The certainty of seeing your face
When I arrived in the hidden place
Was gone forever in a split-second
Head down on the table like
You were sleeping, an eternal rest
Great sadness in the center of my chest
Those days are gone now
Pictures in storybooks
Cemented in my mind’s eye
No need to cry any longer
Your spirit is forever with me
(Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels)
I’m the type of person who puts my entire heart into everything I do
Love pours out from me like a tipped over water glass
Drenching everything on the map in front of me
Lines get blurred, everything mixes together
All aspects of my life live in harmony
Until the day that a sinkhole appears
The water rushes away from all areas of the map
And vanishes into this black abyss
Leaving only my tears to water to the desert my life
(Photo by Eric Muhr on Unsplash)
I’ve taken painstaking care
to avoid this moment
when the hot solar flares
take away my chance at atonement
for the crimes I’ve committed
& the lovers I’ve lost
for the criminals I’ve acquitted
& the innocent lives it cost
Continue reading
my body, dissolved in acid
is a fitting way for life’s end
terminate the contract of
my earthly stay
if you must
Continue readingmy fragile heart
cannot bear this world –
my heart is hard, scarred
after witnessing breaks of
societal conduct
street-rioters that make me
want to flee
to calmer colony planets
in sci-fi futures
where utopian dreams
are realized & we live up
to our potentials
(Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
the filthy-bearded man greets me
at six a.m., looking for a friend
he speaks gibberish, not knowing
where he is, how he arrived
at my steps, as i step back
he’s unmasked, skinny like an
old, crusted scarecrow with
scared eyes and smeared jeans
Continue readinga Black man has been slaughtered, again
shot like a dog, in front of family
did you see? it was broadcast
to millions of eyeballs
he suffered from bipolar
a disorder i share with this
now-deceased man
Continue readingi was careless with feelings
in my youth –
wolfing from bed to bed
only staying long enough to
get what i relished,
receding into ink-black nights
like a haunting, feeling guilty
but rationalizing
Continue readingin halls of power,
they sit in towers
away from us
on ground level –
high in clouds
sunlight is pure
not so for poor &
weary travelers
Continue readingThere are ghosts in my family –
I realize this as my mother tells tales
of a biological grandfather I never knew
who blew smoke in my face
when I was two
of years my father spent in jail
of anxiety that permeates
the family tree, which is
diseased & hollowed
about to crumple & topple
into grayish dirt
(Photo by Dikaseva on Unsplash)
