But We Don’t Have The Money Or A Way To Get Out Of Here.

Sweet Tea Time

It's the hurry up and wait that gets you

The slow turning of everyday into some day

The glacial slide of present into future as days melt together like the ice in a glass on porch on a hot summer afternoon

The heat of decision turning ice cold anticipation into chilly condensation as choices lead to consequences lead to cool reality and lukewarm peace as you sip on still sweet tea, less refreshing but still speaking of love and home on the tongue till someone else makes a decision

To put more ice in your cup

Lately I've been staring myself in the face again

Looking deep into my eyes and coming to terms with who I find

Not a scared girl

Not a strong man

Just me and all my insecurities

I find a kind heart that wants to know

I find a brave soul willing to grow

I find a tender heart willing to show all the love that I possess

I find self expression not in skirts or suits but the marriage of the two

I find happiness in being me without labels, naked and free

Stripped bare of expectations there's a place of exultation where I can be

Simply me

Nightmares Part 4

I was alone once more the journal was left on the table that had mysteriously appeared beside the bed the day the walls changed colors. I was afraid. I felt the compulsion to write, but when I picked up the pen I wrote obsessively, like I was attempting to make the words stay by willpower alone. The only way I could stop writing was if forced, otherwise, I would forgo food, drink, sleep and other necessities in favor of writing. They left me, the doctors left me to write for the eternity, never stopping me, I wasted away. The words taking all that I was or could have been. I died a husk, totally drained and floating in oblivion.

Airports

There’s something romantic about airports

I don't mean romantic in the way of falling in love but in the way of how its an in between hub

airports are a stop from dream to reality

from sadness to joy

from missing to hugging

from chance to certainty

And as I sit in this airport, the day after the longest night I can’t help but wish I could sit in this moment forever 

This moment of chance, this moment of opportunity

I COULD get on the flight that I booked ahead of time and go to my planned destination

I COULD continue on with my life completely unchanged waltzing from plan to plan as some fall apart and some fall into place

Or I could not

I could follow my feet where they want to go

Pick a random gate, buy a ticket at the desk and board a plane to destinations unknown

See what I can make of life in this new place

If I wanted, the option is there for me to start completely over in a new place with a new name and a new purpose

Who would I be if I chose that? Would I still be me? Would a new name and a new place and a new job change me so completely that even those closest to this current version of the person I am wouldn’t recognize me?

Or would I surface the same? Would I have the same insecurities and personality? Would my music taste change or my the way I liked to dress? Or would I be even more me? Like a less watered down version of the me that I am currently?

Light

I saw the light of day begin to dawn

I watched the final rays of moonlight die

I’ve seen the end of life

And birth begin

I know when my frail breath will leave my lungs

It's hot but it's not too hot it's hot in that summer, carnal, sweet sweat and hard work smelling strong of sawdust and body odor way

And you only get it from working in the sun, sweat doesnt smell the same if it's a hike or just sitting outside or a workout indoors in the winter

There's some . . . Visceral about hard work sweat in the summer

It's original sin

A wet hot American summer

Adam eating "the apple" under a blazing sun feeling the sweat bead under his curls at the back of his neck at the same moment that sticky savory juice graced his lips changing forever how he saw the world

It's what the pope fears more than anything

Raw

Humanity

Unfiltered

Un fettered

Animals running flat out across a grassland under golden rays

Laying in the shade of trees older than their speech

All their warts and beauty on display for anyone to see

Drops of it, stories encased in wet salt hit the ground and color it dark in a silent plea for rain

Where I am From (again)

I am from warm hugs

From sweet child O` mine lullabies and a star wars bedtime story

I am from rowdy boys crowded around a bridge ready to jump

I am from puppies in a bin baying and crowding around a mother basset

I am from apple pie dreams and hands older than me and stories spoken over

Laughter and the smell of food cooking in the oven

I am from the morning

Warm sunshine smiles and daisy chain afternoons

Brothers with too tall bodies and too small sensibilities

Confused and wonderful

I am from a garage

Alternative rock, the smell of grease and men and fixing the problem

Pieces clicking together like a puzzle

I am from a field

Scratches bug bites and high grass

Scrapes and bruises falling out of trees and into fun

I am from costuming

Bright sequin, improbable characters, and laudable performances

Lines not quite memorized but somehow funnier that way

I am from competition

Racing past a sibling or cousin to get through the kitchen first without being scolded by that one aunt

To

Racing through the air trying to get to a ball just beyond my fingertips so I can pound it into the ground before it’s blocked

I am from a kitchen

Smells that evoke nostalgia in every southern heart

All the sisters, cousins, aunts and grandmother gathered in the kitchen with bustling mouths laughing as they cook turkey, potatoes and cranberry jam and the menfolk watch football and the kids play a façade of the game of the day

I am from elegance

Being taught table manners, learning how to walk in 6"s and how to do my makeup from a favored aunt for the prom

Learning how to be a lady

I am from vibrancy

Spinning sepia-tinged memories filled with stars dreams and sadness

I am from a field lying between my parents learning Draco, the dippers, mars, and planets chasing the sisters and running from Orion’s bow

I am from the stars

A new adult wandering the earth

My head in the clouds with lofty ideas, hopes, and longing to be the cause of change

I am from a promise

A promise to learn

A promise to live

A promise to laugh

A promise to cry

A promise to succeed

A promise to fail

A promise to be me

it feels so disingenuous and false to be writing a personal statement about how I wanted to save the world when I am applying to a university that  contributes to those issues. The world is ending and I am passing my time by trying to put on the facade of a higher class than I am so that what, do I can fit in? so I can get a job? what the fukc is the use of that

"I think I have cancer, no really I think I have cancer" she said as she shook his shoulders trying to get his attention

"babe last week you had the avian flu and the week before that you had ringworm and the week before that you thought you had meningitis"

"seriously though look I have a growth on my neck just below my ear" she pulled his hand around to feel what she was talking about, he felt the spot and yes there was something there

"okay, I'll call the doctor tomorrow and we will get it looked at" they went to bed peacefully and awoke with all the trappings of the next day forgetting about the previous nights conversation, she mentioned it a few more times and each time he promised he'd go with her to her doctors appointments, or remind her to call the doctor so they could go get it looked at

-but they never did, just like he didn't believe her when she was convinced her cough meant avian flu and her spot on her arm meant ringworm and her headache meant meningitis but this time... they should've

Most of the famous love poems begin at the writer,

“Shall I compare thee to a summers day?” “How do I love thee, let me count the ways” “When I love you, I become Liquid light”

and the focus is on how the love affects the author.

You are not loved like that

You are loved from afar by a host of witnesses, partial observers who sing your praises and laud your name. I am merely one of many who’s life’s been changed by your black girl magic.

You are the flower and the sun, an entire ecosystem of beauty, pain, feral aggression, and nurturing softness trapped within skin and summarized with stardust.

You are the rot that consumes, dark slick fertility doing away with that which is dead and dying, prying life away from the undeserving.

You are an all-powerful inevitability, like mycorrhiza, interconnected and an engine of reincarnation turning that which you kill with your terrible, exquisite existence into vibrant life.

You are the power of a fire set spinning into a void, so intense that it attracts life and inspires art and who’s mere proximity is the Prometheus of existence.

You are an illustration of regeneration in motion.

You are not just a pretty girl, or a smart woman or a good person.

You are a vision of the universe manifesting itself to experience life and doing it with such style and grace that it takes my breath away.

And so, I will not disgrace you with talk of the love of possession.

the love of self, reflected in the face of the other.

the love only begat by desire

or need

or lust.

Instead, I will pray to you in the way that the moon prays to the sun.

I will describe the love of a devotee as they turn their face to the façade of their goddess and stand in awe of her power, majesty, and the ineffable certainty that they are unworthy.

I will set a record in stone of the magnificence of you.

I will, if given permission, promise to learn you

I will cleave my soul to yours leaving behind a love that endures and will never end, merely change forms

I will inscribe my adoration on the monolith of you, perfect, deific, angelic, demonic, human,  you

I will learn your habits, like how you take your morning coffee

I will create tender, intimate moments where I simply watch and wonder at the gift of you in my life

I will love you, with every burning, bared, imperfect part of my broken, bruised, and barely beating heart