blood orange

You’re a tough one, skin thicker than most.
Probably because you’ve lost something that matters
One too many times.
Determined not to let another get out,
As much as you’d rather not let the pain in.
Now thinking that what’s left inside,
Though not especially special to others,
Is the sweetest of sweet that is misunderstood by them……..

5th

I think I’ve been struck with the notion that calendars were of no use to me.
Because whether it’s February, April or the very first anniversary
That I know I’d want to have with you,
The urgency I currently nurture into a fervor is my desire
To get to know you better on an on-going basis.
We can steal as many glances as we want,
Until I get a little excited and decide to borrow one instead.
Because it will get returned.
Eyes locked like the lips of those saying goodbye,
Yet have ‘hello’ already chambered in their throat eager to welcome
Them back with the same kiss.
I want you, miss.
As politely and as pushy one can be, mixed into one desire
To balance both on the tip of my tongue
Like the high-wire act of wearing my heart on my sleeve is.
See I’ve caught a glimpse of loving you
And the view was as glorious as first glance,
Yet hard to fully judge like your first impression.
Now pardon the audacity of what I want my future to look like,
But the confidence of me wanting a good woman,
Is far different from the arrogance of me ever thinking I deserve you.
I am a firm believer that if you have a desire, let it be true.
Because sometimes that truth will have you
Tracing my last steps with you on Google Maps,
Trying to relive our most recent moments in an effort to
Prove that this isn’t the thirst that’s triggering things.
It’s nostalgia.
And that memory that gravitates to my mind
Hopes to catch your orbit sometime.
Because if you do remember,
Then the battle of winning you over is half won.
With the other half setting up shop in the spot
That your ripe smile occupies,
Waiting for the grasp of my bravery to pick it
As my favorite fruitage of effort and action.
You gave me me an impression that’s stood to be long-lasting
And is now halfway to indelible……..

sniper

Basic fundamentals of its craft state that a true marksman
Pays attention to the detail of their camouflage.

One day she was dressed in passive.
The following day, disguised in aggressive.
And for the next few weeks,
Cloaked herself in a manner that made it look like
She genuinely had an interest.
Know your enemy, they say.
So one question lead to another,
And my favorite colors lead to my proudest moments
And what I craved for at the moment
Contributed to her reconnaissance as much as
My favorite song gave away the exact location
To my vantage point.

I saw as much as she wanted me to see.

But by the time I realized that the walls I let down some
Were in direct line of sight to the crosshairs
She had painted across my chest,
The ruckus caused by the ricochet of bullet
Within my innermost was almost as big a mess
As the exit wound at the bottom of my ribcage.

I tiptoed the line between novelty subject
And the feeling the shiny new toy gets
When “shiny” and “new” leave a child’s vocabulary.

Line of sight clear as the skies we pray to,
Hoping for love to shoot us straight through
The broad side of our logic.

Shot and wounded can be synonymous.
Just like victim and target……..

cold coffee/hot tea

It’s seasons ago,
Winters blistered their cold past flushed cheeks.
Springs bled into Summers like late night tea into me.
And Fall was the excuse for us to fade in and out of
The feeling that was as close as yesterday.
This was the goodbye that I’ve heard so much about,
Yet never cared to get into.
Your sweater’s scent told me it’ll be alright,
But the way it hung limp on my chair
Told me otherwise.
I haven’t sipped on coffee ever since.
That’s a lie by the way.
Call it even.
But yours claimed more scars
Than the years we gave.
And darling the footsteps in your voice
Were traveling farther from me.
Steps that I started to see
As early as when the tremble in my forgiveness
No longer shook for the reason of we.
The steadiness gone,
Who was I to keep holding tight?
That’s why the tea I sip on tonight
Suits me better than the coffee that kept you up,
And woke you up to this goodbye.
One that we’ve all read so much about.
I guess we’ve all got to try it some time.
Darling we’ve practiced it enough times
To make it perfect for me to leave behind……..

Water On Mars (She Is)

There’s a gorgeous in her hello;
Each syllable held by the same wonder
That keeps the universe in motion.
She is water on Mars,
A rover’s whole existence justified
When it discovered her.
Down to Earth,
With men cheering on her presence,
As if she were the very dreams
That kissed their rem state into submission the night before.
And nights like these that have me up,
I’d rather converse with her
To try and solve her sweet mathematics.
Pulsars gossip over which galaxy
Birthed the constellation suspended beneath her eyelids.
The milkiest way to her,
I’d swim upstream to meet it’s downpour.
I promise she’s binary,
Equal parts nebula and man’s vivid imagination.
If the heavens claim what’s above,
I’d seek permission to pluck her from it.
Don’t care if from here, I plummet.
Feels like falling when my honesty meets her trust,
With no other explanation to define the union
Other than it was already mapped out above
Like the Orion’s belt draped around her collarbones.
I breathe easy knowing there’s plenty left in her unknown.
Plenty left to make known.
As her stars shine bright to light a path that takes me home……..

fatherfigure (still writing)

You know as little kids we’d think the world of them.
So much so that our smiles became the equator that encircled their very being,
And the latitude that charted the course for our budding attitudes
Was mapped by the same steady hand
That shook years ago when he first cradled you into your first lullaby.
Nervous.
Not because he didn’t know what to do with you,
But more so the fact that he now knew what to do with himself.
See these are real life sentinels that spoke of conquests of their past and drew the blueprints of our future.
Scholars that taught us lessons learned within the pages of experience’s textbooks
And made us study for the never ending pop quiz life is.
We’d cover our ears at the trumpet procession we thought their entrance into rooms accompanied,
Stared wide eyed at the superhero feats they’d accomplish with strength generated not from superhuman ability,
But from the realization that responsibility now included more than just themselves.
Father is his name and Dad on other occasions.
Pops whenever you called for him
And daddy to the sisters and daughters of the world.
Yet fast forward to today where I’m sitting here,
Letting the ticking wall clock shank the silence of this room,
Reminding me that the lessons I was taught to be a boy
Were now years removed from the missing sequel of navigating the minefield that growing up a man is.
Lord knows I’ve stepped with the result of injury plenty times,
And as I lay with the lessons of learning to watch my step,
I’m reminded that the red I see spill from my failures are of the same shade
That my broken heart spilled when he left.
See reminders of such make me realize that I forgive her for her infidelity
Because my misguided love probably held on too tight,
Knowing that things that mattered in my life tended to dip out the backdoor.
I’m reminded that love wasn’t infidelity, yet the strength to live through it was.
And maybe my future can lie with another one’s so that we can write our own story with bedsheets tracing the cursive that our fluency in each other produces.
And maybe I will live to enter rooms with fanfare louder that what my father’s once was.
And maybe I can superhero my way into her heart to convince her
That my father’s faults are not cookie cutters,
And that I’ll be good enough to show her that the story I’ve written out
To be my own man,
Is the one that will have her eager to turn each page, yet linger over my every sentence all in one breath.
Paragraphs that would introduce her lips to infinity,
Language that would speak a rhythm into her hips,
And the endless combinations of 26 letters to show her why
The transition of my story into ours is the plot twist that makes the most sense.
And maybe I will stand taller at the end of the day,
Knowing I didn’t step on the feelings of those I loved most
To make myself feel higher in the lowest points of my life.
I am not him.
See my goal is to flip those maybes into something more sure than
His shadow disappearing when things got dark.
I am writing still.
Because the chapters I’ve already finished are always ended with the perfect segue into another.
Because even though my present consultant in experiencing things for myself
Is all I can turn to,
Knowing the past presence of what once was
Makes less sense……..

Ode To Collarbone (a haiku)

The root of your dreams,
It rests on this tempting spot
Called your collarbone.

sweet tooth

“Sweetest thing I’ve ever known, was like a kiss on the collar bone.”

And word, yeah, really that’s true.
But did I ever tell you about the time that I traced those lyrics
Across the small of her back
Using the coincidence of us vibin’ to it’s beat?
Track was on point though, the groove was heavy.
So much so that it’s load that was placed on her
Gave me reason to massage poetry into her shoulder blades
And have her back arching to recite the lines in cursive.
Body language was what I read,
What I learned, though, had me fluent in her.
I could repeat the song in an endless cycle of “Don’t stop,”
Because my human imperfection acquiesced to greed
Once I knew that she was my priority to please.

Lights low, the mind goes on to vibe slow
In a rhythmic vibration to soothe life’s flow.

Sweetest thing I ever did know.
Believe me, this human condition is what I revel in.
Like minds developing into the obvious revelation
That we both have
A major
Sweet tooth……..

Check the smerk and smile that switches on the Swiss army tip
Flippin’ scripts, yet I stay readin’ em.
Playin’ to test, lay me to rest
She killed me with cute.
Point the weapon, she annoints me with the suggestion
That I probably should follow through.

I can dig it, though.
Yet the six feet ain’t deep enough,
I’d rather intellect would be keen enough
To help us recognize that we should be livin’ through
The chemistry that’s built between each of us.

I’m prolly lookin’ too much into it.
But I’m telescopic when it comes to her freshest offerin’,
So much so that what’s really poppin’
Is the question where I’m asking,
“When do you get off, hun?”

I could contain my verbal herbal remedy.
But the sickest scenarios of crossed wires
And misread priors could leave potential
In it’s illest state.
So here I go with the antidote to the average Joe
Cuz the lavish prose that I lay before your habits’ home
Is made to read with me being it’s new resident.

It’s Tuesday, we’ve got an inaugurated President,
Martin’s birth to remember how his bravery can be precedent,
And me sittin’ here wishin’ I could stop writin’ out your name
Whenever I come in contact with every pen……..

In all honesty,
I’ve probably loved her a million times over
In the the most distant and deepest trenches that
My battlefield of a mind has room for.
Her eyes are napalm and the scorched earth policy
That pulses beneath each batted lash
Has my heart always ready to surrender way before
My tongue can comprehend the declaration.
I would love her through war and love her even more at the end of it,
Because she is the apex of any peace this world thirsts for.

I don’t know of the time’s specific length,
But every moment in between still had room
For a morsel of her memory - from the instance of a first ‘hello’
To the nano-seconds that cluster into the past minute
In which her smile occupied the quiver of my bottom lip.

Her name is a language that’s tattooed into the fluency of my tongue.
And her dynamic is a sacred secret that I can hardly keep to myself,
With glimpses of it spilling out the corners of my mouth.

They notice that I do smile more these days……..

Ellipsis

The most painful grammatical error known to man -
I couldn’t put a period on us.
My poetry’s shoulders are slumped and the sudden tinge
Of missing you
Is the Indian summer of our dynamic.
Misfortune and missteps to the waltz we knew so well
Made us victims of circumstance
And the period that was destined for closure
Grew tired of waiting and laid out as an ellipsis.

I could tell you that what we had was a good run,
But it always comes out as a prayer
Born from late nights pregnant with nostalgia.

The memory of your sigh paints itself a portrait of longing,
Hung just right below my earlobe in the spot
That it was used to making a home in.
Your kisses are sunsets on the horizon of my heartbeats
And the night that falls over us
Is the good evening that our mornings always wanted to grow to be.

The tragedy to a beating heart
Is the beating it takes during the process it was made for.

I sung you the lyrics to one of my favorite Stevie songs
And looked the promise of a better tomorrow in the eyes.
Even though I was never much of a singer,
You smiled your way into convincing me I was doing just fine.

I still have questions that are better left unsaid,
Still have kisses better suited to your forehead
Instead of using them to send off closure goodbye.
If the night continues as still as it does
And swims in the darkest of hues,
I’d hate to think of continuing to float in it’s existence
With sails still waiting for the familiar winds
That your promise once blew……..

grateful

Let me be as patient as the candle of hope that always seems to be melting into her pores,
Yet stays burning bright from the fuel of her perseverance.
If my definition of long-suffering ever matures into that of the motherly kind,
I will thankfully say amen.
Prayers were answered, with some said under the duress of life’s lashings.
Beads of sweat almost turned to blood, I could have sworn,
Yet the haven of her heart held us down through storms.
And though spirit was broken by the reckless wants of a knight in scuffed armor,
The shining faith that she displayed lit a path for her seeds to follow.
Needs of his, dirtied the porcelain spirit with tainted confessions of lust,
Crusted the trust with the residue of his late nights and greed.
Keep me close to her grace, forever I’ll plead,
The goodness restored in me a blueprint to honoring those deserving.

Mother was just a word,
But she personified every surface of it’s existence through deeds.
If the thankful spirit I hold in ever spills out,
I ask that her harbor is touched by my grateful seas……..

Sensibility and Strength

And if my wandering eye happens to land on the brown polka dot soul of your inner iris,
Catch it quick and blink the awkwardness away.
See mama raised me on sensibility and strength.
So the senses that got me to notice you hopefully are fined tuned enough
To help me work on getting you to notice me.
Coffee pots and incense blend well into the mornings
And explain how conversations into late nights
Drove me to crave caffeine the way I dream of your lucidity.
At work
I sit through spreadsheets wondering if all the ‘Go figure’ scenarios in my head
Help me figure you out and get you to figure that our numbers add up
And make some sort of sense in this mad world.
I’m drowsy in a sense, but dozin’ off ain’t an option
When sleepin’ on opportunity is as soft as rock bottom.
Now realy, I ain’t tryna go there.
But if I’m the underdog lookin’ up.
Then at least things, including me, is lookin’ up.
And away I go.
Off to stop another evil doubt bent on capturing my confidence.
Release me from a sense of self-accomplishment.
Because when it comes to being with you,
The WE that you and I form into is the only way I’d see it being successful.
Feelin’ no stress though.
The waft of somethin’ special.
Eager eyes smelling her crisp apprehension
As if the only thing in the air hung above her is in the form of what worries her.
And maybe I’ll pay homage
So respect goes to the strength she used to build up her walls
Because withdrawal was her best way to cope with separation anxiety.
But see with mama’s sensibility and strength,
I’m lookin’ to make each brick disappear.
Until the bare expanse of a clear canvas between us
Separates the meaning we want to define ourselves as……..

encore

I heard poetry pierce brass once.
That’s that Miles Davis wax spinnin’ circles around
The moment I met first met her.
The first 10 seconds were equal parts ‘Flamenco Sketches’
And the rhythmic bass line my chest was plucking beneath these ribs.
If there ever were a blues for her,
It would get nightly encores.
See she is the love child of a jazz record’s silken echo
And my discerning ear.

Put it on again for me lady.
Drop the needle in your groove
So that the heaven in your exhale
Fogs up my stained glass soul.
I drew a heart in the condensation
And spelled out the sound of my eyes’ favorite flavor.
Y, O and U never looked so good together to describe
An otherworldly surrender of splendor.

Music was never this good before her……..

last night (what I really need)

Function was live right?
Saw posted on the couch a good reason to freeze a moment.
Mind of Minolta couldn’t cope with the hopeless
Feeling that any other ounce of beauty was just plain to this gorgeous.

Like love at first sight right?
True.

But then Reality drunk dialed me and said it missed me.
So I came back to it and didn’t get carried away.
Carried a conversation with her and
Dropped it off at the cross streets of
We Should Kick It Again and I’ll Prolly See You At The Next Event.

Came and went but the motivation to
Keep my cool and prolong my status of not being a love fool
All was due to the senses kickin’ in.

But dang she could dance though.
And man she had style yo.
Navajo printed sweater
Had a smile patterned across my face.

Did she really put it down?
Yup.

And it was my jaw that went with it.
Picked it up off the floor
But not without her digits.

Promises of when we’ll kick it.
Her job and school juggled was no problem,
The way she solved it when she
Penciled in some right timing.
And right timing is just what I need
Appetites for some progress
Should be suppressed with some thinking.

It’s a food for thought that I need to swallow
But not washed down with anything
Cuz I’m far from thirsty.

Truth, it’s what I really need.
Lights low and let’s move slow
Let’s dance first and see where it’ll really lead…….