I wrote this 10 years ago after my first onstage anxiety attack. It’s old. Thought I’d share it.

love someone and mean it,

B.

your voice in the echo of nightmares/

comforts/ keeps fires burning/

heats hell/ like pain/in

hollowed halls/ remind me of home

home and happier nows/

steady/

the breath of lovers/

time and truth/

and heartbeats once consumed by/

passion/now passed on/acquainted

newly antiquated stares/ of

voices whispering

“so how are you”/

will ricochet/

feel nothing/

make this work/

prized consolations for a game/

i never permitted myself to play/

yet/i am losing horribly/i

want to disappear /

into halos/

into afros/

dread

lock outs/

bellies burning/

with anxious rumblings/

hearts burn

rekindled fires burn/

need to rest comfortably/

so through closed eyes/ i

burn in my memory/ there are

images of lips/ that spray words of

betrayal/

and love

pain and love

hurt and love

hell and love

help me to

love

come here and leave me to burn

trapped

within the rigid boxes of this

concrete jungle

dance

across broken bottles

bodies

lying on sidewalks

discarded yesterdays

regrets

invite bruises of painful memories

live

without past

without future

for now

just be beautiful without permission/

live

like poems written when strength was common/

poems written for yesterdays devoid of words/

that cut and heal

then cut to heal

forgive/forget

heal and hold familiar scents/

close to naked breasts and rotting stench

the truth

of life

love

right

what’s left

of now

no

of longing

go

of wait and knowing when

to face

or fuck

fists

and arms that hold and choke

to die and rot

and if not for love/then

for what?

for who?

for you/i ache

in blue

purple breath

dangling on the lonely edge of truth/

truth lodged in the pit of something/that

was once beautiful/ something

fluid and persistent/like

rivers run/like

slaves run/like

you ran from me/like

i ran from you/like

in my nightmares i run

instead of living/i run

mercury spilling over surfaces/

time inching towards forever/

i’m too afraid of dying too young

so i ration breath/

and i redirect heartbeat towards/

something that resembles living

cancerous/like

so many of my own contradictions

Wasn’t happy with the poem I was writing for Amy before.  It was just pedantic and trite. It was being forced out and not coming how I wanted. I decided to do a free write. I’ve had this Zora Neale Hurston quote in my head for weeks and Amy on my heart for weeks. I used that to guide me a bit and organize the scattered thoughts. I set a timer for 10 minutes, put Amy on itunes and then I wrote. I went back and cleaned some things up but kept the structure true to the free write. I might work on it some more. I might not. I’m just happy that something happened.loveB. 

For Amy and other women who carry chaos.

If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.
                                                   -Zora Neale Hurston

this flame and flicker
was  not meant to last this long
we were not meant to chase the sun this often
uncertain, as we are, that the days will occur without us
so we wake
and lift
and push
and throw our bodies across these minutes
collecting respectable stacks of time
we wish to be praised for “trying”
maybe someone will call us brave
or strong
or marvel about how we are not like this one
or that one
sure that those whispers do not touch our skin

drugs.
booze.
men that hate you for loving them.
all this to dull the ache of living.

say we are worth this trouble that we cause
say you will love us until the chaos slides off our bones
lie if you must

we like the weight of water
appreciate how tidal waves mimic our moods
carry our hearts out to sea
seek life raft
seek buoy
return ship wrecked
splintered debris
saltwater and blood stained

we try

every morning new beginnings
crawl hands and knees to our beds
when nightfalls
Call out to God, Jehovah, Allah
pray someone will tell Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad
someone who answers when we are at war with ourselves.

Choose drugs.Choose booze.Choose men who hate us for loving them.say we are worth this trouble we cause
say if we pray hard enough this chaos will slide off our bones
lie if you must

it is only a matter of time before we stop bleeding
they will ridicule the stains on our sheets
before we’ve even stopped throbbing
before the ache has fully left us
they will ask us what we did to cause this
why we couldn’t welcome sun like the rest of the world
why we turn to men and drugs and booze
instead of god and work and money
nobody has the heart to tell them for us
we did not choose this.
did nothing to deserve or invite this beast in
we did not request our footprints on the sun
this chaos we wear on our heads
this life is neither punishment
nor reward

your life  turns palm over fist
easy like judgment

we fight ourselves
avoid our palms
duck our fists
just so we can live the life you ease into
so that we can make it out alive
unbroken
scarred a little less

so just tell us
tell us that we’re worth this trouble we cause
say that this chaos will one day slide off our bones

lie if you must

I’ve been working on a poem for Lauryn Hill for almost 2 years and I could never get it together. I was letting way too many of the articles and gossip influence the content and I needed to remember what I felt and why. But still I’d look at it and hate and try again and hate it. Last week, I deleted the whole thing. It just wasn’t going to happen. Yesterday, I read this http://warsanshire.blogspot.com/2009/12/questions-for-miriam.html and it was inspired by my kindred, @caitsmeissner’s poem for Yusef Komunyakaa which you can watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKy3dHBFVVo and the first stanza just spilled out. This afternoon (because I hit my book deadline 2 days early. Yay me!) I started again and this happened. I like it. It’s not perfect but none of my writing ever is. I’m going to edit it as time goes on and I’ll post the edits but I like how rough and raw it is now. It’s hella long. Sorry. I wanted it all out so I could take it all back. Or… I just wanted it hella long…

Yup.

LS1&MI,

B.

PS. Please don’t compare it to warsan or caits. They did something with words that I don’t even understand. It took on some other world shape and form. I’m still trying to catch my breath.

where did you go, Lauryn?

when you gathered your treasures and left us
did you cradle your bulbous, translucent heart
in promise and protection?
did you place the most sacred bits
beneath your tongue?
swath yourself in kindness and peace

at long last, lauryn?
are you at peace?

or are you still running?
still searching for the everything and
nothing that life promised you?

Should we stop searching for you?
stop chanting for a triumphant return
should we be building a business of forgetting?
have you forgotten us?

do you know that we hunt for clues
beneath break beats?
press play on scratched and cracked
hoping to rediscover reason etched in your inhale

is it ok to miss you?
you spoke our fears and hurts and loves and life
into song
but we barely knew you

is that why you left?

why you chose this solitary heartbreak
when your words created sister circles
everywhere they were played

is it ok to miss you?
miss you like my girls
wish we never traded up for this
grown woman attacking our bones
do you know the nights our bodies
swayed and bucked
ex-factor wrestling sobs from our throats
Do you want us to release you into the ocean?
take our pleading and leave you be?

where are you Lauryn?

what do you tell the night when
even the stars beg for your return?
how many millions singing your songs as
lullaby keep you awake?
who soothes you to bed?

warms you?
holds you rock steady and glass shell?
like so many of us,
are you your only comfort and catastrophe?

how often do you cry?
how many times have you wailed a siren song
bent like beckoning into your chest?
Do you know that we hear you?
often when the wind blows a cold too frigid to be
an honest winter, i swear i hear your heartbeat
as thunder
where is the relief of rain?

who holds you, lauryn?
who presses your aching ribs into their side
who has your lungs?

can you breathe where you are, lauryn?
Where are you?
do you know about the babies like Siwe
whose pain splits her open
chin to ankle
do you know how her mother longs for one last verse
one hidden track to hum as healing to her baby girl?

is that why you left us, Lauryn?
was it just too much?
these bits of flesh flung at you
did you hate how we wrapped ourselves
anaconda grip around your throat
then demanded you sing for us?
were you exhausted from all the parts of you we took?
the skin we clumsily reattached as hugs from strangers?

how can we ever repay you?

God, Lauryn, do you hate us?
hate how we threw your music back on your face
mined your sadness and regret for echoes
do you hate how we ached in unison?

did you want to be left alone?
were you tired of all these strangers claiming
love and solidarity?

We were like vampires, weren’t we, Lauryn?
But you were family? You were us?
You were for us
brown girls that bled billie’s blue all over
brooklyn concrete
and atlanta asphalt
and dallas pavement
and compton and soweto
and philly’s south street and mogadishu

i can’t help but feel you suffocate beneath
this thing you built for us a decade ago
what have you built for yourself?

is that why you left?

left us to do this life thing with our own
soundtrack
urging us to build our own songs
without someone singing a “me too” into the night for us
Must we stretch our own kaleidoscope hearts?
for the men who refuse to love us back?
refuse to see us?
refuse to wear this cloak of symphony we weave for them?

is that why you left?
so you can forget and remember
and forget and remember

how can we ever repay you?

full lipped and beautiful
you reflected us at our most celestial
reminded us that at our worst, we are still gold and magic

who sends that shiver of understanding down
your spine?
Do you remember?

where did you go, lauryn
can we apologize for picking at your bones
playing your pain for our pleasure
would you return to us then?
Would you come back so we could love you properly?
without asking you to hand us your tongue?
can you forgive us for not asking after your heart?
for not being concerned about how often you wrote our truths?
How much that must have broken you

we just wanted to love you
maybe we held you so tight you disappeared into our backs
and this selfish longing for your return
this wish for one more fevered song
outline these adult woes with your cadence
with your heartsong

but you are just a honeyed goddess
just a fucking a human being
a woman who threw her heart against the moon
and prayed that someone would catch

maybe we should have asked,
lauryn, how can we help?

Old poem, newish edit.

B.

There are no victims here
Only the remnants of a heart that
Opens and closes with persistence
Butterfly wings

Survived ten pound tumors
Hospital beds
Psych ward
cheating
leaving
Knives to back
Front
Side
palms
The kind of sadness that would
Crumble stone into tears
Birthed bravery and life despite
Doctors and doubt

Baby girl,
A broken heart will not kill you

If you can still twist your hips
Into a candy ribbon of dance
You were never broken

Only rearranging your spirit
To make way for this new reality
Meditate yourself into a new way of
Breathing

If you can still laugh from a belly
Ripped apart and stitched together
Held by memory and faith
If you smiled at your reflection today
admired the perfect round and curve
Of bottom lip
Felt the brown and wet of eyes locked
Into a past you can not change
Weigh this against the bitter heart
The woman who laughs at his jokes
But doubts his embrace

A broken heart will not kill you

Mama, you will always be whispered about
Someone somewhere will try to pin the title
Fool on your lapel

Twist your mouth into the widest smile
Bless them with your amazing
Remember that your ability to love
Even the idiots who attempt to draw blood
Is only a reminder of their weaknesses
Enjoy how much they hate you
Love them until they choke on it

You are coated in glitter and firestone
No amount of revisionist history
Can change that
So let him believe himself immune to you
Sit back and laugh at the way the touch
Has turned him delusional with your
Jujugoddesssexmagic

see if he can really forget
your mouth
the space of wet and divine between your hips


No child, there were no victims here
his victory is empty
Her championship hollow
These attempts to break and dispose
Futile

they got to come harder than that
It will take more than just
The  dusty kisses of a brief love affair
To destroy the god in you

Wear it around your heart
like talisman
Like truth
Like the promise of better days wrapped
In a package that can handle your amazing

Fuck all the hyperbole
The lackluster simile
Know this
Own it
A broken heart will not kill you

Rest your understanding on that

While watching Oprah interview her, all I could think was, “Wow. We should all be counted out and left for dead… then rise and reclaim what’s lost.” No we don’t look the same or sound the same or act the same but how could we possibly? With adversity comes change. What matters is the fact that the you continue to breathe and live and move and stand and crawl… whatever.

This is a work in progress. I wrote it in like 15 minutes while watching the DVR’d second interview today. Will clean it up as time goes on… or not.

What a powerful reminder to keep going.

Love someone and mean it,

B.

They said it was over
Gave you  permission to curl into yourself and drift
away
they mourned your legacy
your life
your voice
they turned you into dust

for years you were whispered about
counted out
the butt of jokes and prayer circles
alike

tell them, whitney
tell them
you were not built to break
tell them that they
make martyrs of people too soon
throw still sweet scented bouquet onto funeral pyre
lament what they could have been
cry for the broken bones caused by leaping off of pedestals
the wings caked in mud
and self loathing

weakened but undefeated
tell them that you are still here
show them that you would gladly
trade your voice
for your life
you don’t need the pity
the aching disappointment that
the voice is no longer there

remind them that you are still here
mourn what you were
praise where you are

so what if your voice is no longer
this delicate crystal shelled trinket
neither is your life
own your rough edged growl
own the way your notes bounce in smaller range octaves
own the way you stand like the worst is behind you
sing like you were promised a thousand more tomorrows

this is your testimony to strength
that is  what your song is now
teach them about perseverance
teach them about resilience
wrap a song around hearts that wish to die

praise the thing that still beats
and bleeds
and bruises

and teach them about pressing on
teach them about dragging yourself out of bed
about lifting yourself from the fog and smoke
about leaving the things that kill your spirit
about how it’s never too late to start loving the
best and worst about you

tell them it’s never too late to heal
and press forward
tell them, Whitney
tell them you weren’t built to break

You have been through hell back
own the scars
own the hoarse and cracked
lament nothing
tell them that any sound from this body
is a joyful noise
it is a living noise
it is a healing noise
tell them, Whitney
then tell them again
and again
and again

tell them so they know that you will
that you did
that you live
that you are here
and with us
tell them so they know that the end
is never the end
that the truth is that no matter how many times we fall
the body still has the strength for one more stand
for one more attempt at morning

I forgot to post this on Saturday. I only posted the other poem, Liquid. So here it goes. I’ll find the interview it’s based on at some point. Got a full day. Wearing my Wicked sweatshirt. Singing Defying Gravity… I got a lot to do this morning. :)

Love someone and mean it,

B.

Based on an interview I watched tonight online with Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on Meet The Press.

She was golden
Had the gray and the grandchildren to prove it
out lived too many husbands and Presidents
Secretly hoped to outlive this one as well

then there were the children
She’d lost too many already
Was used to the stench of grief
And impossible goodbyes

Lived long enough to expect anything thrown
still able to catch
She was just waiting for the time
For the moment she could ease into a sigh and stay
Steady
holding
Until it came
every day for her was a blessing

It wasn’t supposed to be like this
Was supposed to be an easy exhale
the warm wave of finally
a half a smile and heart full of youthful secrets

Mama always knew she could handle the fire
But she wasn’t expecting the rain
Wasn’t expecting the dead floating around her
Like the forever she gave up on
She thought she’d be prepared
Never knew that she would hold on so tight.
Never thought she’d forget what she was holding on for
Or to


She was
Resisting the rest of her days
Waiting
Alone
again
the phone
again
This time only one question

That smoothed her nervous circles

Son… when they comin?
Son, the water…

I know, mama.

But the water, baby.
I’m trying, mama
Waiting.
Baby?

They said tomorrow
I’m so sorry, mama..
Baby?
Mama…
Tomorrow
Mama?
Mama?

For her, every day was a blessing
lived through too many wars
husbands
Presidents
Children
Always expected fireworks
Knew nothing of water

It’s not supposed to be like this.
I wish I would have learned how to swim

This was not easy. I used two lines from the amazing Ishle Yi Park (http://www.ishle.com). She is my heart and one of the most incredible writers, poets, human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. Please, if you don’t know, get familiar.The poem was sort of languishing in my head and I had to let go of the length and just get something down. I also used a photo I stumbled upon online as sort of a marker. It helped coax the writing. It’s pretty much supposed to be a call and response. I’m talking to the man about why he’s there in that particular crumbled way. And the second part is what he might be thinking of. Bleh. I totally did not do that but that’s what I pretended to do.  It’s not the best but I promised you writing not a masterpiece.

The lines borrowed: The night is moonless in both countries and I want to ask you to weep. From her amazing, heart wrenching poem, Open Letter To The Girls of Soldiers. I feel bad for taking lines from such a poignant and moving piece of writing and turning into my usual angst ridden drivel. Bleh. I’m so emo it might just burn a little. Please read Ishle.

Be kind. Busy all day tomorrow running around getting travel docs for South Africa. I will not promise you a poem but I will try.

Love someone and mean it,

B.

PS. I hate the ending. I’ll fix it later.

i.
the night is moonless in both cities. mine drips from a
summer that was mostly liquid. yours hangs in the balance
a tight sphere of condensation. i want to ask you to weep. to feel something
other than impenetrable. to feel life as a river down your cheek. you
brown truth of a man. i offer you this my porous skin. it slides easy off bones
like faith and trust. and love. pools in the dent that creates collarbone.
invites comfort. tales of home and laughter.
where is home for you? trapped between these worlds like you are.

ii.
in brooklyn, there is a girl creating magic every morning. she
levitates at dawn. finds philly. finds dc. finds chicago. leaves
half a paper heart at your door step. your window. your bottom
lip. she returns home before you wake. but you can ask for her. she
quiet invites happiness to the most undeserving. two-toned and waiting.
if you are seeking heaven, she will offer you bits of your self on cellophane. and
gold leaf. pay her with half a paper heart.

I read an article about a man who refuses to leave New Orleans without his wife’s body. He’s accepted that she’s dead but won’t leave until he finds her. This was written in the voice of his  wife pleading with him to go but letting him know that she’s still with him.


Part of the Katrina series and inspired by hundreds of spouses searching for their loved ones after Hurricane Katrina

Collect the salt of our memories
The heat of summer
A river across brown
Sepia
Toffee
earth
It’s Tuesday
Wear this goodbye
Liquid against your chest
Your heart a shallow rhythm
My lips a soft echo beneath breath
I miss your face
Wish to
Place gentle against scruff
and inhale
The line that forms your chin
cheeks
Mouth
Nose
Eyes
Connect the parts that create you
Teach me and I will build for you a new
Everything
smile
And I remember how well you wore this
Your name
Crocheted on scarves tightly woven
With concern
Compassion
something
I think about whether your neck gets cold
Are you hungry, love?
I know you miss me
See your eyes cast down and
I want to own you again
Tell you that I’m okay
That I live in shadows
Hollow
Music
echoes
It’s only better here because I can see you
Touch you
In the form of a breeze that lifts and tousles
Leave the body
Remember only the movement
See me as you do the promise of spring
Damp
Pretend that with me brittle things bud
thrive
not yet ready to grow
or go
Do not long for me
It’s okay
Believe it
Wear this goodbye like a talisman
Like my jeweled whisper
Like yesterday
My salted memory
bare skin
This new river
liquid
like good bye

it’s okay…

This is less a poem, more a brain dumping. Woke up and it happened. The first line “You are missing someone’s soul” is a paraphrase of Mara Jebsen’s Facebook status from yesterday that read “Strangely missing someone in Seoul. Dreams spilling over into the whole morning.” I don’t know anyone in Seoul but when I first read it, I misread it as “soul” and attached myself to it. And “dreams spilling over into the whole morning” just needed to be written down.

It’s early because I don’t know what this day is. I’m working on something else so it might be a double post day.

It’s Friday.

love someone and mean it,

B.

You are missing someone’s soul.

Resist the urge to call. again. Your phone, quiet as a misunderstanding must be placed 2 rooms away. Turn the ringer down. Not off. Just down. Tell yourself it is because you wish for a sleep filled night. Something without dreams spilling into the morning. Ignore the fact that every 2AM and 3AM and 315 and 325 and 337, your ear is turned to the door. Your stomach a mess of jumps and starts. You get up to check,  see if maybe the phone has trembled a bit; maybe just a message that reads “I miss you.” You send a quick plea or a casual prayer towards the only God you allow. Realize that she is probably still a sleep. The phone is two rooms away, balanced on its side; turned away from the door.  When you get like this, you start to believe in superstitions. Maybe create a few of your own.  Hold your breath before you look. The sharp intake of disappointment is not painful. Don’t let your brain trick you into thinking it is. But something must have punctured. You swear you can hear him leaking. Find a towel to remove the melted bits of yourself from the floor. Resist the urge to call. again.

So this is what I feared. The reason why I doubt my writing is because when I’m going through something, I can’t write about anything but that. I feel like a writer worth her salt should write about anything at any time not just translate things that are happening at the moment.  I’m trying to avoid days and days and pages of pages of the same but I think I’m at my best when I allow what’s inside to exist out. The irony being that I fear that’s when I’m at my worst. I need to find a way to make this skin less transluscent. I need to learn to feel less. But that’s neither here nor there. The “poem” or rather “collection of things written down” is as follows. The title taken from Marty McConnell (www.martyoutloud.livejournal.com). She is brilliant. I like the line, I wish I would have used it better.

Today, I was running around preparing for South Africa so I didn’t have the time to sit and mull over this writing. I promised 15 minutes of anything. This is 15 minutes and “anything”.

*sigh*

I wish it was better.

love someone and mean it,

B.

When the apologies fall apart
I.
He asked, “what does your father call you?” 
She hesitates. Inhales before she decides not to share with
him the complexities of this name. The way it sits heavy on her tongue.
How her father is the only one allowed to breathe this word. He protects it. Protects
her. She whispers, “Bassey” into his widow’s peak. She says, “you can call me that if you want…” she means, “if you protect me…”
He says, “You should trust me. This is what I’ll call you.”

It’s the only thing that he ever gave
that she didn’t have the urge to set on fire
and throw back in his face.

II.
in her world, “Let’s be friends.” means,
“in a few tomorrows, I won’t even notice you’re gone.
let’s make this easy.” She refuses this time. Says
no to the wrong face. This one means it. Says,
“It is all i have space to offer. This bag of
broken and unsure will not fill you with anything but
jagged bits of nothing. This is not what I want for you.”
She nods like she believes him. Her heart says try. Her brain
says, “he lies. they all do.”

III.
you want to fix this. wish
to collect enough tape and sacrifice, urge the universe and the
writers of love song for a proper line. for the perfect collection of
heartbeat and constants. but you have nothing. no way to lessen
the load. no word full bodied and loving enough to comfort. so what
do you do? Convince the fingers to stop dialing. to stop
pushing this confusion and helplessness into 140 characters. resist
the urge to scream. To groan. to moan. to screech and wail and rip each
hair from your forearm. There is an overwhelming need to feel something
anything. but this.

(A poem for Phyllis Hyman)

They said you tried
Said you squeezed laughter from stone
Whenever you could
Hurdled yourself out of bed and fog
Long enough to send your songs across the night
They said you were a fighter
in these photographs you flash a black & white
Of doe eyed and regal crowned
No one can doubt your strength

They called you Pepper
Mistook your rage for something
Other than the pain it protected
They said it was the men that
left you small in king size
Empty of bed
Said it was the weight
And the wait
The freedom that life denied you
The drugs providing synthetic sex
They said the loneliness ate you
When no one heard —
You were a half breath of ache
Before the first note
The hurt that lingered like last call after the final curtain
When it was just you and you

Aching to be rid of yourself
Begging sleeping backs
And closed doors for a good reason to stay
A reason to try
To push beyond the pain for one more day
Maybe you would’ve remembered the
Music
Caught the chord that impressed even you
Wrapped that ego around your shoulders
Rise into your six feet plus 4 inch heels
Breathing air and fire and stone
Phyllis, you were an impossible quest for calm
an unattainable tomorrow
That press and push of a yesterday that
Bound you
And we your lost daughters study your song
Search for meaning between each and every line
Anything to put a purpose to the hollow that throbs with us
Phyllis, we have so many questions…

Did you see God before you left?
Did she look like you?
All long limbed and full lipped
round faced and ethereal beauty
If you had
would you have done it anyway?
refused your own reflection that last morning…
Or would you have sighed into recognition
Exhaled a low, slow mournful blues
Into the heavens
Felt like this was where you needed to be

Was Lady there?
Did she welcome you as kindred
Or beg you to return
To  the new voices that would
Hold you as example
What would you say to Amy?
To Britney?
Was it you that saved Mary?
Whitney?
Can you save Lauryn?

We need a song, Phyllis
Something like you
A pretty stained glass held to catch the light
Something honest and real
We need a song, Phyllis
put a bit of beauty inside this shell we fling from pain to pain
Drenched in our own denial and hollow pillar
Each of us adding a lyric
Another reason to welcome morning
Despite the empty
Despite the lonely
The fatigue eating through our bones
We are all tired.
All feel on odd days that this heartbreak will be the last one
We need a song
A poem to carve and crawl under
Something to see ourselves in
Something beautiful
Something fragile and fire
Something like you, Phyllis
A good enough reason to stay

*I beg Allah for forgiveness

you render me useless this side of morning
it’s more than the weight of left leg
draped heavily against right
more than muscled shoulders
tattooed with sweat
and last night’s perfume
or the locks wrapped around your fist
pinned against sheets
cooling from wet

i want to struggle and roll into the part of this
i own
but my last lover was so slight of a man
that he crushed my lungs with his indifference
i still haven’t learned to exhale properly

you are thick bundles of muted air

and when the silence and shadows
hit your face
more like him than i care to be responsible for

still, i welcome your weight
the obscene arrogance of your manhood
bass and jazz song voice

we laugh about grown folks business
avoid the truth so often
we forget it exists
astaghfirullah

I welcome you a trapped,
unfinished verse
read on borrowed time

I can hear the breath escape in shudder
And hesitation
Even in sleep
fight this everything
That could destroy the world with our union

Delicate balance of secrets and trumpets
I long to stretch angle cut of glass
And cheek
brass and bone
Burn me stubble of stubborn promised beard
Twisted plum lips
inviting
This regrettable love song

This Brooklyn impossible
This wrong side of the tracks affair
This pebbled stone and grit
This wish that you
Would wake under the swollen pull
That begs for you

Let me whisper this wish into the last star before morning:
kiss me like we are dying
like time travelers seeking home
beneath tangled tongues and clicking teeth
no, kiss me like I’m dying
allow me feed on the flesh of this bottom lip
you, ripe fruit of a mouth

take hold this treaty between
breath and heartbeat
the war is in the longing
the
quiet
let’s not sully this with questions
of fidelity
or love

own it flat
peppered
crust and mortar
lust and anger
fuck me like an inappropriate love song
naked with the ghost of your rejected youth
the first encouraged broken shards of heart
the second, fed it to her next lover
while you watched
the last bore you a mirror
that reflects your father
you love her so much; it smells like a well crafted hatred
and I’m here
struggling against the nothing we created
twice already
twice more before the sun returns home
before I return home

we are more alike than
I can respect myself for

So for just a moment, the clock on the window
will read 4:58,
the sky will split open
spilling morning onto this sacred city block
4:59, i will roll over
And whisper
i love you like it was the responsible thing to do
5:00 is when it must end
roll back and search for last night in the still dark of bedroom
allow your weight to shift
freeing the serpentine locks from the prison of the last hour

beg the door
then your sleeping back for answers
this staying or going

i find your hand still lost in sleep
oblivious to this tugging
slide everything side up
again

invite the weight
return to the quiver at the end of fingertips
serving one more sacred sacrifice
a salah into the morning
one more honest prayer before god wakes
an offering
an understanding
something like
one more hallowed and
careful hallelujah
before the sun

astaghfirullah