II.

I've wrote a thousand words about you inside my head that never made it to paper.
I have all these words coiled tightly around my tongue,
words I never let out their cage.
I bite into my own flesh to fight the release of speeches with too much meaning,
but very little comprehension.
Every complex sentence that I would pin to the inside of your eardrums
would go searching for something in you to care.
Missed opportunities cupped inside your hands,
occupying the space where I should be.
You feel like a secret that I've held onto since before I could speak.
So I kept you tucked away behind my sternum,
snuggled next to my heart, selfishly.
And I bit my tongue in mixed company,
in fear that everybody could see through my flesh
and find you and every word I've hid about you.
My heart is drunk with an idea that could never be.
You intoxicate me.
You're a comfort I've always had, just misplaced.
I want to show you every emotion for you I've kept wrapped around my ribs,
caged behind distant memories.
Times I've feuded with myself to hold my composure
and keep my hands to myself
when my finger tips are begging to know
how many scars you have
and memorize the lines God etched into the palms of your hands.
Times I wished I could be fluent in your body language
so that we didn't have to tear a moment apart with words neither of us understood.
But instead,
we exchanged sandpaper love songs
that scratched at us until we bled
and avoided the conversation neither of us had the courage to have.
So we let questions build up inside our stomachs for the butterflies to feed on.
Everything I know is borrowed, broken or blind,
including you,
a dangerous mixture of all three.
But what I’ve seen of beautiful in the past
now feels merely implied compared to you.

I.

If I’m human, how does the world drift me around without my consent?
Who gives the permission to my peers to use me like tools as they neglect to cherish me? 
I always forgive but its a task to forget. It’s consistently the same thing. 
I watch friends and enticed flames grow roots around my ribcage and bait me into showing them how to open locked doors with no obvious space for a key. 
I let them inside, 
times after I promised no one else would tread within the temple or gaze upon my weaknesses. 
And I tend to put my hope in the wrong seeds and they never grow to be the kind of dream I want them to be. 
I need them to be flowers. 
I worry that I’ll always be the lover and never the loved. 
Cuz everyone’s heart is looking for a throne room 
but they always oblige my chest temporarily until some other pedestal is divinely delivered that seems to hold them better but is less of a challenge to get on. 
So one after another, 
I become the change that needs to be made to in order to achieve perfection and I am unapologetically discarded. 
And I pluck the dry weeds, that never sprouted floral buds, from the space beneath my collarbones. With one blade I buzz, 
“You love me” 
and whisper 
“You love me not” with the next. 
What excuse is there for all the failed gardens that tried to flourish in the fence of my bones? 
There’s rainy days, 
my eyes puffed up the size of heavy gray clouds. 
I keep the sun hidden in the creases of my smile just to share in moderation. 
But nothing grows with me. 
Only apart.

Love Songs

Everything I had only seen in dreams

had manifested itself right in front of me

and I touched it.

I dug my fingertips into his flesh like I was caressing piano keys,

hoping to leave my fingerprints embedded in his soul.

I used my nail to carve my name into his lungs,

praying that with every breath he took in,

he unconsciously sang my name

and when he exhaled,

a love story bellowed from somewhere deep within.

Somewhere that had always been inside him

but was begging to be awaken,

so that he could thrive the way God meant him to.

He gave me goose bumps.

And they rose up like braille all across my skin

and wrote a lyric to an undeniable melody.

Like Shakespeare and Sade had collaborated

to write the world’s most enticing love ballad

and they used my heartbeat like an 808.

Together, we could be music.

And my heart would be crooned by

the vibrations in his voice.

His lips would know the words to songs he’s never even heard of

because every verse reminds him of our love.

My eyelashes would be acoustic guitar strings

and when I blinked,

our tune would softly echo in the space around us,

growing louder with time

until the sound was unbearable

and he was incapable of ignoring that

I’m standing right in front of him !

Hollowed,

insides pulsating,

hands shaking,

waiting,

always waiting.

We could harmonize.

A pleasing combination of two being drawn together as one

and I could sample every missing beat of my heart from his

and I would share my breath with him.

I could stop hiding behind metaphors

and lopsided soliloquies backed by

wounded symphonies.

I’d leave lyrics on his lips every time we kissed

because these words

are stapled like a secret to the back of my throat

pleading to said,

no longer wanting to be wait to be heard

and accepted.

And when our voices grew tired of singing,

we could love each other instrumentally,

vocals removed,

bodies speaking on our behalf,

stripping every layer down

until we are raw, uncut versions of ourselves.

Love and Other Drugs

and i leave you with this.
i hope these words travel like smoke from my lips
and replace the air in your lungs
so that when i'm not in a
hand-holding,
tongue-wrestling,
skin-caressing distance,
you can hear some of these lines
every time you breathe out.

and maybe you'll need me then
like i need you now.

so excuse me if i seem a little anxious.
its just...
i want so badly to be naked with you.
i want us to leave every stitch of our clothes on
and pull back our souls layer by layer
until we know every story that accompanies every scar.

and when we're done catching up on old mistakes,
i want to let all of my inhibitions go
and learn the description of your veins
as they go racing to your heart.
so thoroughly that i could,
describe them to a blind man
who's never known the feeling
of being lost in someone's eyes,
day dreaming of love making on cloud nine.
high.

and all my dreams and
drug-like acid trips are the color of your complexion.
nothing else.
just your skin,
filling every canvas of my thoughts.

good thing i think you're the most beautiful thing God ever made.

and i don't mind seeing your face etched on the inner surface of my eyelids,
picturing you wearing my thighs like earmuffs
in world gone cold,
you're the one that makes me feel warm,
like i have the sun perched inside my rib cage
keeping it safe for any future rainy days,
so when you need a sunrise,
i can stitch you one
just for you to place your prayers on.

i would do that for you
because well,
i love you.

and i hate that i have to sum up the way
my palms sweat
and my stomach still crowds with butterflies
even after all this time of
melting into your kisses
and needing your hugs while i'm sleeping
into these three little words
that wouldn't even have a definitive meaning
without your existence.
but baby,
these three little words
are all i have.

Brownsuga* Skin

Written at 5am...what's sleep anyways ?

Please don't forget that I'm your rib.

Cause I've been here for so long that

you tend to disregard me

and strike me from

your thoughts and memories.

But every time you breathe,

you feel me,

and with every step that follows,

I lure u in,

like a sin

to be committed and forgiven.

My lips drawn speechless,

harborin secrets

and barring unadorned kisses.

Skin whisperin of the Garden of Eden,

holdin scents of fruits and flower petals.

And this is how you find me,

clothed by nothing but the Sun.

I'm without shame

and you can see my every scar

and mark tickled into my body's frame,

you beg to know my body's name.

The wind screams 'Beauty'

and without question,

you agree.

Laid out in front of you

is me.

A once blank canvas painted with

the colors of beach sunsets and spring rains.

Autumn hikes across my veins,

and my smile embodies full moons.

Cheeks rosy with aroused heat and anticipation

as your fingertips draw near me.

Amazement crawls its way between us,

draggin lust on its backside.

You lick love into my insides,

sweet honey bee nectar hidden deep within my thighs.

You're buzzin 'round,

tracin my every curve with wide eyes of disbelief,

tongue draggin with hopes of mischief.

This is brownsuga* skin...

breasts perked high at attention,

back arched just slight so the view is just right.

Womanhood drippin like a question mark,

soaked with my own curiosities.

Body parts swellin with pleasure,

every nerve on edge,

temptations crawling over my goosebumbs.

This is ecstasy.

Satisfaction buried deep within my pigment.

Strength tangled in my complexion.

There's no soul like the one trapped in brownsuga* skin.

Baby, my name is Black** Woman. 

*To be replaced with an adjective that describes your complexion. Our shades are so full of flavor and sensuality but when I wrote it, I felt like I had wrote it for anybody. All shades are beautiful and are open to acceptance.

**When I originally wrote it, I had just wrote Woman. But I'm Black...lol. Basically the word itself is interchangeable with any other ethnicity or can just be left out and said as Woman. Again, I wrote it for anybody and all women are beautiful in their own way just by the mere fact that we're women. Please don't forget that you are his rib. We're the strength of the world and whatnot, works of art. =)

The Discovery of a Void (And Its Eventual Acceptance)

Written earlier this week...


I am on an endless search for substance.

Something tangible that I can wrap myself around.

And every time I think I’ve found it,

my fingers part their separate ways

and I watch as the little bits of concrete certainty

slide from my grasp.

I always put my hope in the wrong things.

I rip my faith apart at its seams

and release all the little pieces into

winds that float on dark horizons

and I pray that God will find them in them morning

and return along with them

the emotions that I’ve lost.

Emotions that have been consumed by

a complete inability to translate them

into words that hold any value.

It’s almost like I’m screaming

but you can’t hear me.

Either I’m not loud enough or

you’ve turned deaf ears and blind eyes to me,

anything to bury me six feet below your realities.

I’ve lost all my friends to either

distance or distrust.

I’ve tried to keep people from turning into shadows.

I always fail.

The blades of their tongues

always cut the arch of my back

leaving me to rebuild on top of old scars every time.

And they disappear while I’m tending to my wounds.

But everyone always leaves behind their pictures,

photographs of me and them smiling into lenses that know nothing of our fate.

I wonder is this how everything ends,

in two dimensions

that fail to mention

that once our lucks and dooms were

intertwined and connected

so much that when I inhaled

your lungs dispersed my oxygen back out into our atmosphere.

I always trust that everyone will be there.

But all these expectations soon find their way to empty promises.

Empty promises that carve out voids beneath my skin

and wait to be discovered.

I struggle.

But I make companions of my empty spaces.

I crave their solitude.

These detections of holes within my soul are

a confirmation of my fears.

Proof that even with them here,

I still exist.

Anatomy

Never have I ever written something and not known why...it's almost like another part of me wrote this while I stood on the sidelines and watched. It doesn't feel like me...but it feels like something kinda familiar...I think. Or maybe I'm just rusty...lol

Written about a month ago...

My body is a temple.

And yours knows the password to unlock all my secrets.

A slight part of my lips tries to tell you stories of my organs

but instead I end up inhaling your being.

And your soul crawls through my airway and makes itself comfortable next to mine.

I admire your posture so intensely that

your regal strength whips itself around my spine and rips the insecure slouch from my body.

I don't know if I'm standing with you or for you

but my body has never been so perpendicular to heaven and it feels sweet.

Your soul grips me,

its new found mate,

internally and my eyes jump to yours for reassurance of the at hand occurrence.

Your eyelashes are reminiscent to acoustic guitar strings

and every time you blink,

it’s like deep, sultry music to my ears.

And my fingertips begin to ache to feel you.

I know the second we meet skin to skin,

our complexions will devour each other

and blend themselves into a shade too beautiful for description.

And the goose bumps...

the goose bumps will be like braille to the blind

so that even they can know of the lyrics seeping from our pores.

My lungs are filled to capacity with the dancing of our souls.

They begin to expand inside of me

and my sternum starts to crack with excitement

until the skins rips itself away from my frame and leaves me open.

Exposed.

Vulnerable. 

Brown sugar pours from my veins and your tongue catches every drop.

You tell me I taste angry.

But you know I'll linger with an aftertaste you'll always remember,

even on the days u try to force yourself to forget.

My heart creeps near our toes,

struggles to stay whole without its shelter.

You can see every crack and scratch

and we can both hear a faint beat that sounds like its groaning your name.

My whole face flushes the color of hot summer sunsets with embarrassment.

And you laugh.

Of all things to do, you laugh.

And I feel my eyes swell up with the Great Lakes.

I know so much emotion is about to fall out

of this bare cavity that used to house the heart

now perched at your ankles begging for your attention.

But your lips send their apologies

and they place themselves against my own and dance themselves into a frenzy.

I cave into your chest for security and protection…

but mostly for the comfort of your anatomy.