11/30/2009 (We are Both Aries)

I don’t wanna say

It’s the spring equinox

That makes me not

Want to speak to cops

But as Aries we share these

Issues with authority

So don’t pretend you were perfect

When you were born

Just three days before me

We were both lovers of freedom

Playing my kunta kente

In three-legged races

I was just better at

Bein a dictator of relationships

But could only master your moodswings in conversations

Cuz our intellectual minds

Are both from the Ram’s constellation

I don’t wanna believe celestial skies

Were the reason for our high sexual drives

As our zodiac position stands

We are conquerors of the world

Yet couldn’t control eachother’s attention spans

So when I was aggressive,

Restless

Quick-tempered and held grudges

You can judge us

But don’t blame me

That was our astrology

But when we were quick-witted

Champions of resistance

And there was never a day we met

And you didn’t laugh

Ignore the month of March

Pretend we weren’t born to start

Projects we couldn’t finish

Like learning to be together without fear

The Sun says we dislike admitting failure

So salvage the good in us and tell me

About the insignificant parts of your day

The Moon says we hate advice

So this is not a recommendation

Just a notice that I love you

And the Planets say we hate waiting

So don’t hesitate to call me

11/29/09 (Persona of Ink…early)

I spent two years in the pen
Last time I seen the outside
She kissed you for usin’ me
Speed through my eulogy
I’ll serve my death sentence
But I’ll be resurrected
In the form of spoken word
If she doesn’t read the ink on the page
I’ll go from incarcerated in a pen
To reincarnated to when
You say what you think on a stage

Poems are evidence of a con artist
I steal attention away from other women
I’m a felt tip felon, they are just jealous
That you write for her when
They’ve been waiting months for a poem
But she has been waiting years for an apology
For the return of sentimental valuables
You burglarized from her heart
So when you release me to inkblots
She’ll read your words like Rorschach cards
And think YOU are crazy
And she’s right

You should have wrote me into existence
For the general population to see that you loved her
Rehabilitating me is no compensation
For keeping me locked in
Ballpoint Alcatraz and Atticas
You should have wrote of your solidarity
But you kept my fine print
In solitary confinement
Instead of sanskrit, a Shawshank redemption
Forced me to escape through the sewage pipe of a pen
You treated me like a character from Oz on HBO
1 to 0 is an odd ratio
And much more is gone than fellatio
Even if she hears your song on the radio
Apologies can’t always be
Prettied up with poetry
And there’s no need to bag on yourself
But when it comes down to The Wire
She’d probably rather I
Be personified
As Avon Barksdale

You still haven’t slept completely
In this hallway house of partially written poems
But even when the apologies are finished
You will pretend ink can redeem you
You will say it with a straight face permanent as tattoos
That she can turn to blue watercolor with one laugh
So whatever words you use me to write
They will never do her justice
But let me tell her at the very least
That behind the metaphors and similes
Grotesque imagery
What I record is always a true story

11/28/09 (scrapbook of reserved judgments)

{too raw to share; read another day’s poem…}

11/27/09 (Mosaic of a Boyfriend)

The night I fell in love with you

You found me broken

Shards of glass

You pieced back together

Into a mosaic of a boyfriend

 

And even if you are God’s protégé

A novice artist

Won’t create her masterpiece

With love’s atheist

 

Forgive me for cutting your hands

As you molded me

To off-key Beethoven symphonies

Sympathies from your incomplete project

11/26/09 (we met under smallpox blankets)

We met under smallpox blankets
And bloodstained sheets
Me giving your pandora’s box fellatio
You wearing fishnets like
Barbwire fenses
When you closed your eyes
When we made love
Did you fantasize about a better me?
Do you miss me
Like a hostage showing empathy
For her kidnapper
Do you miss who I could have been
Us on the other side of a minefield
Where hugs don’t feel like holding cells

Sorry for not always being emotional present
It’s just that being with you
Was an out of body experience
Because I was too busy being in yours
We were more than mind sex
We were a logical fallacy of If/Then trip wires
That never made sense to cross
Our tears like self-inflicted
Chinese water torture
Is devaluing our love your exit strategy
Refusing to admit you miss me
Your peace agreement
Let me keep this…post tramautic stress
Cuz it’s the closest thing to what
Being in love feels like

This does not have to be a contest about who was right
I’ll always take runner-up
According to Geneva conventions
Just say if you’ll miss me
When apologies become cliche
Or atleast believable

11/25/09 (“Stardust” Laced with Cyanide)

Did cupid choke too hard?
Why didn’t he shoot arrows?
The flint would be easier to take
Than the string of his bow
He used as a noose
Your temper tantrums though
Are what Jimi Hendrix sounds like on violins
What cupid’s catchupa tastes like with caviar
Instead of a fried egg
The aroma of toast
While comatose
Never waking for breakfast
Because it’s “mourning”
And that time of day is a homonym
For the expressions of sorrow I feel

Tomorrow I will
Rethink your temperate
Not as metaphor
Or me as a matador
Sucking your breast
Til the angry bull dozed off
I should have bulldozed all
My bullshit aside, and loved you dangerously
With a bull’s eye on my chest, so aim at me
Cupid could shoot a bazooka
A Gatling gun,
An arrow of Nat King Cole
“Stardust “ laced with cyanide
And you’d dress the wounds in
Aloe lotions whose
Main ingredients were poison ivy
And Black Widow spider venom
And you would kiss the bruises

11/24/09 (as a nightmare)

It felt like we fit perfectly when we fucked
Are there imprints of my dick still inside you
Preserved like fossils
My fingers explored a New World
Like Columbus discovering a g-spot
But forgot there were people there
Before me

Your body
I studied like anthropology
Until full immersion in
The inner cultures of your thighs
Had my own body going “Native”
So each one of my orgasms
Still beats to your tribal drums
Cumming just doesn’t feel the same
With other percussions

Tongue ran from your mouth
Like Indian Jones in
Hidden temples
Your breasts, booby traps
Your menstrual cycle, quicksand
And eventhough we are old
We were fly
But who cares about the bones of
A terradactyl

We were exclusively carbon dating
Keeping track of our days
Like they were ancient
Now the Post-it “I love you” notes I wrote
Really do seem like Dead Sea scrolls
And love letters can only be seen
With microfilm
I only hear Corrine Bailey Rae over white noise
“Like a Star” sounds like broken MAYDAY! frequencies
Pre-release Alicia Keys’ “No One”
Before the time the Arabs discovered
The number zero
Then the expectations of the song
Would never have been thought of
Make Lauryn Hill’s “Ex Factors”
An artifact of… Us
Have our dark pictures
Bleached in Sepia

We were before seaweed and algae
Cover a shipwreck
Before the Aztecs trusted the Spaniards
Mammoths before the Ice Age

But what we have is a Roman Coliseum
Left in ruins
So there are no gladiators here
Fighting for an “us”
And I’m not asking you to
Excavate ancient burial grounds
I’m just asking you to poach my tomb
For the leftover treasures we had
Not trying to be a ghost of your past
That you filter out with dreamcatchers
Just a reminder that,
You don’t always have to remember us
As a nightmare

11/23/09 (avalanche inside you)

Do you also tell

Your Achilles heel you’re okay

Then try to heal it away

Are you trying to freeze me out

Like your Plantars

Is the plan hard

Trying to

Quickly rid me from your night when

You speak liquid nitrogen

Hide me from close friends

Like socks snatched from clothes pins

Fit firmly over fungi feet

Do you sometimes see

The warmth in me

But still remain so cold

To this recovering pyro-maniac

But truth be told

I can’t say I’ve changed my act

And that’s my old image

When you’ve rightfully so

Kept my shame in tact

Preserved pain in soul

Like cryogenics

But how can you give me ice stares

When I see your eyes thawing

When will you start defrosting

Kodak moments from freeze frames

I already had my chance beside you

I’m just tryin to help melt that

Avalanche inside you

11/22/09 (A Heaven I Cannot Reach)

A Heaven I Cannot Reach

I cannot convince you
That I am worth holding hands with
When these are the hands that
Destroyed our relationship
I cannot fill compliments with helium
To reach goals
Like balloons let go
Into the stratosphere

Meet me half way between
The holed o-zone of your heart
And the ground zero of your vagina
Stomach the disaster of us like it’s natural
Show me Hell on your feet
And I’ll still want to taste Heaven on your lips
It’s not that I didn’t like to kiss you
It was just hard knowing
I had to keep dying in order to reach Kingdom come
I wasn’t strong enough to hold the throne of your face
It was easier to rummage through the debris of your clit
With my tongue
Because then
I didnt have to be majestic

You won’t slap me
Because it will resolve my guilt
And all the things I have given
The fridge
The phone
The awareness of a hymen
Are broken
“Symbolic of our failed relationship”
You say
We are a defect
But you still have my bed sheets
Carrying your scent of lullabies
That rocked me to sleep
When we were fighting

Late night
I gyrate between thigh space
Pinpoint points where I wanna lick
Hip joints
Connect til you pull away irate
By mistakes
I made
2 years ago
And ones I am repeating at this very moment
You have a list
Weighing pros and cons
And the scale tips heavy
Out of my favor

I try to maintain balance
By reminding you
I can be a good person
You say, “Yes, but all of your relationships will be doomed”
As you nonchalantly order a cup of coffee
My only motivation for meeting
Is to jog memories because the thought
Of you runs through
My subconscious
I’ve just been too proud to remember stories
Without you being there to laugh with me
But when I ask your motives
You say the free Mango chicken
And smile a Heaven I cannot reach
With any repentance