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Detroit to Los Angeles to San Francisco, and back to Detroit. Writer; Irresponsible linguist. Poet; apprehensive towards convention. Reverent of lineage. Teacher. Student. Backseat DJ. Passionate about tech. Passionate about people. Grammatically correct (ish). A dreamer. A builder. Storyteller.
![the.gr[e]y.painter by essenceofsky](http://24.media.tumblr.com/avatar_7451cb9d278b_40.png){kind=avatar}
It’s kind of ridiculous that you’re expected to get out of bed EVERY day
My ribs may be
brittle, but my
heart’s intentions
have fashioned these
bones into a wooden bier.
Dear ___________,
I know I only met you momentarily
I know we...
🎶De waves dem a-rock 🎶 Ferry ride with the fam @kukufikir ❤ From Oakland to San Francisco 👌🙏😎 (at...
She crossed and
stretched her arms and hands;
used a cashmere collar to
pull her curls into a crown
and when they fell back
towards earth and every chakra
I knew how to open,
there were droplets of
light
falling out {onto};
(over)
the holes I’d dug ]into[
)out of(
myself.
Her dress hadn’t seemed
that ready to loose itself
until it fell
off like it saw it’s freedom
lying on the floor around her ankles
She was all
“Put-up-or-shut-up,” and
“follow-suit-or-turn-away.”
So
he undressed himself —
showed
skin and scabs
and suture scars;
there were places he looked like
an amateur first attempt at
quilt work.
she ran her hands
over
rough, raised seams;
fingertip-tight-rope-walked the edges
of pasts he had made a part of him
and
asked if she could have her own square.
he looked at her like she was hallowed;
hollow behind his eyes
“you don’t understand,
these are the things I can’t forget:
the things that took a part of me with them,
as they walked out of doors,
or jumped out of windows,
or stood in the centers of rooms in houses I learnt carpenter building as they smiled, watching them burn —
things that left holes that needed to be covered.
I hope you never need one, if only
because I hope I never need another one.”
My hands always shake
when I hold her
up:
like a map I’m struggling and
hungry to read
under divebar lights —
she, and I, and everything that lives in the
negative space between our shadows;
four shots wet, me frantically
stenciling her curvature on to
anything I can convince myself
might be more permanent
than this moment:
napkins wet from
the anti-convulsant-liquid-courage they carried
dotted with places I’ve travelled
and others I hope to go.
Can’t tell if she has become
my Atlas,
or if I just want
so badly to be hers
that I’ve begun to see
a world painted on her skin
that I hope I can fit and carry —
tattooed across
scarred shoulders.
Couldn’t feel
your ‘far’
until a cell phone
picture of ‘close’
reminded me
of how when I reach
my arm out (as
far as it goes),
i’m barely
breaking the surface of the water;
left asking whether
you were the stone
that caused the ripples
running up my fingers
like they know me
Tomorrow:
wake; laugh
uncontrollably
a shout-followed-by-an-apology-because-you-didn’t-mean-to-be-that-loud
or a guffaw-guffaw-guffaw-snort
for each time you ran yourself
ragged
chasing
love;
trying to clutch
water in leather-pruning palms
you blamed your fingers and knuckles
for their leaks and insolvencies,
like they weren’t exactly the way
God gave them to you,
instead of washing
your hands
and eating
with me.
She got lost at the corner;
that place where his dimples broke open
and formed a delta;
mouth of tooth and gum and voice and tongue
fertilized by a lifetime more smiles
than numbers know how to name.
She immediately became
overwhelmed
by all the deficiencies
she’d never had problems counting up to.
Tried to add up the downs and get a number that felt right for him,
and cried over the left overs,
never letting go of the remainders,
asking her pillow why this division took so long.
The closest thing to happy
this young life has learnt
was when she handed me a palette
full of colors I couldn’t name
and kissed me into a painter;
kissed herself into a canvas;
let me brush stroke her into a portrait
of what it
feels like inside of my hands when i looked at her.
And then suddenly:
you feel the bottoms your shoes turn to omnivorous mouths of starving shop-vacs —
you feel your soul grabbing,
clawing, desperate against
whatever lives at the bottom of your stomach
as it is inhaled through your soles
and left in the fear-filled footprints you’ve
never
not
walked
in
You almost break your neck,
looking back out of a window that seems never to show you enough of your past
as you realize that you forgot to pick
up your bags off the ground at the bus stop.
You had set them down
(gentle;
like they were prone
to shatter)
when a man you decided you wanted to grow up to be
asked you for a light.
All you could think was that he had done what you wanted:
he’d found a way to live his life.
He was, or sure seemed, free, and
happy,
and other adjectives
that you didn’t know
existed adjacent to real life possibility.
You had spent the mini-steps back onto the bus telling yourself
that you were not going to cry —
thought that it wouldn’t be something
that the man
would have done.
You had walked down the aisle to your isle of a seat thinking
that you had no idea how you would ever
carry
all
of
your
stuff
to the place you planned
to chase to.
Never stopped, or asked
what happened inside —
how you might have found your faith affected
when I sharpened the notes from your songs
and flew them off the first cliff I was able to find
or stood on your praise until I was sure
it’s pulse had gone as flat as Brittney singing in the bathroom.
I never asked if it, or you ever re-inflated, and songbirded your way to Lazarus.
I just ran
because I was piss-scared of
all of the things I could do wrong from
your pulpit.
like a man walking a wire
between buildings that scrape up and through
the bottoms of clouds
who has fallen and
somehow
not broken,
but bounced.
tightropes that bridge and
separate attractive
from attracted
are exercises in the
balancing of
inequity
It feels like
every poem I write these days
is either about you,
or an attempt at psalve or… psalm,
keystroke baptisms,
buttons pressed to and through holy water
like coarse grounds in French presses;
like prayers inhaled on the floor of swimming pool deep ends;
after all — things that matter are usually in danger of drowning and
must be
whispered
even in crowded bars, two or four or six drinks later, after they tell you about how you never have to go home, and how you absolutely have to leave now;
you drunkenly stumble to the train cursing the fact that you didn’t bring a jacket to offer her.
You slur that you’re sorry, and she looks back like she is submerged and confused and whyareyouapologizing?
she texts him
she hugs you goodbye.
There is no Rosetta stone for
the migratory patterns of hearts on love,
or other drugs with a similar boot —
they only exist in their native language.
these poems are built of all the things
that I can’t find tongue for.
and somewhere, the hope
that you will read it.
never realized
love, or like, or this
had math in it
until we sat side by side.
we counted up all of the things
with razor edges
and soft-sides
any song, or dance, or smile, or poem we could find
inside of us
that reminded us of each other’s name
and never spoke
about the difference
in sum.
tip toed careful round tulips
until we had thoroughly
crushed every root sleeping under the young soil
felt so proud of ourselves, for having
steered clear of stem and blossom;
convinced we had chosen steps wisely,
until petal after petal fell and
told us different
I walk around
jetting a name toward skies I’m scared by;
syllables flying from my tongue like
fighter jets launching from a sinking carrier.
Each phoneme uttered is armed:
is terrified:
consonants and vowels suffering from
pre-and-post traumatic stresses:
They can still remember learning how to smile
through bad haircuts
and their first class pictures.
They stand like child soldiers,
who were forced to grow up too soon;
forced to fight and live the way their fathers died.
Fight and live for men in suits and stars;
men disinterested in the admission that the war is
dormant
or lost
or won, but
definitely over.
I’ve done some rezoning
Repurposed the real estate
Inside my ribcage for industry
Built reactors and fissive devices and
Generators and converters
Translate myself for sockets and plugs
This is not how I speak, normally.
This is not what I am.
For you,
this is all that I am.
On tap
Beckonable
Every outlet
Every room
Everywhere I am used
To charge your cell phone.
