February 2012
30 posts
3 tags
To the woman standing at the bus stop beneath the...
I would have stopped my car and invited you inside
had I been driving the other way. We made eye contact
across the median, I could feel it. I wonder if you have
children, and if they are even awake yet to know what
it is you do when you leave home to go to work. There
are lines on your face that remind me of my mother’s.
How many sleepless nights do you have racked up?
How many bills...
3 tags
(dis)content
tell me our want cannot be contained,
not our howls when we touch, not our
screams when we don’t, not even the dirges
we sing when the silence swells like an ocean
of rain. tell me my blood is holy.
i remember when you asked me so many
questions. always, your curiousity burned, such
a constant buzzing you left against my throat.
we don’t talk as much now, as if we have said
...
3 tags
believer
The sky is so full in her emptiness.
I wonder how the clouds swallow that down.
My eyes snag the stars and dare them to
tumble forward. My palms have always been open.
My lips have always been stained with prayers.
Lately I haven’t asked God if He is listening.
My mother has stopped asking me about this.
I want to tell her- when my eyes witness the sun spilling over,
that is when I...
4 tags
the land of night
I wonder where you went—
Still, there are nights
when your voice slices
through my dreams like
a fin in water. So clear,
you speak to me. I listen
when I awake. My heart
waits for direction. Beyond
the window, the North Star
winks at me, calling me forward.
When I walk to the pane, all I see
is the full bowl of moon. I want
to drop my prayers in that bed,
I want to lay my head...
5 tags
Mummification
I was the afterthought of a dream.
When you realized you made a mistake,
you taunted time into taking me back.
Are we all just unpleasant surprises?
Or, the residue of dreams deferred?
I think of the way Egyptian queens were buried-
all of their belongings, their slaves, their cats,
placed alongside them to accompany them to the afterlife.
What spirits brought me here, and will they...
4 tags
the prodigal & the prophet
I’m so holy,
my sweat baptizes.
I’m so holy it takes me
seven whole days
for God to let me go
and come back down.
There are scars across skin
that make me seem holier.
People mistake me for someone else.
I am who I am.
Don’t call me names
I cannot understand.
You are who you think I am.
You whisper during the night
that you will repent for your sins.
I know this. I...
3 tags
returning home
I want to go back
to being contained
in the womb of a woman
who loved me before
she even met me.
That familiar darkness,
I will never again
know such light.
I used to pray for her
because she wanted me to.
When I started to lose
things, one house, and then,
another, and then, another,
I stopped talking as much.
I didn’t think God was there.
I still think he’s waiting for...
3 tags
heartstring
There is a reason why my heart aches.
I know her loneliness. She owns it well,
draping it across herself like a shroud.
Her longing is long. Even with my arms
spread open, I cannot hold that desire.
Sometimes, in the fall, the thirst is quenched.
The need to feel complete subsides.
I can feel the shift below my ribs the way
I can feel the rain against my neck. I know that
the forgotten...
4 tags
Reincarnation
You surprise yourself
at how much dirt your
throat contains. When
did you stop caring?
The morning comes
and the morning goes.
You continue to sleep.
When you awake, you don’t
bother returning any calls.
You hardly check for e-mails.
The shower provides you
with a temporary reprieve.
As the sun shifts across the wall
like your own shadow, you close
the curtains to lie down. The...
4 tags
battlefields
every field is a battlefield.
it is hard to miss the mines
and the bodies buried within.
sometimes the sky is a bruise
covering up the skin of sun.
i wish my body was whole.
there are pieces scattered
across the earth and i have
yet to come across any.
we are all prodigal sons
waiting to return home,
back into the arms of
the ones who created us
and believed we were sinless.
bring me...
2 tags
storm tracking
My body carries a lisp. I stutter between sentences because I am trying to retrace my way back home. I wish I was in the woods and being led to somewhere. I want someone to take my hand. There is a growling within like thunder. I feel electric on nights when the air cuts through my skin. Kiss me, then. Jump my jugular vein with your lightning love.
4 tags
chasing down the rain
the buildings are soft and muted. they are wounded animals
waiting to be released. summer is winding down and giving way to storms
that call in fall. the wind is cowboy boots with spurs. the leaves
have healing powers when crushed. there is a smell of smoke
in the air that occupies your heart. you see God in the children
holding hands and crossing the street, their teacher asking them to
...
1 tag
glass house
I hate how alike we are. The way our eyes blaze when we are angry.
The fire our mouth contains when we scream. I’ve tried to run away
from you my entire life. I find you staring back at me from the mirror.
How many times can I deny your eyes? Your hot-temper, just like mine?
That quick laughter that fills every room to the brim? There are days I wish
you were here again. Mornings when I...
1 tag
bitter
I remember not giving a fuck.
I remember skipping school so early
that the attendance bell was still banging
against the drums of my ears.
I remember writing doctor’s notes
and forging my mother’s signature
just so that I could leave school
without raising any red flags. “Excused Absence.”
Nobody even noticed how I wasn’t even there
even when I was. I laughed...
1 tag
Letting the Universe In
I’m the last gulp of fresh air you will swallow down.
I’m the last satellite that will orbit your sweetest spots.
Smoke the last cigarette you will light in my name,
exhale the last night we never spent together.
I will dance amongst the rubble of our ruins.
The night will become a necessary darkness.
I can still sing. I can still jaywalk across the tracks
as the moon...
1 tag
The Year You Thought You Were Dying
You wore your friend’s necklace. The one that was found in the gutter
next to the scene of the car accident, the one you couldn’t look at for years.
During the early winter mornings, the pendant was cold against your skin.
It was so cold it hurt. It felt good to feel that way. It felt good, the reminders.
You left food in the garden for the stray cats and dogs.
You scattered bread...
1 tag
timewarp
If you ever feel like leaving this town,
I’ll go with you. I’ll play your favorite songs
and let you drive with the windows down
even though I hate the noise but I won’t mind
the wind whistling against my neck, if it means
I will get to see some of that sun-drenched smile.
Remember all those summers you spent out of the house?
I would lie in bed and wait for your footsteps...
1 tag
Raspberry Kisses
When raspberries are discounted from $2.50 to $1.25,
you buy enough boxes as your arms can carry. On the way
home from work, you wear a smile that makes your cheeks hurt.
You look over at the passenger seat as if you were glancing at a lover.
So many boxes of raspberries, the sheer abundance flushes your face.
You think, if my skin was transparent, my heart would be glowing straight through.
...
1 tag
When Days Are Not Days
There are days that are not days.
Days that are anniversaries of deaths.
On these days, you do not think God exists
and you do not hear the whispers against your
ears belonging to the ones who left you too early.
Everything in your body is closed off to the noise.
Only, your heart beating. It thrums within your ribs
like a bird beating her wings against the window
of a house that she is...
1 tag
what I would say
Whatever happened to that teacher in high school
whose class I always skipped but secretly looked forward to?
That one teacher whose class I dreaded going to but ended up acing?
There was a girl in my class who would always get bullied.
Sometimes I joined in. Most times I joined her in the bullied club.
I wonder if she carries around the ghosts that were created.
I wonder if she still thinks...
1 tag
Wrecking Ball
People come and go.
Like seasons, they change me.
I carry their names beneath my bones.
Memories come whistling through my mind
when I cannot sleep at night and stay awake
and walk and stay awake and think and stay
awake and close my eyes really tightly.
I don’t like the sight of a retreating body.
I don’t like not knowing if I will see someone again.
There is only so much...
4 tags
October
October is where I leave my heart.
Every year, when my shoes rub themselves
with the scent of smoked-out leaves, that
is when I come alive. The trees that burn so brilliant-like,
those are the places where I find myself at home.
I wait for the birds to tell me off. The squirrels join in.
Their anger makes me laugh. The smile sticks like slicked-down
leaves on the drenched pavement. My hair...
1 tag
The Dead Dogs
Dogs litter the highways and I wonder if they were loved.
I wonder if their owners took them for walks and fed them
when they whined or when they had “that look” hover across
their open mouths, tongues hanging out, saliva dropping to the floor.
I wonder if they were companion pets or used only for hunting purposes
or purchased to appease the hearts of young children. Whose...
1 tag
These days
I’ve been sleeping so much these days.
The sun spills herself across my skin.
Her graciousness leaves me feeling flustered.
My hands cannot handle so much weight.
I lie in bed to think. When I get up, I think
about returning to that landscape of dreams,
how quickly I would lose myself in those forests.
In the shower, I close my eyes to the running water.
I pretend I am anywhere else....
1 tag
Hira
His eyes are for his people.
His love belongs to God
There are caves in his conversation,
spaces he speaks of where he used
to run around in and pray. How many
spiders built their webs across the entrance?
How much light was still able to shine through.
1 tag
Ode to Detroit
(after francine j. harris)
“The city licks its own spit. It is afraid of itself.”
It gleams bulletproof vest and blood that has not yet dried.
The young and the old and the in-betweens pull themselves up and out
of the city’s veins to head to work before the sun rises.
Or to head to the bus-stop for human companionship,
or, the grocery store for tonight’s dinner.
...
1 tag
dream
I dream about you sending me messages.
Last night, the messages came scrawled on pencils.
You were handing them to me like they were holy.
We were no longer mad at each other. No more
stifling silence and no more turned backs. There
were so many words I wanted to slip into
your skin, as if your body was a wall where I
could deposit my prayers and my body was
a boat drifting downstream to...
1 tag
Revelations
No one has died lately,
yet I feel emptied, as if
all the light inside has spilled out
like mercury, across a landscape
that does not belong to my body.
I carry names of people that have passed
like a shield. But they hold so much weight,
I can hardly write them down. Like their
syllables are secrets I cannot speak of.
Do you know what I am talking about?
This hard-hitting bleeding hurt...
1 tag
What I Want
I want to live long.
I want to taste all the sun on your kiss.
I want to bury my body beneath the bones of ocean.
I want to come up for air and breathe in beauty.
You are gorgeous with your carousel of light.
There isn’t much that I need in life.
A bowl of oranges. A window of sky.
A rooftop to fall asleep on, you at my side.
A sky of stars waiting to spill forward, into my open...
1 tag
February Brings the Blues
The blues come swiftly, like horses being driven off a cliff.
You start to feel the weight of winter. The weight of waiting
for something you know won’t show up. The weight of your
heart, all the memories that she harbors and refuses to give up.
February makes you think of an uncle that died on your birthday,
three years ago. Brain hemmorhage still doesn’t feel right to say.
...
