Take the Woods

I saw your eyes
carved in the bark of a tree
Your heart
stitched in the throat of a breeze

How comforting

I had a thought:
Maybe you're the me
I never get to see
cause I'm always looking in the mirror
at distorted flesh

We can never really see ourselves
outside of ourselves
accurately
and that shit makes more sense than gravity

But you
when I look at you
I see me

And I wanna love meyou but
I'm scared to

I'm so desperate to give it
Love
I starve myself
meaning I'll probably starve you too
and you'll leave
like I always want to
This place
This body
These thoughts in my head
that constantly ask questions full of
dead
ends

Yet still
I'm trying to make myself
make sense

So take the trees
take the river bend
take the smell of bird shit
and the gas from a skunks ass

You're too lovely for me to grasp

Take the woods.

A Free Write: Grammar Mistakes and All (no stopping no erasing)

Reach out into the corner
where I've hid the stone

I can't promise you that it'll work
   the stone I mean
I can't promise you love
    or comfort or mouthfuls
of empty screams @ night

I might run through flames
when the sunshines

I might leap into the oceans
spray and land ontop
    of my own throat

Im no magician
I do believe in ghousts

One called me a snow flake
Once cuz I melt so easily
I can not tolerate hugs
that harbor too much
  touching for too long

makes me want to swim
in the sea and drown
in seaweed soap

I don't believe in danger
because every breath is a

Stroke. A penny underneath
a cloud. I don't remember
being a child without
lonely thoughts or a
blankie that kept me
warm. I wish I knew.

Everything means nothing

no matter what we do, we
cant really change anything
that's already been done.

I think that's magic
that's probably the closest
we'll ever get to freedom

to toleration mid drift moans
and empty rooms full of
clutter.

I wanted that once.
peace to roam beneath my
feet. All I'd have to
do is
reach down and
pluck it from a shard of
melted belt buckle stones.

I could be soft, but I don't
know where to begin or where
to throw my shoe when it
moos.

I hope I find stability in
your left arm. In the
way you lean down and
kiss my knee. I hope
I find you sitting
beneath some old tree
praying for me to sit
beneath it with you.
If only it could be so simple
we dont know how to sit,
how to count without moving our feet. we don't
know how.
We keep passing each other by
keeping missing when we
fall on the same count.

We could be magnificent.
We could be dead in graves
and still love the wind
that speaks.

We could never exist and
still be
     just fine and thats
cool. I think I like
that idea for what it could
be. I wish I knew you
a thousand yesterdays
ago
     when I needed a friend
I never knew. I wish I
harbored you.
I'm so greedy so empty
so misfortunate.

She Comes and Goes

My feminine energy
knows: stagnation is hellfire to the brain.

When she leaves,
she goes
behind an empty space in my face;
I have a hard time remembering names,
forget how to identify my own pain,
fill the hole in with a smile so fake
it splinters.

I am content with her absence
(despite Lonely)
scratching at the soles of my feet.

Too many men have grown
in me

so I scramble to find her stench drenched
in every place I've never been.

Storeys

Convinced that I would never be satisfied with just one storey, I begged for eight, twelve, sixteen, and was devastated when I had to settle for the median of the three. I got twelve storeys full of human beings, hunger and greed, plots and schemes, needles and piss, dime bags and shit, and eventually the antagonistic feeling that lives would be better off without me. 

The feeling began when an eighteen-year old girl was shot in the face outside my front door; it grew persistent when an elderly woman was robbed and beaten half to death right on my third floor. There used to be or sometimes there are moments of peace, but they occur so infrequently. One day, I noticed how the sun rises and sets— warning us of the inevitable. I've never been a consequentialist, but something in me shifted.  

I heard a young boy state to his mother once, “Ma, we should move.” and she replied, “This is the best that we can do.” The young boy didn't make it to see twenty-two. The day after his death, I looked straight into the eye of the sun and begged it to melt away my storeys, but the sun denied my request. I blame myself for the young man’s death, and his mother, she blames me too. I know this because she finally took her dead son’s advice, and she moved. 

The Look

His eyes,
squinted to some incalculable degree,
tricks you into thinking that you've got something insightful to say:

"What?!" is all you chuckle up.
"Nothing," is his response.
He smirks and continues to stare.

What does this fucking look mean
and why does it make you want to measure his spleen,
clean his tongue to embrace the debri,
carve out a space in his heart
where you'd fit perfectly?

The Look,
looks the same on every face, but
We both know you:
Too afraid to stick around
long enough to discover
if what you believe the look to mean,
is true.

You always leave before they do.

Swim

my trouble is this:

I desire things in which I cannot give

my shortcomings
the evidence

my past:
consists of a mother
and many men 

and how she would bend
to their every whim

You will drown in me
so please

Take yo ass back to shore
and leave me be

Final Request

Oh! black birds,
do not look upon me—
buried beneath
old memories.

I am gripping my flesh
in hopes of a quick
death.

Ode to the Absence of you and the Presence of Me

The absence of love
is how I came to be
so naturally,
I know not what it means.

I like to taunt
my emotional instability.

Rumination

I've contemplated what it might be like

To give up and give in because I’ve been

Shattered bits for a time and two quarters,

All amidst angry ferocious waters.

Somedays I find myself trapped in a cave

That I’ve mistaken for a safe haven.

I’ve never before seen a blue feather

Beam across a night sky nor have I seen

An ole owl sing  and not been mesmerized by

The miss-tree that is infinitely cloaked in its his-tree;

I consistently interrogate my own vigilance.

Every story that I have yet to write

Stems from instances of intersection and digression;

My mind exists somewhere between an ocean and a stream. 

The Water Below

she has tossed herself
off a bridge
where the water below
is frozen.

Revolutionary Dream

You try not to end up dead

Like your brother

You name rain after your mother

You fill empty space with haste

And never dwell on the taste

Of dead things

You gnaw away at your bones,

You bite down,

Your teeth break,

And when you swallow,

Your teeth and bones do a war dance in your belly

You now lay throbbing on the corner of a street

A little girl walks by and kicks your bone filled belly—

Like a pebble

Your belly skips and sputters

Into a ditch

And lands upon the head of a dead rat

The little girl skips away 
and never looks back

Blues Poem

Beaten Down

So Low

So Slow

Torn from the Napes of Necks and Celestial Poles of Souls

Don’t They Know

This Body Harbors Precious Bones

                                     

The Mask Now Hides

In between phrases

And systematic

Chaotic occasions

It sinks beneath the circumference of your pupils

Camouflaging itself amidst the

White space

Unbeknownst to dark-space

It knows its place

“Can you see me?”

Like you ain’t never had to change

Yo darkness into light

Like you don’t know what one or the other look like

Separated from complex difference and change

“I just want to be free.”

Like you aint been singin that same song

Scratchin at yo pores

Til they scared to bloom

Tryna get em to fix they pitch so maybe just maybe

Yo skin could sing a song that all the world would find beautiful

“Have a little compassion.”

Like you aint felt pain

Changed it's name

And still had to deal with the slippery slopes

So

You wander and wonder about the coming years

Hoping it’ll pass through your skin/tear out the shrieks and sobs of History

And leave you

and yo kin folk

Alone.

Brown Clay Mother

im from where the sun shines like the mouth of a hurricane

where the devil touched down his devilish cane and

made thunder set loose pain in unseen parts

i aint here to love like so many have  known love to be given

tossed and torn apart

god

aint seen nothing like me befo

aint make me in his magic little factory

he bound to rain down on all my children

cuz i sound brown

cuz i am brown

he looks upon me and frowns

now aint that godly

aint that the godliest thing

to know all and be all

except whatchu aint create

Trees

There is no such thing as a tree unaccompanied:

Deep scars bestowed upon smooth dark bark

Marks left behind like abstract art

Insects taught to stitch deep wounds

Birds that hirp and chirp like baboons

Roots that know the earth and leaves that know the sky

Trees grow up, but are not meant to fly

Between

The chiseled anatomy of skyline and devastation.

When melancholy strikes,

Tis true:

Trees too sing wild and cruel songs of desolation

As they are left to moan and groan

Upon the very ground from which they’ve grown.

Ghost Angel

I see you.

I hear your wings.

You are spring and all flamboyant things.

You are solace, spice, cold ice

on a wounded leg.

One Monkey

Now a monkey is in a tree

by the ocean

by the sea

In a tree all on its own

free to roam

and inhale the ocean breeze

It sings to itself and swings from trees occasionally 

Time is of no importance

until it's body demands sleep

but even sleep doesn't really matter to the monkey

because

it has the ocean

it has the sea

It has everything it needs

Until It realizes

Deep down inside

It is lonely

So it swings and it swings

Then it takes a walk

Down by the ocean

Down by the sea

The ocean drowns the monkey.

Take

The strongest man endures the darkest days

But to endure does not mean that he simply

Takes

and

he takes

He takes and he cries and he takes and he breaks

He takes until his pain temporarily fades away

He takes to survive

Not to survive is to shake

Not to take is to break

So he takes

And

                        He

And

                                    He

And

                                                He

becomes weary

until out of his eyes he can see clearly

He breaks loose all his chains

He breaks.

The strong man inside that he has been searching for

He finds
He shakes 

and he cries

Pours out from the inside

The strongest man endures

Breaks down his burden doors

He takes
No more.

Parents not Present

Disclaimer: This is a spoken word piece. A video of me performing it, in collaboration with RoCMdance, will be below. 

Mama can you feed me, Daddy can you hold my hand*

I'm 

fighting these battles inside

constant dry tears in my eyes

keep my composure

in order to lie.

Gotta hide the truth

keep it hidden deep down inside

Don't wanna reveal the child
that feels she's the child

still awaiting her parents arrival.

Had my big brother tell me how my daddy,
beat my mama like she
was his rival.

Scary thing about this 

is this all took place 

while I was inside her 

I mean

Maybe 

just maybe 

They didn't want me 

because 

he

beat her 

and each and every time

she

chose to stay. 

Ma'ma can you feed me*

I remember. 

I remember being hungry

for your love and wishing you were always open to my hugs

but you desired a different kind of touch.

You constantly went searching for Him, no Him, no Him, no Him...

Left me

and my 3 brothers 

feeling like our love

was never quite good enough

but I realize now

that we were too much;

us combined formed a love that your hands couldn't even touch.

Daddy can you hold my hand*

You. 

You gave me music 

when I was in my mama's womb

but then you left when I was maybe one or two

used to listen to the tapes you made me and wonder how a voice so beautiful 

could make me feel so angry!

Your voice 

was my definition of music

but you left bruises

you left bruises on my mother 

and even though they may have faded before I was born

they remained and helped to color your name in with hate.

Growing up

I could see that she resented you.

Growing up

I constantly felt compelled to defend you

you; a man I barely even knew.

I try.

I try and give them 

the benefit of the doubt 

but for too many years

I've been waiting for them to straighten out 

and time

time is running out

I see 

Mountains up ahead 

got a trek here on my hands

a long hard journey

Parents not present

yeah that's a sad story

but I know 

I ain't the only kid that's been force fed that bedtime story

I'm tired

of disappointment

lack of tender love 

and devotion

All these dry tears, I'm drowning in a sandy ocean

I just wanna touch greatness! 

Been asking myself for so many years,

"if I was a mistake

why do I feel like I'm supposed to be here?"

I'm supposed to be here!

I wanna touch lives

be heard

amongst all the thunder

because I was not a mistake

I fought long and hard to reach that egg of life and

here I stand today

To say

Parents,

Parents Not Present,

Feed your child what they need

Teach them what it means to be worthy of respect 

because you see 

A child will never request perfection

just for you to be absolutely

Present.

.

Disclaimer regarding the video: 

 The poem has been edited since the video was recorded so the words you see here may not completely match the words spoken within the video (changes made mostly towards the beginning and end of the piece). I hope you are still able to take something away from both.