The Evolution of Elle
The revolution is tattooed on my tongue. I lick pages and spread the movement.
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not finished … just posting.
Is there enough self left in me
Enough fluid and fiber to fill my body
I am a cup
Half full of emptiness
Half empty off full moons and fairytales and fast fucks disguised as love
There’s a burlap sack in my teeth
Carrying messages that I can’t read
like someone’s left behind speech, someone else’s lesson to teach
Who is it for?
There’s an itching in my spine
My tendons are buzzing,
Am I growing yet
Am I stretch marked thin
Is this monster of a silence
Making a mother out of me
Am I to raise it? To birth it, bathe it, and name it?
Will I claim it like midnight poetry
I went searching for identity last night
Walked all around the city
With my eyes closed
Trying to listen
Tired feet leaving my aches all along the side walk
I watched people make friends with their own ghosts
Invite their demons over for dinner and repentance
Play hide-and-seek with their transgressions
I’m astonished
The pope was beatboxing on the corner of five points
I guess the holy 3 didn’t suit him much anymore
At four I found my shadow feeding pigeons in piedmont
Clucking and clicking like she’d forgotten she was me
Fluffing her fur, marking her territory
I guess there wasn’t much left to make home with in my chest
My breast were tied up in my ex-lover’s mouth
He’d asked me to spend the night but I declined
Leaving just as easy as I came, just as easy
My shadow is a former version of my self
What was left over of the Christian in me
Before I lost what little god I had
Strapped to my ankles
No one ever told me that dancing felt so good
Because you’re shaking loose every spec of spirituality your pagan body can muster
I understand there were no nutrients for her in my navel
Since I’d cut all ties to symbiotic relationships
Umbilical cords included
But I miss her
And want her back
I’m not familiar with the etiquettes of re-introducing one to oneself
Do we shake hands?
Kiss and hug like lovers?
Shall we waltz on the pavement?
-Not the concrete, just the cracks-
I am sorry for being un-whole and unholy
Been creeping around without a shape for so long
I’ve gotten used to falling apart
Told every man that fell in love with me to hold me hard as he could
So I’d stay in one piece long enough to recognize myself for once
But they mistook the distance between my hips and breast
For container enough
And left me to spill over the sheets, all alone, every morning
There is a message left in the mess
Some mantra making a page-boy out of me
There is a hummingbird making a cage in my ribs
The thrumming reminds me of that pope in the city
Who’d left sovereignty for ciphers and sit-ins
I wonder should I join him
There are many things I am missing
Many strings I can’t pluck on my half-hearted harp
Many dances that require enough spirit to extinguish the flames once I’m finished
And way too Many shadows to chase through piedmont
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Ticking Clock Conscience
It has dawned upon me that we congregate
Too often
Beneath the starry shadow of twelve am
When the ghosts are out, making friends
We meet, in hushed voices
So as not to startle them
We mislead each other by tenor of tone
Nurturing infant conversations that cannot walk on their own
Playing paty-cake pros
As if it hasn’t been five years
Or you’ve caught amnesia
Or I have
Or Both
It has come to my attention
That you stuff me between your midnight thighs
Like prostitute pussy
And I am not an object to be bought or sold so
Why is my soul so caught in your hold
I am all too loyal
to this ticking clock conscience you’ve stitched to my spine
Convincing myself it’s not a matter of time
Just timing
It is as if morning didn’t suit my skin
Will sunlight ruin this opaque drawing of me
Am I too flawed for normalcy?
Are you afraid to see myself in myself, live and in full color
without the comfort of dusk to hide your opinion
Are you afraid to break me?
I’ve only just realized
I’ve been reduced to your midnight lover
Only good enough for you
after everyone is in bed
So you won’t have to offer a description
Or definition
For the position
You’ve let me lie in while you finished
Will my back arch with the sun again this morning, lover?
Will I slide under the door before the stirring of the doves?
Will I be commited to your comings and goings and cummings and goings
As if they are synonymous
Have you had your fill of this kama sutra kinmanship
What was once love is now a satin black sillouhette
That barely satiates our sensuality
I’m wondering… is at least one of us satisfied?
Have I?
Sold my integrity to this acrobatic black of indignity
Have I?
Let my womb fill on embryonic inquiries, and been satisfied
Have I? Have I really?
Sat in the same spot on this bed, listening to your breathing
As if it gives me meaning
What the honest fuck?
What the unfucking real?
Not even a lick of sense to slice my skin with
Not even a pinch of pride to grind my teeth with
shameless
Hoping I emit something profound enough to humor you
What am I, erotic circus monkey?
I’m tired of being in love
With you midnight man
There isn’t a heart beat to dance to anymore
Your face, an oak tree of shade, I haven’t looked you in the eyes since September
I’m afraid I’ll see my dignity hanging lynch limp from your branches
Your chest, is a mine field that I masturbate in
Because You can’t fill me up on your light like you used to
It is lost, here, in this sahara dessert of a darkness
Lets lie, and call this an equal love, love
Just for the sake of my sanity
I’ll pretend you don’t
push my body away when you’re finished, for the moment, loving me
What? Have the gargoyles of a black slapped you senseful again
What? Have you lost your nerve
Are you chucking the remains of your heart into
Tuppaware
Hide it in the fridge, so we won’t smell it rot
The minute you catch a glimpse of our melanin in the morning
Our skin in the rising sun
You turn around and run…
I kiss your fleeting shadow just as often as your face
I don’t know what’s worse…
that I love them both the same
Or I love you more still
At two am, we’ve both drunk our fill of static cellular silence
So force yawns from the backs our throats like Gag reflex
I am tired of throwing up, excuse after excuse
Something’s holding me back from my goodbyes… cut it loose
Let me… let me… let me labor in this silence as solace from your absence
And after I’ve found it, let me reach further still
Clench courage in my hand
Hold serenity as I say
That I, ex lover of your eyelids
Stranger to your spine
Ghost in your smile
Reclaim my midnight
For sleeping, or poems, or spiritual reevaluation
Or whatever menial task that may need filling in this hour of before and after
No longer will I sit by phones waiting for the clock to strike
Like some backwards Cinderella
My fairy godmother, is this truth
and she has
Bippity bop Bumped me on my head hard enough,
Finally,
For me to see
That love does not revolve in the
Maybe’s of your “post” post meridian
And that love
Is not a clock, with an alarm, you can’t hit snooze until twelve
And that
Love, it is my bedtime
I am exhausted
So Goodnight, and Goodbye
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Solar Energy - for the Class of Two Thousand and Twelve
When we were children
The sun was a synonym for our smiles
She chased us through the summer months
Until street lights called us home
She reminded us to play
To live and learn
To be vulnerable
we took pieces of her with us
Brightened the gloom of reality with her shine
We were her disciples
Spread our smiles as her bibles
-
High school taught us that summers end, but sunrays don’t
That somehow, we must continue to shine
That we are sometimes the only light in the room,
Especially Monday mornings (laugh)
And we must represent our Sun well
Illuminate every dark corner with our smiles
And our hope
And our insight
For four years,
I’ve walked the halls of this educational establishment not seeing peers, but pockets
Bursts of miniature suns that found the greyest corners within me and lit them
Sometimes without words
Sometimes completely unaware
You’ve lifted my path simply by shinning
I’ve mirrored your bright skin hoping just maybe
I could inspire some unknown face as you did me
All the lessons the Sun taught us in childhood
Were magnified in the iridescent glare of your minds…
My classmates, we shine not for our own benefit, but to enrich the glow of those around us
We first entered the double doors of these hallways as children
Faintly gleaming with the shimmer of the sun’s impression
Unsure of exactly which path to call our own
But in a moments time, it will be our turn to lead, and be the sol/soul for someone else as they grow
to show them, with our flames, that igniting inspiration isn’t difficult
that it only takes a memory of the summer
and a desire to pass on the warmth
and we, the children of summer stroke
must take on the task of spreading her
there are Aurielle’s in every corner
desperate to be touched
and incensed
we have the power to spark fires in the minds of those who come after us
to plant seeds that will grow into trees,
to leave in our wake, a legacy of light for every day the summer is absent
for every Monday the clouds hide your smiles
for every instance the faith wavers
We began as coal
Blackened with soot
Imperfect spheres riddled with holes where the story was unfinished
And now, gleaming as diamonds we must emit radiance at all angles
Catch the light on every ridge of our faces
So that wherever we go, the friction of the refracted sun illuminates someone saturate in shadow
In two-thousand-and-twelve
We made history in the midst of adversity
Marching to the measure of our own drum
Marking the cement with the brilliance of our determination
Proving to those who doubted our intensity
That we, too, hold astrophysical power in our back pockets
This year, if nothing more,
We converted solar energy into inspiration and acted upon it
We took the lessons our childhood summers burned into us
And shared them, as frequently as we could
So let that be a lesson to us, the class of 2012
That sun is no longer a noun
It is a verb
I challenge us to sun as frequently as we inhale
To be pocket filled peers
And burst vividly for the world to see
Wherever we go
However we lead our lives
It is our time to shine,
And encourage those we encounter to do the same
No, it won’t always be easy
But we’ll take the task in increments
Like high school
Like summer
Like every chapter of our childhood
We will illuminate the world, I know
That is our calling…
My peers,
I am thankful that I was able to glow with you
That we shone together, and made a lasting impression with our translucent aspirations
We are pre-destined to change the world
Of that I am sure
After graduation, as we enter the world, gleaming
even if we don’t remember each other’s faces, my friends….
Always remember the sun
She’s been there since the beginning,
And She
is forever watching
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Truth is Species Which Feeds on Itself
The first time I met you,
I was in a chapel, trying to figure out if Christianity was worth the effort
I had just asked God to teach me how to pray
There was a breeze in the air/
There was a stillness in the wind
And the sun was out, for a moment/
The sun was hiding behind the clouds/
The sun existed, somewhere…
I’ve been doing that lately
Replaying the moment I met you
Changing the variations of circumstance
trying to remember if there was a sign hanging overhead
Or a conscious sitting on my shoulder
Or a warning, somewhere
“Caution: This One Will Matter”
…. There wasn’t
I’ve always been a bit afraid of you
Clinging to the nature of our uncertainty
For solace from our silence
Jumping back and forth between our boundaries,
We both know the grass is greener
On which side, I’m not sure
We left messages to be deciphered in the embraces of our goodbyes
Bid farewell so often, I grew accustom to reading hieroglyphics instead of hellos
Listened between the lines of your instant messages
For traces of emotion
Something to cling to at 3am when thoughts of you kept me awake
I’ve written two poems that trace you in topic
Dancing around the subject
Hiding honesty in the shadows of metaphor or simile
Maybe it’s the caffeinated courage of 4 thirty seven am
Maybe I’m ready to write with the lights on…
My mouth is Pandora’s box
Opening hesitantly,
Compulsively producing the wrong words
Saying nothing when the atmosphere asks for declaration
Speaking everything, when nothing is required
Timing is essential, and my seconds keep running off track
I push you away when you reach for me
I run when you search
I tell you goodbye the morning after affectionate exchanges
I’m afraid of the maybe’s that you hold in the palm of your hand
The backs you’ve turned, the quiet, the waiting
So I build Jericho around myself
Enclose any feelings in the forgotten evenings we left in last spring
Scribble over your named etched in the back binding of my journal
Feeble attempts at forgetting, I can still read the impression
I sell my heart for half price
To someone who reminds me of your silhouette on a good day
and save the truth for
every 4 am I can’t escape it
how do you say I love you through a closed door?
How do you apologize for not knowing yourself enough?
How do you forget April?
How do you stop the circles?
I’ll allow the pen to say all I could never muster
I’ll take back all the words that never should’ve been uttered
Yes, there is an exaggeration in the language of a poet
No, I’ve never been a poet when it comes to you
That requires a bit of confidence you always seem to steal from me
The bravado of a someone whose identitiy I’ve stolen
In the small hours of the morning, no one watches, no one is listening
There’s no reason to be strong
Or to wear masks to harden the face
When the world is sleeping
I give myself permission to tear down Jericho
Open the box, and write.
There is only me
The pen
There is only the truth,
the pages…
Who knew chapel prayers could end in poems
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Because Holding My Tongue Is A Skill I’ve Yet to Acquire
Black man
Hold you head up
Square your shoulders
Greet this world with a warm smile
And a memory
Of every chest, that didn’t rise with the sun this morning
The fathers that came back for their sons, only to find that they too had set
Black man
God created you first
In fact I am a derivative of your ribs
I protect your heart, yes,
But you, black man, you are the spine
So be my back bone black man
show me, that there are reasons to stand erect
that you are more than a stiff body for target practice
You breathe black man, or have you forgotten?
Inhale, taste the life you’ve left on the curbside
Pick it up, make something of it black man
I beg you
Prove this world wrong,
They measure your worth in cap fulls
So you infer that popping caps makes you a man
But don’t let demographic permeate your skull
It is all a façade, shatter statistics with your ambition
Black man, you were born that
Like adam, you were made in perfection even before you bit the fruit
Resist temptation
Dope boys make money, yes, but Doctors make miracles
Life isn’t just about survival, strive for sustenance
something to chew on
Inspire me,
I seem to have misplaced my sun
Don’t set on me
Make a mockery of their disbelief
So I can wear racism’s corpse like a cloak
I can mimic your critics in their faces
and apologize, personally
For every Jim Crow saturated misconception
That’s been wrapped around your neck since your conception, Black Man
This world is afraid of your greatness
And I say this, because I noticed the bleeding cuts of your instep
Why do you walk so heavy, black man?
Have you forgotten you have wings?
Too often I see you, stumbling across broken bottles and cracked concrete
Unable to take flight, because no one encouraged you to soar
So Rise… litter the ground with your goodbyes,
And while you’re at it, black man
Block your ears
I’m afraid, if you listen,
You’ll allow the whispers to slither into your subconscious
And dictate your decisions
The media, the bigots, the pedophile pastors
All hoping you’ll drift too close to the sun, and fall
Black man,
Don’t drift to close to the sun
I’ll be content if you pick up your pants and raise your aspirations
Black man
When Willie Lynch narrated your doom
When they pumped 50 bullet holes into your silhouette the night before your nuptials
When Our Justice system failed you
You hung your head
I’ve watched you for centuries
In this reoccurring theme
Travel the same cycles of enslavement
Your history
Bound around your wrists like cast iron
Your neck… heavy with chains
Trapped in the shade of stereotype
But I see you, in shadow … for everything you are
My brother, You are beautiful,
I admire that you’ve made it this far
But you have further still
You must mark the path
I have two younger siblings , who will one day each become a black man,
So Black Man,
Everyone of you that’s listening
I see destiny perched upon your shoulders
It must be heavy
But I believe in you
So be strong
Open your mind
Walk the path that has always been waiting for you
And show us all, why God formed you first
Look at the path
