was the start of my evolution- I became wolverine- flying through the night to
have metal clicked into my arm.
I was lucky to be alive.

4 years later, a surgeon told me people often lose their arms from such an injury. The irony of receiving such news was to
want to punch him in the face with my dominant hand.
That guy dodged a time-delayed bullet.

I grew up with a planned dream woven from music notes and CD cases.
I wore second hand clothes, I drank milk drained from a food-stamp fountain. The kids laughed at me in school. They
circled constantly, questioning my glasses, my shoes, my speech.
But the music inside me was something they never had. It was my boat. Violin was going to get me to the far off shore.

But you'll find- as we grow our dreams change shape. They don't fit into the holes for the pegs our parents carved.
I shunned the 6 hours of solitary scales and Bach.
I sought the Cacophony of improvisation and orchestral arrangements.
You'll never make it here- he said. You want to help people.

So I left Siberia and took up my own vision. As we do.

Now my dreams are putty again. Melted play dough on a radiator shelf.
I have leapt through hoops ringed with fire, smoldering plastic and lies.
Filed the paperwork for a better life.
In 27 I see the lines.

They weren't there that night.
And now they're everywhere. On my arm, over the Adamantium.
At the crinkle in the arch of my nose and eyebrow.

A grey hair at my crown.

How will it come?
When they go? When we finally draw the bottom line.

And when the metal leaves me
and all my bones are earth. That will be the 3rd rebirth.

I was in the car with the mama of the girl I babysit,
her brown deep eyes like whittled wood flicked over mine,
and she asked me what I had learned at school today.

I don’t know, but I think it’s this spring fever
that seems to have burned a hole through my head
letting my brain bounce up into the blue abode
but the blame is not solely on the season

Everything I learn that keeps me living,
lives in the trains of thought,
thought by others.

The mothers I meet with the babies who greet the failure
at the first knock on their wobbly knees
compel me to contemplate further,
because with each waking breath
they are reminded that to live, you learn.

So I tell this fragile woman that today my teachers taught,
but the thought of their subjects
subjects negative connotations,

I want real lessons without plans to hand you wisdom, courage, and consideration

I get to learning in the jaw clinching, artery pinching, eyebrow flinching
awe of the way that woman can sing.
I’ve learned the color of my best friends teeth
because some days she smiles.
Learning to heal is hard enough, but to deal with a scab left raw
is something I will always need improvement on.

With, or without school I’m going to learn.

I’m going to learn cold beverage condensation rings,
percolating dreams,
my little sisters shy smiled wings
and societies racist, sexist, sizeist, ageist, ableist, tightly sewn seams.

Im rattling off my bare brisk list of ambitions,  
of pleading for a voluminous scholarshipped tuition,
as I sit next to this woman waiting for a robust reply
I’m learning, that the whittled wood gap in her eyes
are round with sticky sap.
She will teach her daughter academically, never letting her size our common ground;
The skies.

I want her baby to experience,
and as if on cue,
her yawn brings in the tides of the oceans in her eyes,
something she’s learning to cope with,
she’s grasping my soft word’s
“This too, shall pass,
make sure you look to learn with your eyes not your brain,
dear baby girl, choose water over wood,
and when your mama tells you to pack that school bag,
make sure its zipper barely closes over
tightly stuffed open mindedness, and a few colored pencils.”

You left me with all these memories
The way you stir your coffee
That eyebrow you would raise
Your quiet confidence
Your understated
Elegant style
Your knowing ways
You had me at hello
And now at goodbye
Always and still you amaze

I'm a better man for loving you
A sadder man for losing you
I'm not going through a phase
Just reminiscing, maybe convincing myself
That I'm gonna be OK

Dreams come in two varieties
Those of tomorrow or the other
For me, for us, there is only the past
Why I dream only of yesterday
I have no choice
It just turned out that way

I can almost touch you at times
But when I try, you turn away

the witch comes to visit
with soup and a story
sets an old *** on
the bard’s little wood-burning stove
and he watches as she works,
perched on a stool

and the witch, she tells
the bard about the stars,
how they always remember
and live for thousands of years

there is one star in particular
she weaves a tapestry about
with her words,
but only where that star cannot hear
taken by pirate ship upon the waves

she speaks, with something like
fondness and resignation
about how this star,
he fell in love with the moon

and when the moon was
too far for him to follow
his love turned towards the ocean
and how it stretches from
one end of the horizon to the other

the bard knows this star well,
of course, often wakes with him
slumbering still, between the
bard and the closed bedroom door

the witch then asks the bard
what he is tied to
and the bard tells her who
he is anchored to

and, setting a bowl of
soup on the well-worn table,
the witch says, with unmistakable
fondness this time,
“then you are a fool, bard of mine”

the bard nods in agreement,
almost tells the witch he
only eats lunch for her,
but suspects she already knows,
so says instead,
“aye, and a fool in love
is the very worst kind”

and the witch will agree,
because the bard is right

but, she will also tell
the bard how this star,
he loves a man
with scars through his eyebrow
and across the palm of his hand
from building a widow’s walk
with the star’s name on his tongue
the whole time

and there is an honesty
in loving someone to the point
of creation again and again,
is there not?