I am stuck in the same place
At the same pace
What's wearing thin is my patience
I don't have any time to stay complaisant
I need to find my placement
Put myself first, not in the basement
Some may not know what it meant
I however hold no sentiments
This is what I have to deal with
No one actually making things better for me
Instead I bleed
My marrow creating blood just abundantly
Just to keep the stream from weening
Disallowing the life in me to die out

For the past two years, I've written parts of this in my mind and it never felt right to put pen to paper until now.
I needed to reach a place of peace and full forgiveness to fully express to you the language of my heart, in a way that would voice transparently true and real.
Whether I ever send this to you or not, it's finally on a tangible form of matter and emptied from my busy mind and heart, making room for more of what matters.
I hope this finds you well.

Written below is life.

The fear, desolation, loss, pain, abandonment, loneliness, sickness, regrets, rejection and utter disbelief, became a platform for growth.
Stretching my mind and heart to endure more than I thought I could handle and the belief that I could possibly die from a heartbreak, built me.
You've missed out on beauty.
Watching Gavin grow from the daily tears of losing his pawpaw and wondering when you were going to come back, to the occasional question about his past and he's grown into already completing multiplication equations at the age of 6. He aspires to be a paleontologist and travel the world, with a map tacked large across his bedroom wall, nestled in our home, the one that overflows with unconditional love. That allows breakdowns to happen, because we've all been there. He's come from daily tears to hilarious mannerisms and has a personality that every person, from his barber to his Taekwondo instructor, have fallen in love with. He still wakes up to silly songs every morning and is known as Best Buddy because he's the best boy that's ever lived. He knows he  is loved, despite the small ache that I know still gnaws at his tender heart from time to time and I've built a community of strength around him to assure him that he's safe.
Emily has grown into a strong beautiful almost woman. She's already chosen a career path and she strives daily to achieve small goals in order to reach the large ones. Mapping out her sophomore and junior year to be completed in one with home studies, and I'm amazed at her drivenness. She is kind, sincere, forgiving, understanding, smart and wonderfully gracious and thoughtful. She battled with severe anxiety after losing our home and went through months of cognitive therapy and medications to help her sleep. To now having voluntarily stopping the therapy, weening off of the medication, working out daily, eating healthy and taking on multiple babysitting jobs. This life pain has taught her that people make mistakes, that nothing in life is certain and to cling to your family tight because it's all that matters.
Kaitlyn still has her peculiar Ramona Quimby mischievous traits and never fails to ask the same mind boggling questions at the most in-opportune times. She's as tall as Emma and is drop dead beautiful. Her grades are exceptional and she's passionate about fitness and loves her friends. She was one of three 6th graders to make the competitive cheer team at her school, that cut 15 girls at tryouts.
What I Love most about her is her genuine thankfulness. Every time I check out a register at the grocery store or buy her things as simple as a toothbrush, she expresses gratitude like no one I've ever known.

The sleepless nights spent tossing and turning crying myself to sleep, replaying the story over and over in my head, have now turned to bright beautiful mornings.

I wake up to a person that makes it his daily goal to remind me that I matter & that I'm loved.
He's endured the tears flooded that followed with anxiety drenched vomiting, held me and told me that I'm the most beautiful, even in those states.
He's made me laugh from deep down in the belly, accepted all of my flaws and encouraged me like, never before.
He hides notes throughout the house and in my personal belongings so that I'll read them. In hopes that the words he's written will sink into my subconscious, the same way that the ink sunk into the paper and I'll finally believe my worth.

So, thank you.
For pushing me out.
For giving me the opportunity to see even more immense beauty in my children, forcing my heart to become bold and strong and giving me the die or fight strength to blossom into the Fierce woman that I've become.
I needed to prove you wrong when you spoke words of death over my life, "you're children will never amount to anything, because they have you as a mother".
Every new friend that I meet and families we befriend, are in awe of my relationship with my children and always congratulate me on having raised them into kind respectful people.
Thank you, for shaking my life so heavily that I was able to really know who God is, more deeply than ever. Forgiveness became a whole new meaning to me and my kids watched as all of the pieces healed and they've been able to heal right along side of me. Loving flawed and leading with love has become a staple of our home and lives and this learned trait will be inherent within them for the remainder of their lives. So once again, thank you.
I am where I'm supposed to be.
It's not unfinished business.
The pain is almost fully healed and I'm grateful to have experienced the pain and loss.
So that I can grasp what's at hand whole heartedly.
The sun still continues to rise, as you used to say and the morning fog lifting daily stripped the hardness from my heart.
You came into my life for a reason and a season and I wish you nothing but prosperity, love and happiness. Best wishes on the remainder of your life journey and I hope you have found peace, love and all of the wonderful joys that God freely gives.
Farewell.

Sincerely,

Natasha Ivory Evans

The Looking back and seeing,
It's almost like I'm dreaming
From my Life, ive been weening
wanna win it "well done"
Trevailed a vision
One and only Son
"Light that your arising"
And every body was...
  That's right....
                              Kung fu fighting.
The lines in my mind remind me that I'm...
     A freedom fighter who will aspire higher;
oh, and youra liar.

Through the laden flights of ***-stewed gulls -
Deepening in red rosaries to poltroon,
Contaminated by an urgent wish,
The sun-soaked merry bandits blew.

Each to each, and, mingling with that sweaty palm,
Dolorous eyes sad-greeted the fleeing dawn.
Pancreas then, the earth-girdled Titan swam,
Anon the rising tide to stem.

Dentist the night, repair to dance-floored beams,
And rising melodiously ever anew to pine,
Sweet ***** dreaming of her saw-toothed chemise
Saw the fine end to the upstart king.

Curtains swayed against my pearly doom
Not brightly was your plainting song
Palpitating in earthly measures anew
Or seeking once more the mighty to appease.

O David, in thy glance the silver moth did live
Long dawns. An enemy of the swordfish,
He menaced us so long. And now?
Sporadic is the demise of depth!

A silver sea, or rather a sea with a fine multitude of
silver points
Caressing my eyes like toothless counterpoint to the
stately blue.
It gave a floor to a weening being of prancing gait and
measured thighs.

She smiled.

And the sea broke and roared, as ever,
and I heard it once more.
I saw too the sky, which had sufficient blue.
  Cooled by the sea,
warmed by the setting rays and mild air, the body
luxuriated in perfect
temperature.  She did not smile, but perhaps she did..
My body, I mean.

We came away, from there, as from all places to meet
another need.
of darkness and quiet.  Foamed the elements of slaking
portions of
mysterious
substance.  Surrendered to the moving body without
real life.
  Borne along on a
stream of liquid desire residing in another's
breast.
  Relinquishing her to a
perfect nothingness like lead or caviare.
        Oh, and who awaited me?  She was imprisoned
but beautiful
and I thought
quite happy.  I don't think she even wanted to come
to me,
or so it seemed.  But she was happier too outside,
in the waning sun.
  Mainly she had been safe and free.
     And there's an end of this day, which roamed
whither it would,
for I did not attempt to chain it.  Now I flee it.

Up to class all time
Most attimes the hair aint hers
Fancies good places java on to the rest
Prefers a cab and jaj
To cook not maybe to boil bath water and tea
Appreciates other ladies bae' than hers
She has most from her man but needs twice better
At home she is for tv catching up with Kardarshians who never catch up with her
Back in the night Telemundo tales
The late time in bed she whatsapps
Complains He gives no time
Half naked while making visits and gowns while home
Hunny i missed you the time to get some mobile money
Are you a spy in his life
Is that how you treat a bae
* You want favors how many have you done
you like good food why dont you cook it
wanting a bright future yet spending what you have earned.
#make the dream partner of your life build them to be as the best to suckling them from baby to never weening.

silent rues of naked nectar
night and night again
tireless mind-crimes
strike the clock within

a soothing sail
and an abrupt contradiction
weening its way into
something non-fiction

but not a correction
a little less pleasing
a change of direction
that finds you in leaving

a moment of truth
and a gathered up sweeping
but changes are due
and time is not sleeping

Are thieves ants ?
And are ants up on my pillow ?
Can't count all the trees
that villain up the wallpapers
Immurked
In silent non-light

A Percher weighs himself upon my chest
Fidgeting and hurting the spurring of my breath
I can't speak to he
Nor he to me
I've not made any friends here
I'm always the quiet one.

The tools of the drapes make-eye new fashion
I yawn in-breath the scenery
Til I'm replumbed a fear familiar
I've not taken note
And they'll be a cell toss in the sorrow light
And stern disused adults
With their 'on clockwork troubles'

I turn in this muffle scape
I'm feverless and struggling
In the ample warm bright shade
Capsized in an umbrella
Of an altered canopy nest
Lovingly bed laid
And to the falling
And fawn the ceiling
Well in for teething
Water floats the basin
Town in for weening
The coast of new morning
I gorm to life
Jump started and fit fused

I can feel it rising up
I can feel it becoming a part of me
A waking morning thought
And a soothing night's dream.

Too easily do I end up here
This clifftop peak of potential joy
Too simply do I jump without harness
And too simply do I fall without hope.

All it takes is a smile
A good laugh and a set of *******
Then I'm drawn in  like a dead fish
In the proverbial toilet bowl

It's funny how often I jump
How often I convince myself of reciprocation
But the truth is I'm ugly
Ugly in sight, in conversation and in company

I have a quick wit but a slow start
Silence is a majority in my life
So I choose this time to stop
To walk away before humiliation

She is beautiful, funny, happy
I'm quiet, slow and stiff
She lives with fairies in the clouds
I live with worms in the dirt

So I shall stay here and live
Avoid public announcements and actions
Avoid the weening possibility of joy
For the reality of loneliness

At least here I'm safe

Dressed in a black and white polka dot dress

You eat pie while sitting on the floor.

There is a table at the center of your one-story house with three bedrooms in the living room.

It is somewhere up north.

I left

For the department store.

Airplanes, cars, President, everything.

A department store worker helped me as soon as I walked in.

“I saw an image of myself on a postcard yesterday.”

“Last night, I dreamt I was playing basketball.”

“Maybe it’s space.”

    “with fuzzy hair,
      

“To father time: jealously.”

Like a woman and man,
    the soccer game is over.
        I wish you knew
            that it weren’t.

And that life can be described as baking a cookie.

That there are several ingredients.

First, you need cookie dough and a cookie

Roller.

II

A ghost is in your living room.

We are speaking two different languages.

We are arguing.

There are books spread out on the ground.

Sarah is painting the inside of her first house.

She places a ***
                For a plant
              On a table, outside
                          her house

Her house is painted white.

The trees are slightly blowing

When I leave the department store.

III

I wore an apricot shirt

Made my way to

My grandmother’s house on Freeman Drive

Then left for my apartment on Broadway in San Antonio, Texas.

IIII

“We are doing the same thing
            only you’re much
             more beautiful
              & I’m a thief
              looking outside
                  my window.”

I could lose everything
And there would still be
Billions of people I’d never
Meet. And millions that
Would never like me.

V

“Can you paint?”

Your body is enough.

Follow him:

the music, jobs, eighth grade plays, backyards, an increase in salary, a doll house, the broadcast on FM radio tuned into channel 153, compacting everything into a jar, a very delicate and antique jar, cranberry juice inside the jar, a doctor, the maximum amount of money a lottery winner can win, jackpot, retail stores, a playground, leaning into discomfort.
May 9th & 10th 2018

taste
is what Emily wants
so she thinks of ships that set sail
and attempt to reach the edge of the earth

but she finds no refuge only what you bought her
because before I left for home
a person who is assumed to be a bike shop owner and who wants an increase in salary
would be better for Emily, than me, why would I think, to write that Emily wants to taste the paint of a ship?

Emily rides her bike and plays with dolls

and is full of life

but she

does not want to go to the bullfight

she
closed her window
last night
before going to sleep
&
To my right is a warning sign

& last night before Emily closed the window

she thought of the ship and how it would taste to tear the paint off of the ship
and eat it
    In Emily’s dream,
she
      wore an apricot shirt
I know this because I used binoculars to peer into her dream
from my apartment’s window
but I felt strange so I began to laugh and
left my house
                     for Broadway
& took 410 to a bookstore called Chevers, which houses
3500 books of a variety of sorts
and I drove past a hospital and
was satisfied with my fuzzy hair
and the image of Emily eating the paint from a ship

It was 11:46 am on a Tuesday and

after passing the hospital,

I passed a soccer game

where 13-year-old boys played against each other

then remembered I left the oven on in my apartment.

The trees were beautiful on the way to the bookstore,

but I ignored them, I could only think of Emily.

But still thought,

“if I focus, I can thoroughly
pull all of the petals off
        of the flowers
from the side of the road”

And at the bookstore, Chevers, I picked up a book of psychology:

       I learned about
the factors that increase the risk for youth suicide
and self-harm.
I stole the word ‘coercion’ from a book of poetry
I thought, “this word is my insurance”
But still hated and that’s why I drank too much alcohol
in my youth and why I’m weening myself off the drugs I stole from a group of teenagers
who lacked the awareness that by the breath of a distant friend and the light that shines on me
& Adam and Eve, & gods, fin, who in their day could go home to their cloud and see the sunset
or beach, from heaven, or maybe it’s the ocean, or maybe it’s the skin of the sheep I skinned
where upon you asked me about the aromas, the smell of the sheep, after it’s skin has been removed.

I wanted badly to correct the wrong, that was why I was doing drugs and drinking and lying on the 50-yard line of a football field.

“it is supposed to be metaphorical,” you know, it allows me to cleanse myself, I think, sitting in my apartment, thinking of my day at Chevers.

“to cure the illness that is a lack of self-control and poor impulse control.”

Because obviously I should have taken the drugs from the teenager and given them to a police officer, that’s what greater men do, anyways.

it’s strange to miss you
when you sit here touching
elbows with me
souls sometimes
when applicable
maybe i have been
mourning you
since the day we met
weening off in
small increments
swapping dna
and withholding
small traces of
love
compartmentalizing doesn’t
hit as hard without you
who else is going to put
their hand on my
forehead to keep
the good
thoughts in

calm as an ironing board / stressed as the walls
foreign as an enemy / familiar as the enemy
                   music knows no enemies
reigned as a god / resigned as most of the dead
    rewarded as a child /pell-mell as egg shell
vile as only myself
shelf-life   of a plucked fruit gone untreated
weening mental state   of the recently unteated
soft as sputum / rooted as generations of defeat
               prattling  like we'll never have our fill
                                          riddled as an ant hill