Despite what they scream at you
and blast through media
It is no crime to love yourself
There's no shame in admiring
each freckle, each inch of your body
You're handcrafted
Special made
One of a kind
Give your mind the peace it deserves
The care your body needs
You're beautiful beyond measures
In ways no scale could measure
Please, not for me, for you
**** the world and love yourself

I promise to kiss you
in the rain, as we dance
drenched in a million tears
from the skies above, as
the wind wraps a cocoon
around our wet bodies
nothing will stop us

I promise to kiss you
in a canopy wrapped
in white cotton sheets
by a timid, secluded sea
smell the coconut trees
******* honey lips
nothing will stop us

I promise to kiss you
in a field of stars, as
horses echo just over
the river bend as I
bend my body, and
caress each freckle, each
curve painted on your neck
nothing will stop us

"Kisses From God"

They say each freckle is a kiss from God
If that's true, what happened to mine
As they seem to have disappeared over time. 
I had so many kisses as a child,
And I thought that upon me God had smiled.
But now I have so very few
And I can't help but wonder what this is due to.
Do You not love me the same, God?
Am I simply just too flawed?
Do You not love me as much now I am an adult?
Did somehow You I insult?
Did you take those kisses away?
Was that the price for my sins I had to pay?
But then I step into the sun,
Under the glorious light of Heaven
Into Your loving, saving grace
And Your kisses return to my face.
I suppose as I grew older
I moved away from you even further.
I stepped into the dark despair
And very little for You had I cared.
Then one by one those kisses disappeared
Since it wasn't You I any longer revered.
But when I move back closer to You
I find that Your kisses return too
And for this all I can say is 'Thank You'.
Thank You, God, for returning Your kisses to me,
And Your child and devoted servant I'll now forever be.

i want to know the story
behind every freckle on your
back and ever scar on your
hands, i want to know how
they stuck with you and i want
to know the story of how
i stuck with you too

Show me how you cry.
Show me how you drink red wine
and pass the time.
Show me how you freak out,
how you clasp your palms
through moments of doubt,
careful to let nothing slip out;
let nothing recede the paint on your face-
I know that your careful eyeliner
is the borderline to help you find your place.
Show me how you sleep.
Show me how you
fall into routine;
show me how you have learned to stumble through life
and look as if you have not missed a stride.
Show me the freckle
on your inner thigh,
show me how you drink red wine,
show me how sometimes, you want to die.
Show me how you cry.

your body is an atlas

I cannot count the hours spent lost in the roads

of the veins on your wrists

and the scars on your knees as lakes pool from you temperate thunderstorms

your shoulders are a forest in which every freckle a tree

that I've kissed and brushed my name through slowly

into your paper thin skin that folded back with loving hands

I fell in love with the girl behind the screen. You were an ex-convict who spoke too sweetly of the way my legs looked in the exaggeratedly posed photos I would send you. In my state of false teen rebellion and defiance for society, I did the one thing you told me to never do; I fell in love with you. Thoughts of you sent me into a fourth dimension where sunrises did not signal the end of sleep but rather the beginning of a slothful day. I wanted to kiss every freckle I imagined would be on your face; imagined only because I never knew what your face held, and feared I never would. I fell in love with a faceless girl. Mirages of walking hand in hand through the streets were inevitable, until darkness came and those sweet mirages morphed to the pleasure of your whimpering body tied to the bed. Whilst I dreamt of being with you, you were enveloped with your girlfriend who spent too much time with others who were not you. I imagine I gave in to giving you everything you plead for all too easily, giving you too much. I gorged you with texts of compassion when you begged for relationships of sadism, a gorging of the type I did not wish to give you. I wanted to be the girl that caused your empty breaks in conversation when you would forget how to speak for the brevity of a moment. For weeks I incessantly checked my phone for your messages I would never receive, for you would never love me. No, never in the way I was in love with you. I fell in love with the one thing that could destroy me without ever laying eyes on me. I fell in love with a face I would never see.

Thank you fighting Irish,
for standing at my side
and I will do the same for you-
as I share in Irish pride,
it's time for every Irish heart,
to come out from where they hide,

We have come amazing distances,
from oppression at our throat,
and we wear some real
deep battle scars,
in an Irish fighting coat,
as we sailed in ships from an irish loam,
as we sailed
in freedom's boat,

All we came -
to this place
yeah we all came the same,
an our happiness-
it was the goal,
in our knowledge
that all hard work pays off
well so knows the diamond
from the coal,
and happy is the little fish,
finding comfort in a shoal,

An it's tattooed on our skin to see,
on an Irish skin so fair,
and in every Irish freckle seen,
it marks connection that we share,
an I don't have to guess at all,
how much my Irish Brothers care,
it's never too much to measure in,
the familiar things we bear,

The same for Irish sisters too,
and all of any other race,
as we are all connected true,
in all the light and colored face,
the color of your skin does not,
provide one with their grace,

We all can be some
Boondock Saints,
like my badass Irish kin,
we all share our connection deep
down below the earthly skin,
to think that what you do -I do
if you do wrong,
then I too "sin"
an we should not be fighting here,
if we join hands-
then we all win,

So I send an Irish blessing
to help you on your way
an I know that you don't need it
but I hear the bagpipes say,
that we have still much work to do,
before we all can hear it play
so as I get down on a bended knee
and again this morn' I pray,

And yeah some hands
were made for fightin'
all defendin' Irish wing
well I hope St. Christopher
he stay with you
until the final ring,
and bring a comfort
to your heart anew,
the kind that only real love bring,

I hope it finds you well
and happy -
an you be contented with your life
an I hope that all are grateful,
for every child, man and wife,
the best time to count your blessings
is when you're knocked down hard
with strife,

So I am sending you my Irish love
I sing laughter
- living mirth
to spread the seed so wide,
an defend from hell
on  Earth,
returned we are to innocence,
returned in death from birth,

I pray for all a peace to come
that one day all will know
just exactly what it's all been truly worth.

Ma Cherie © 2017

A farmer from Farmington sowed
His hectares with freckle of toad.  
When asked what would sprout
He hadn’t a doubt
Of harvesting doughnuts à la mode.

I am sun-kissed and I glow in the moonlight,
my eyes reflect like water,
and summer makes me speckle and freckle
and I crave rivers and mountains
and other things that make me beautiful.

I am long-legged like the spiders you hate,
my hair is red like roses and smells like springtime,
I am soft in a way you imagine clouds to be
and I no longer fear you or the dark.

I have grown out of sidewalk cracks,
I am a ******* garden and you can't step on me anymore.

I am too tall to be contained and too beautiful to be detained
and I will never again haunt myself with things I couldn't be.

I am too much to be too little and somewhere you always knew it.

So when you talk to me like you think I still love someone who made me believe I was just an ugly girl,
remember that there are flowers growing inside me,
and I washed the taste of your sharp tongue out of my mouth months ago.

I am an ocean with waves and depths and storms and beauty and there is so much to me that you will never get to see.

You were an anchor weighing me down confining me to one stark place of myself,

I am so much more than you ever saw, I finally know this now.

We are sitting in your car, and we are quiet.
The sun has set and the only illumination is the streetlights of the city I've told you I wanted to show you since the day we met.
For once, we are not holding hands.
Three hours prior we were staring at one another across the top of a table at Qdoba and you assured me things were working out. You assured me that we could continue as we were. This wasn't goodbye.
I assured me you weren't forcing those words, yet three hours later, as we are leaving the city I never got to show you, you are not looking at me.
The day before I would not hesitate to say I love you.
The day before, I would not doubt your touch.
The day before, I explained to you that I do not say "goodbye" when planning to see someone again. "Goodbye" is too permanent a term, "goodbye" is when you can't promise you'll come back.
Now, we are sitting in my basement and you lie on the couch.
I am sitting on the floor.
You're looking at your phone as I look for something to watch on the TV, and you do not seem to care what.
I look for something for you.
As it plays and you watch, I watch how quickly we are fading.
My heart yearns to show to you that I believe we are worth this, but just like the sun faded from the sky and we were overcome by the night sky,
it seemed the light had faded from your eyes and you no longer saw the sky in mine.
I attempt to make my way beside you on the couch, and I soon realize that there's no longer room in your life for two.
I found myself memorizing each freckle on your face,
I found myself remembering the shades of blue your eyes kaleidoscope into when hit by the sun.
I found myself wondering just when they might see sun again,
as I could tell they no longer shone when looking at me.
It was then that I realized my heart was no longer full of love,
it was empty from the lack of reciprocation.
You looked at me as though I held the answers to everything you'd ever asked,
but I feel as though you quickly realized I was an issue, outdated.
You left about midnight.
I kissed you as you left, and I thanked you for coming.
You assured me it wasn't a problem.
I told you that I loved you,
and you told me you loved me, too.
You said "goodnight,"
and for the first time,
I said
*"goodbye."

My knees always ache when it rains. It feels like thunderstorms down there.
Imbriferous skies quake and pour. In rows of misery below, black umbrellas and grim faces held in raincoat hoods move up and down the hill slopes. Impluvious bodies move as a current – up and then down, up and then down – carving new streams of black into the long grass.
Officers clothed in raincoats and trash bags tug at the leashes of baying bloodhounds, slipping in the mud.
I sit in the spindrift – the icy pinprick of the heavy rain turning my face raw. Splashes of mud freckle my pink cheeks. The rain flogs every black umbrella to a monotonous rhythm. Thunder rolls like a rock avalanche into a mountain creek. Corn stalks and men alike are bent beneath sheets of rain. Flashes of light across the sky smell like Sulphur. The earth a deafening drone, continuous, never-ending, and in that drone swept the black umbrellas and raincoats, one by one, two by two, shifting, streaming, flowing stern-faced and wretched. From the top of the hills they pour, pooling and spreading out into the fields like a black river.
A river of desperate life, searching for the dead.

You'll be pestered with letters.
Partly because I like to look at your name in my messy handwriting but mostly because if I don't - I'd go crazy without saying half the things I'd try to say in person.

Sometimes I'll stare at you and wonder how on earth I ever managed to acquire such a beautiful creature.
And I'll wonder how long you'll take to realise you could do so much better.

I'll write you poetry,so many pieces.
Describing your eyes and your hands.
I'll write sonnets to the freckle on the right side of your neck.

I'll make you listen to songs that remind me of you & believe me there are many.
I'll write the lyrics on my hands hoping you'll be intrigued to search for answers.

I like code names, ridiculous ones.
So you'll get a few of those too.
I watch tons of movies, I'll do it while I lay my head on your chest.
I laugh at the most inappropriate times.

If public displays of affection embarass you - I'll embarass you everywhere we go.

You should know I'm over-emotional & extremely jealous. I get paranoid and I worry a lot too.

You'll be mine & I'll be yours.
You'll mean the world to me because I don't have anyone else.

Your soul is the sturdy path
On which I walk
Your body beside
Heart inside
Passion so deep
A magical universe
All our own
Obstacles rise and fall
Not as harsh wind and rain
But a newly formed freckle
On your perfect canvas
Gracing not marking
A moment a trial
Forever reborn

I want to dig my nails – no longer ravaged by my teeth
Into my life.
I want to see the zest spray onto my chequered shirt
And hope there is something sweeter inside.

I could go out tonight
And drink until the gag of beer seizes my throat
And causes me to cling sagely to the bathroom tiles.
Until I feel the Earth’s axis shudder
And those plates of rock rumble together in an endless Blitzkrieg
In the centre of the world.

These pseudo suicidal thoughts permeate,
Like an artist painting his meticulous masterpiece
Next to a vat of scarlet paint or lighter fluid.

I could go out tonight
And take a pill until the pound of my heart
Causes my eyes to open
And see past the blackness of my life.
I can dance double-time in an endless ocean of strangers
In the centre of the world.

Oh, I could take a scalpel
To every freckle on my skin,
Before I realise we all burn in the sun.

You won't be comfortable with what I'm about to say
How you won't acknowledge what you really need
It's not the fear of failure that keeps you away
It's that you can't imagine the pleasure of succeeding.

I'm praying that you'll come around
Because your heart's already true
Just take a risk and convince your mind
I will accept you at face value.

I want to study every single freckle
Because they promise more days in the sun
I want to watch how your eyebrows move
When my hair comes all undone.

I'll watch your lips say all the proper things
While your eyes can't hide what you really mean
They'll give me glimpses down deep inside
And reflect on what you're really feeling.

I'll touch your nose with the tip of my own
And breathe in what you hold back from me
And tell your ear what it wants to hear
Until I convince you to trust in me.

I'll trace my finger around your face
Especially the lines that frame your eyes
Directing me to the places you've been
And the ones I'll visit with you in time.

Picturing you now, chin in the palm of your hand
Pondering why you sacrifice so much to stay true
The universe couldn't shout more loudly at you
Just do it now. Take me at face value.

Ginger
red
warning
ginger cake
ginger root
freckle
red face
ginger red
rare colour coded
womb knitted
palate choice
ginger splash
dash
flash
golden mane
orange.

only the
Lord knows
how them
bluebirds sing
all day long
swooping and slashing
you know
that bebop swing
with them
freckle red
stawberries
hanging on
their wings
Lord Lord
all them bluebird wings
through ocean blue sky

I want a man that reads with blue pen,
ink blots a page like he unbuttons my blouse
slow breathy traces from knot to knot
fingers passing every imperfect freckle that dots
his eyes to my skin. Then pause.
I want him to read closely
the blooming scents that escape
my sighs – first quick and salty
anticipating a touch flirtation at my
inner thigh, then a rub, no,
a well placed grasp. I want
him to know when to squeeze
throw down my hair and pace
the heaving contours that flow
more passionately than the Baltic Sea.
Then I want to make waves
make him crash and sway into me
deep until the sheets seem to float
above us and then drop to drape like flags
pull under me once again reading
my gaping breaths now heavy
like a volcanoes peak, tasting the raspberry
magma of my tongue. I want a man
to study the life lines of my erosion,
know where they crack and ache
and split into new directions.
I want a man to know
the geography of my desire.

I woke up with a headache this morning,
I think I drank too much of you last night;
even if most of it was in silence.
But silence is what you make it,
and there’s no need for words
when I can hear your heart beating
from across the table
and your pupils are larger than the lids of
the two unfinished coffees that sit in my car.
I desperately search for something to grasp,
so I must avoid your eyes
because they’re far too much to handle.
So I find the freckle just above
the end of your right eyebrow,
and the extra hole in your ear
that you did not fill with jewelry tonight.
I pretend that every day I will see you,
and today you are the deep blue sky
filled with wispy clouds;
an ocean of reminders that
there’s so much more to find
inside of you.

7 billion people exist
and among those 7 billion
we are all unique

whether it be a freckle
a crooked smile
or just a slightly different hair color

and with this knowledge
my mind screams
that I will probably find someone just like you
that acts and talks like you
perhaps better

but why should I fix what isn't broken

I could try and find someone better
but why should I?
I don't want to
I have you

I want you

it was a saturday afternoon
in december
when we met for
a second time,
the sun was shining,
and there had to be
some reason for that.

the universe was
doing something right
when she brought us
back together
again.

it was may when
we approached the
end of you and i,
or whatever i knew us as.

losing you
was like being forced
to shut a book
i really wanted to finish.

pieces of you
lingered throughout
my everyday life
for months,
but i did everything
i could to shut you out.

months later,
i sat across from you
at this cute cafe and
i couldn't help but
wonder what we did
to deserve each other
a second time around.

your eyes seemed brighter,
a more vibrant blue,
a deeper ocean.

a freckle by your eye
that i never seemed to
notice.

i wanted to freeze time and
live this moment forever
with you,
because for once,
everything felt aligned.

Usually when I tell my stories
They are a bit exaggerated but
I found what true desire was when
I walked in a room with strictly white walls
And saw you standing there
Like god had the angels sculpture every inch of your body
Making sure every bone was carved perfectly into place
So people in the future
Who dig our graves
Will study your fossils
And debate
If you were a human or maybe
Something more

I saw every scar
That formed into
Tick marks
On your spine
Along with every freckle
That was placed along your body
Like the constellations
I saw looking out my window
When you called
And asked me to sneak out to meet you
And I said no

And in that room
I trusted you
And let you open my chest
Like you were preforming
Open heart surgery
And I was dreaming
The whole time
But somehow could still see you
Dancing
To every beat
Like it was the first musical composition
Of A minors and B flats
Your ears have ever heard
And I could see your eyes racing

As you watched every pulse
When you were leaving your finger prints
For me to keep

I have never been able to feel
Any moment in time
Like I can with the minutes I spent with you
And all I remember after leaving
Was a road that went straight ahead
The ground was simply dirt
And I walked alone
With a pocket mirror
Leaving you behind
Because you refused to leave the place
Where our hearts had intertwined
You refused to leave that moment in time

I believe the silence in that room
Did not exist
After I left
The voices of demons came spilling
Out of the walls
Telling you every part of every moment we spent
Was wrong

But you still chose to stay in that room

I kept walking and using that mirror
To see if
I still had
Who you loved
Within me
When I had to deal with every consequence
That went with my temptation
With our temptation
And it was of good
Use when I wanted to look back
And try to find you
But you still seemed to be in that room
And I know the dumb thing would be to
Turn back so I didn’t
I only let my mind rewind
And pause at all my favorite parts
And some say you kept one foot in and the other out after a while
But that was all
And at that point I had already thrown
The mirror on the ground
Because I heard voices on the dirt path telling me to
Carry on
And I did
With empty pockets
And lonely hands
He tried to fit his fingers forcefully
Into the spaces yours fit perfectly
How could I ever find a suitable replacement
For a person
Whose fingerprints
Leaked into my veins
Like a virus
I promise
I do not look at it as a curse
But as your very own gift
And I am proud to be your live host
But without you
Its killing me
I have tried to avoid
Any moment in time
I felt anything for you
(You need to know I had no choice
But to lie
I was afraid of being alone
I didn’t want to leave that room
But you know I had to
I loved you so much
I still do
It drives me insane)
And I’d scream
I wanted nothing to do with you
Echoing
I wonder if you ever heard
But those screams were the demons
Trying to sculpture me
And I knew I couldn’t pretend anymore
I could only hope
You were coming for me
Because I was now struggling after miles and miles
My legs feeling heavier with every step
I could only hope
You could use your speed
And your way with strategy
To find a way to catch up to me
I’ve been waiting months
And I have become numb to any other moment in time
And unless you had taken the wrong
Route
Or had somehow gotten lost within the straight path
Because my foot prints did get washed away with the snow
That has gone and passed


If you had somehow gotten lost
I hope you realize which way you are
Suppose to be going
Because I am still here
Waiting for
You.

This is a weird weird world.
In draping the deepest of thrones, we find
the dimple of a newborn waterfall.
This is a weird weird world.

Flying endlessly like a crosstown log,
The modern mermen tip their tails and
flip their flails and
sip their sails in
this stillborn magical world.

I sit here, implying.
I waste no time in my elevator,
For I am dripping
and reminiscing
about everything
you
just
told
me
in this rickshaw striptease world.

But hey there!
Recalculate!
For I am dying simply DYING for a laboratory!
For I am dying simply DYING for some mud!
For I am dying simply DYING for an alphabetical totem!
For I am dying simply DYING!

And oh, in this world, in THIS
sacred bloodbath,
the words fly like hummingbirds!
Like dreary, dreary, hummingbirds,
in marmalade, in mother's words!

This world is just a time machine,
And we've got front row seats.
So yes, we'll put on the rock shows and the tesla coils and the
posters of Winnie the Pooh,
because there's nothing leaving for us
in this freckle cookie world.

I've got ideas, Freddie.
I've got ideas--
And they've got me. They've got me good, like a
sundae and a soccer ball, like a
city-woven carnival.

I would describe myself as disinterested at best--
for I won't be coming back.

I want to know your small parts
Every little scar
Every freckle
Every dimple
Every direction your hairs decide to go
I want to know your small parts
I want to know your favorite board game
I want to know the smallest things that steal your attention
I want to know your favorite color
I want to know your darkest nights
I want to know your favorite snack foods
I want to show you so much beauty
I want to show you how wonderful you are
I want to know you

my heart unhinges, crackling
when midnight stares at me
bleak anticipation lingering
where nosiness of endless stars -
dusted over me not yet ablaze
was not enough;
even if they freckle my skin
and speckle my heart - but
i sleep next to creaking doors and
breathe in synch to planets dying -
i am not ready yet, dear, i won't yet go
i kiss the moon and stars goodnight;
when midnight stares at me, i stare right back.

Would it be so bad
If I just held your hand?
Or maybe touch your fingertips
And ignite
Create a glow
To warm this cold night

I think it would be fair
If you ran your fingers through my hair
Brushing it back
Memorizing, taking in every freckle and curve
How I would like that

I think it's safe to say
You touched my soul today
But to become too attached?
Instead I'll be the girl
That you might never catch