Poetry & Prose

All Gods, Your God, And My God

I feel God in many things

considered simple to me

like hot showers.

No process more holy than warm waters

cleansing the

demons of the day.

Boiling bodies like Ramen,

bodily bones broken down

into a steam.

Baby cries and music

so loud it gives you a

headache.

Who am I to turn down the

aux and delete the

rhythm of the world

that a God is

bobbing their head and

banging their feet to?

I see God in images uncommon to me,

too far out of my reach.

Nothing more glimmering than

things you aren't quick or quiet enough

to catch,

dangling over the eyes for

admiration.

Oh, how I admire the air that

I feel God in.

I wonder,

if God feels a

divine in

me.

Deception

You aren't

slick or

sly, convincing to any degree.

Your moves are blatant

and

clumsy,

making knocking sounds

banging and bruising and

wandering,

pulling things down

around you as you

go on your way.

To what you think you want.

To who you assume you are.

Both are

nothing.

Why Do You Love Like This?

Love me when

you want to love me.

When you find that you

want to love me,

love me hard.

Love me like you won't

love me tomorrow.

You won't.

You didn't.

Scared Of The Dark

Why doesn't the night come,

when I call it to come?

When I say it to come?

When I beat at its doors for slumber?

Why does the moon

peak out at me

behind the foggiest of clouds like

strangers in the late evening,

when darkness swells

in the shadows.

Why They Don't Like Me

Just beneath my tongue is a

prayer confused and messy

and throbbing.

Lips locked on liquor,

a prayer feeding on fears.

Freedom may rest

in my mouth,

make love to the

saliva of both

perseverance and ambitions.

That prayer,

unknown if I am

conversing with

false Gods

stays there

biting at the bottom of my tongue

chipping my teeth for fun.

Inappropriately Said To Me

My drinkable perfume,

smelling sweet and

tasting bitter.

I'd drink you anyway.

Ignoring that big ass red label

like a little ass child.

Consume you in one gulp.

Okay,

maybe one gulp and

a half.

Unable to leave drips of you

behind.

Intimidating Woman

To be this thing for you,

I'd have to be

fluffy and fragile, which

I am not.

I have never hoped to be.

Yet,

you want me frightening and untouchable,

chaotic like

thunder.

You say now I am like fire,

flamboyant and

flaming.

I have learned that you

aren't fond of things you

cannot tame.

Nearing Extinction

Underneath my eased mind

only a state portrayed to the

blind eye of those unable to

distinguish when I am

not okay

Is a song sung in a

shallow tone

for the ears of someone who

no longer loves me enough to

listen

Echo's being caught by

a world who does not have the

patience to care for my

personal problems.

A melody,

fearful and

faithful and

fading,

continues living,

dying in my belly.

Pull Me Out The Water

Heartbreak humbles you,

loosing love in limbs you didn't

even know were a part

of the process of

loving someone.

That muddy

four letter

75% of a word

has taken it all

from you.

Not even capable of

remembering when

you begun to let your light switch

flicker.

Letting yourself feel

left you fucked,

you must

rest and heal

Figuring you'll still be

busy

bargaining with another

soul who

will

break you again,

you must

mainly

heal.

If you decide

to do nothing else

at all

this is your

priority.

Self Fixation

When the painting slants.

The glass she is

holding isn't

upright any longer.

The world turns to her.

She is not,

turned to what she is confined by;

defined by.

Satisfied with the reflection she is bestowed

Her inner being becomes

comfortable in itself.

Let It Do

Which poem will be

the poem.

My writing now

even sounds

foreign to me.

Squirming out of my mind

here, a place I find

a form to still yet,

to not communicate properly.

Though: choosing silence?

Wouldn't it be a personal punishment,

one leading to a path of

emotional suicide

to live

without

the writing.

Memory

People get busy

and

forget things.

No,

people don't

get busy

and

forget people.

Take My Soul

And I've hardened.

A new form of the

most unkind,

the talented revengeful.

And when I say

"I am sorry."

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry.

I mean truly,

regret suffocates my being.

I'd like

you

to know

and now

and still

here,

lives no patience

no longer

for you

your request.

Prevent The

Taking

Can you,

can you vividly see the things

blocking your vision,

call them out,

name after name

without a stutter,

a need to whisper,

or refrain yourself

from speaking?

Tell what it is

you view

blinding your eye

from the things you want

to attain

yet,

you cannot

see

without hints of

fog.

Say them aloud.

Write it down

and

hand it over.

Give it away.

Allow it to be

no longer yours,

absent

from your possession.

Let it be

a memory withering

in the midst

of your

virgin adventures

for it is the item that will

lead you astray.

It will

guide you to

your slaughter

with no

remembrance of

your name.

The Cued Question

What state will death take me at?

What hour? What moment? What second?

In what breathe

will its eyes

gaze upon my

energetic presence

and numbly whisper,

to me, that

here in that minute

it is my cue to leave

to cease living.

With all that I

have done.

All that I would

be wishing

to have the ability

to have undone.

To Live Aches

to find

to seek

to wonder

about the universe

is tiring.

to contemplate

the fore coming steps

you'll be required

you'll be pushed along

to take

on this planet

brings a wave

more sickening

than saddness

each day.

The Unwritten

missing poems

that should have been

masturbating to

memories

the things meant

to remember

lay down thin

death comes

in warm tears

for them

and they are left

soaked.

Sour Taste Of Touch

quivering

slight small intense

intimate shakes

on this skin

What has happened

inside

through

this brown baked temple?

What has begun

to trigger

it, to respond to

touch

this way,

so that the walls

of it shakes,

shivers

and its offerings

incense oils candles

lit upon untapped ways of life

to live

to be

drown sunken

in the soul?

Tainted Love

When the sun wakes, rises and nudges the

crusty edges of my eyelids

to probe my

GRAND awakening,

the first few thoughts of the day

oooooozzzzzzeeeee

into the air.

Despite all attempts to keep them hushed

they whimper

they weep

until released.

Your name

your face

the visual of

your lukewarm

body

mangled in mine

steaming together

coats most of my new day visions.

I think to myself,

Why have I kept you around to cool my loneliness,

to passify the things I have wished of you,

but you have stated

you are unsure you can give?

So my movements become

motivated with boredom,

with the complete casualness

something to do.

I am

empty and overflowing

at once.

Love is absent.

Touch is spilling over.

Commitment is missing.

The days pass,

the only person

I am

capable of

seeing myself

attached to

is you.

I don't need you.

And you,

not needing me either,

wanting smears my existence.

Leaves

my love,

my longing,

tainted.

Wars Unwanted

The Ultimate Lesson

There is a

lesson learned

a devastating adolescent lesson

when one understands

you cannot provide love for someone

who finds pleasure

in building

walls

too high to be

climbed over,

glass

too thick

to be

broken through.

Every time you attempt to

send affection

near them

and you say

it's from you

and share

maybe you would

like a small amount

too,

their boxing gloves go on

and

you find yourself in

the wrong ring

preparing to fight them

for the right

to care.

Your lesson,

if you have managed to save

enough

common sense,

leaving.

Where Is Home Is Hard To Say

I have been my home

And she has been my home

And they have been my home always

Home is where the heart is

My heart has always been with everyone

With the grandmother

Raising me

The daughter she never had

The daughter she never wanted to have

Like the three sons she gave birth too

Raising me

Into this fiery little creature of no gender

Of all genders

Home is where the heart is

My heart is always with her

Her heart has always been with her people

With my people

By blood or by

Neighborly encounter

Standing at her aid

For the fiery creature that never obeyed

Home is where the heart is

My heart is with her

Her heart is with them

Their heart is with ours

So then,

Our homes were everyone

Our homes were everywhere

And then I ran off to

The friend

The foe

My fire-some companion

Whose home was as messy as mine

We made our home in the corner of an earth

That had banished us both

Until we bruised our hearts

And burned our home

And were both homeless again

So home is where the heart is

For me,

That has always held true

My home has never been

A stable sanctuary

A single center of shattered memories

As it may have been for you

Come Clean, My Love

Forget all the mothers that washed your mouth with soap and

Come Clean, My Love.

Pour from edges of

lips locked

ALL your dirty secrets.

Scream to me the bodies you’ve subtracted

when recounting your sexual dinners

to those interested in your feast.

Scream them to me,

my love,

with lips perched to

mumble

I will treat the information accordingly, as if you did

only wanting you to

Come Clean, My Love.

Were there positions done,

not yet invented?

Sounds made that made ears cringe or flutter?

I will giggle with you at the thought of

headboards bumping bricks

my Love.

Let it be known:

Here you won’t be shamed for things humans do

differently

while

our acts

are the

same.

The Meaning of Life

At some point,

I realized I was

looking for

a reason to matter.

A reason to breathe.

I had got tired of

emotions

feelings

pain.

The sun

rising,

the sun,

setting,

was just a daily reminder

eventually,

I would die.

Angrily Untitled

You are

the tree I planted

that never grew.

Loved, Planted, and Watered

Planted, Watered, and Loved

You broke my heart

when you

decided to stay

below the ground.

Around you

and on you

and over you

I stomped,

I banged at earth’s door

until

I was sure

you would hear me.

Out, you did not come

knowing all the sunlight

I stole for you,

all the other pants

I neglected,

because I saw

branches and leaves

the very first time

I glanced at your seed.

All that was asked

was for you to

move a little,

to break a branch

through the soil.

But eventually,

winter came round.

I was forced

to accept

my beloved tree

had let me down.

If Only I Was Before The One Before Me

A Dramatic Monologue

What was I supposed to do when you left, huh?

What was the right thing to do, the thing I haven’t figured out how to do?

Not what you would do

because whatever that is,

is not the right thing.

You didn’t seem capable of doing right things,

but it's okay,

you didn’t make any promises

to have promises to keep.

I was trying to breathe

my love

from

my life

into a dead man walking.

I never knew the specifics of your death she had caused,

how she forced you to break yourself in two

and

secretly hide the better half of you

in a place you then

would refuse to speak of.

The other half of me is hidden Even now, I think,

in a place you will never find now, wouldn’t it still be nice

if you ever decide to come back to live in death with you?

to me.

You’ll find me as fragile as you were To feel those things again

when I saw you, even if it was just for once more

when I decided to love to remember what it felt like

all the parts that were dying, that were already dead. to begin with.

Shame on me Though I know

for seeing the version of you that was before it would never feel the same.

she super sucked the color off your canvas

I was trying to desperately repaint.

All love that lived in you died

in ways you will never explain

by the one before me.

A Writer's Brag

I have wanted perfection in the art of poetry writing.

I have wanted to use the memories of my experiences

balled up in the back bottom of my mind

cracking and crumbling under the pressure of my skull,

to open mental portals of another,

creep into crevices of heads,

make them reconsider things of life altogether.

I have wanted some healing powers for my hands,

some doctoring,

some magical ability,

beyond the typical image

of a wave of a wand.

I have read many words,

watered at the mouth for more.

I have wanted courage on steroids.

I have thought about freedom of expression,

handpicking phrases like plants and pumpkins.

I have dragged around:

my collection of journals unfinished

my belly of butterflies anytime sharing is asked of me

my bags of balled paper filled with fallen ideas

my life’s living moments bubbling like boiling coffee in my brain

my hand trembling at the thought of setting these things free

Shaking phalanges in a frenzy,

seemingly unable to produce nothing worthy of

a stable living.

I have sat quiet and criss-cross,

quiet and unforgiving of my own work.

I have slowly melted into a pile of in-capabilities

seeping into the floorboard

and dripping over the heads of others

who are both able to be and do.

I have staggered to do what you do well:

Rupi Kaur, '

Toni Morrison,

sobbed for

feeling incapable of doing this thing.

I have duct taped my pride and precision back into the right places,

planted myself upright,

only toes touching the floor,

and began writing words again

with new intentions.

Not For Show, Not For Sale

Don't lend me anymore of that

circus love.

My affection is not

for show.

My love,

not meant for

ticket sales,

for anyone to have

front row seats.

No audience allowed

to watch

the trick of me

sprinting rolling running

into someone else's soul.

Under Pressure

When they bend you,

for they will definitely try,

remind your body that

it is incapable of breaking,

reshaping, maybe,

occasionally in the most

uncomfortable ways.

A result of

grips too tight,

from hands that

shouldn't have been allowed to

touch the blessings

in your bosom

to begin with.

If they are holding on

with great resistance in

letting go,

embrace the bruises.

Your breathe

releasing the pain.

This new shape,

you will take,

isn't you surrendering.

It will be

foreign

and

unknown

to your essence.

Essential to

your growth.

Flickering Love

My pages can be

messy,

missing of

common sense

and

plainly said

honesty.

That's what

feeling

for you,

feeling

on you,

feeling

you,

has done.

Left me

cradled.

Left me

learning.

Sadness can

occasionally keep you

comfortable.

The Acknowledgement

You Want

I need

You and the world,

it and

your things,

the things you

both bring,

has driven me wild.

Driven me to a

soaking place

wet

with

their tears

together

burdening me.

My Tears

My Tears,

the way in which I ache

quietly when the day is low

and over,

coming to and end,

ceasing in chatter.

never are felt,

never

heard without being

coughed up

and

choked out.

Never asked truly,

"Why are you so salty?

What makes you stream quick,

and in that way,

with those curved departures down their cheek.

Why did you find this place to be,

this emotion to express, to drown in waters,

in your salty lake.

Doesn't sleep command you also,

love, find you too?"

Childish, Silly Things

Halloween has passed,

I wish

I hadn't spent this

haunted night

huddled over the untouched collection

of things to do.

I wish this

holiday,

like many others,

held some solid meaning.

Provoked some family

gathering.

Scenes of Celebration.

Memories,

of some sort.

Jealousy

Sleep is for the

weak.

I've always despised the

necessity of

such seductive

items,

always

seeking to be obtained

by one's most

unable to

afford them.

In Every Poem

I say your name.

You hurt like

hell.

But thank you,

for bringing back

the pressure of poetic thoughts

back to

me.

For maybe,

beautiful things can come

bubbling out of the mess

of emotions toxic at

first feel

are

capable of

causing.

Stuck

I want to write a poem today.

I can't.

But,

I want to write a poem a day

and today

is the

first day.

But,

I can't.

I can't

write a poem

today.

I will try again,

tomorrow.

Having My Destruction

I need to find my peace

and I

need to find it

quick.

Before my feelings

wage a war

and my worst emotions

win.

Giving My Destruction

making art out

of my hell

because

what else is

there to do

here

Hopeless Romantic

Dear love,

I feel I've lost some limbs to you. A bone, some blood, and then a muscle. The most important one of all. Without your beat for my beat, I die.

And for you,

I fall.