still

i am trying to keep my eyes on you but
but thieves are dancing in my peripheral

you came in human form
so you must know

i close my eyes and scritch-scratched
on the insides of my lids
are your words
to "never grow weary of doing right"

but lord

my lover: disappointing
my friends i've all outgrown
and sleep and song and drink and sleep
the comforts i have known

love turned up a liar
and petals opt to wilt
despite the prayer
and forty days

i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still
i am messy still

and you deliver visions of my future in my dreams
the sweetest nights i'll ever taste
and i know to taste them truly
i will have to leave my love my friends my role my ways my life
my life
my life
my life
as
i
know
it

or ill be messy.

still.


....
push me when i least expect it

because if it's left
to me
to jump
ill stand on edge

and never leap

just sayin'

I think you forgot.

How great I am.
Well.
Here is your reminder.

Something tells me if I
were to follow through
on that goodbye
i've been saving

bet you'd remember pretty quick.

My self-esteem has been
known to wander
through rainstorm and sun scorch
undoubtedly unreliable
and yeah
she's seen better days
but today she ripped right through
my window curtains
and was egyptian--
brown nipples and soft lace


and she looked good.

She was my reminder.
So here is your reminder.

At work the men's stares are shameful.
usedto make me squirm
now rocks my hips
my sway much stronger... so
stronger tips.

the whole world could
scream my name
'til tonsil-raw
and it wouldn't matter
if you don't scream right along

i locked the bar up tight
(another good night!)
and someone whispered from alley shadows

the breath warmed places you have yet to find

and if you don't settle down
don't come around
with eyelids opened wide and eager

then step aside

because that alley whisper was enticing.
and out of nowhere, i grew some rabid appetite.

Little Brother

It has been three weeks since my last confession...

Dirty chestnut water bubbled from the depths of the pipes in my neck, and threatened to spill, like wretched sewer water, down my face.
This happens every time I see your face.


Uninvited recollections of our past creep up
and get my heart all strung and tangled--
a trapped and wiggling stillborn.
in bloody, umbilical net.

Everyone says that the reason you are this way is because your metamorphosis has yet to take place-- that this is just a phase.
But, against the sage persuasions of our elders, I disagree.

You'll never change.
Breathy prayers are whispered upwards, but they don't make it past the ceiling.

Remember when you told our cousin-- eight years old and frightened of planes-- that hers was sure to crash and kill her the next day?
Or when you held our dog's mouth shut until his eyes grew red, and his desperate wince and whining summoned me to save him?
Or the hell you put our parents through?

Mom still has hope for you.
And as the one who gave you life, it is her duty, I suppose.
I, however, would never waste such a powerful conviction.
Instead, I have wrapped what little hope I had for you in pale green tissue paper, and have tucked it between pairs of ratty underwear and faded socks--
awaiting the day when I need it instead for my own salvation.

I feel nothing for you.
And that, I am convinced, is worse than hatred.
Last month someone asked if I had any siblings and I told them no-- only to realize, seconds later, I was wrong.
I have you.
And worse than blatant exclusion, I'd sincerely forgotten.
------------------
------------------

Our mother once threatened that
there's a chance God
will send me to Hell for not
claiming you--
my own brother.


I didn't bother telling her:
Even He wouldn't blame me.

-------------------
-------------------
And it has been three weeks since my last confession....

Untitled

I should have been prepared
for something like this

Able to recite,
effortlessly,
scriptures
that could help you through your pain
but
I don't know what to say

words usually
drip from my ears and lips
in overflow
but now

my speech has
betrayed me
as i gasp for words
like breath
something
anything
to say
to help you

I pray these words have not hollowed from overuse:

But
I love you.

and will do for you
whatever
you ask

charge
indecent response
to my head
and not my heart

it's just
sometimes
the silence
says it best

Sin and Suffocation

I think it entered through my mouth, somehow.

Foolishly,
I fell asleep with it wide open,
a habit I can't escape,
and it slipped slickly down my throat
and made it's way into my stomach,
and has feasted once more
on all it's lining


I know this because
my sheets are wet with blood,
and my neck is sticky-
coated with saliva

Deja Vu:
This happened, too,
just four nights ago.


Surely I can not bring this on myself...
right?

How could I fight so desperately
to preserve my insides,
only to allow a ravenous poison
to excavate them while I dream?

These nightmares look to be the end of rest as I know it.

Jesus.
This is where you come in.

I can not save myself.
I have tried so many times,
each time my mantra:
"THIS will be the time I save myself."

But before the ink dries on my name,
scribbled sloppily amongst
others on the list of those
destined for Hell,
save my soul

Faith in myself has worn thin.
Any more strain and I am convinced
I will imitate the march of the woman in The Awakening.

I beg You shamelessly,
snot-faced and red-eyed
to save my soul just one last time,
and kneecaps slam-kiss the concrete as I drop in thanks
when you drop your head and I hear you whisper
"Yes."


Save me from myself.
And restore the very lining I allowed my sin to chew away.

I am ready
To be drowned in waters deep,
and raised reborn
For at only twenty-one
I have tired of prayer

Tangle-haired and ashy-faced,
I ask you to order my steps
again

Because each time I feel there can't be much further to fall,
the drop becomes a little deeper.

And I'm scared to think just how deep the well does run.

You Are

You are the high that I am on
You’re every line by Sarah Vaughn
You are the heat from Florida sun
You are mine

You are full moons in all their glory
The “well, we met in college…” story
Embodiment of God’s love for me
You are mine

You are a photo, black and white
A boy’s mustache grown overnight
And his chest puffed up and filled with pride and joy

You are the reason I am here
To stand behind you when a fear of going forward's
Left you stuck and paralyzed

You’re sweaty love between my sheets
Country song and afro-beat
You are the truth they claim to see behind my eyes

You’re sweaty love between my sheets
Country song and afro-beat
You are the truth they claim to see behind my eyes

Air Like Water.

I am upstairs where the air
tastes like water
Like the water we tainted
in the Bahamas before December
melted into the face
of a new year

You are downstairs where the water tastes of rain.

Despite all you have chanted, I know it burns your eyes.
Despite what you have told me, yes, I know otherwise.

Red eyes belong to beasts.

I have exhausted God with all my praying
Just yesterday He asked me (sweetly) to let Him be
And it turns out that my last prayer was for you
I still wonder if shoulda been for Me

Because as you are dancing
in the rain and
call it jest
I eye the door
in hopes you'll soon
join me upstairs

where the air
tastes like water.