.love's slave.

Syllables and sounds of regret dance
Like flames on hot coals
Tongues disfigured in an ambiguous distortion of the truth
Your truth
But I know better
These sounds form words and lay upon my shoulder
Tips, kissed and brushed away with passion’s empty promises
I’ll never be the only one
Your only
But for now you’re here with me

So I imagine a time and place where
Rushed want is from desire rather than
A conflict of time with her
Despite the way your hand moves across my face
And tells me this is just what it is
The truth hides behind your eyes
Which unlike your mouth are unable to form such deceptive lies
I smile back in knowing that
The taste of me lingers on you When she pulls you close at night
I stroke your hair and feel the ease
In your body from my touch
And know that my goodbye will be
The very impact of love in all its complexities
So no note, no words this time
Just silence
For words become love’s slave
And this prisoner is ready to break free

.street lights.

You’re so used to finger smudges
and the stench of yesterday’s regret lingering on your skin

That you chase away the possibility of anything that resembles happiness

You blow smoke clouds of mistrust through nostrils that inhale despair

And your heel buries the butt of your misfortune deep into the ground 

Even as hands cling to the collar of your shirt and lips press into your neck

You won’t succumb to the passion within

As another door closes you look longingly waiting for the old familiar sound of defeat

As it echoes in your ears

Then you lay, street lights illuminating your heart as each minute it goes further into the night

It’s better this way you tell yourself

But the only one convinced is you

Unavailable

Unavailable
It's like a flashing red neon sign the minute I think we're pushing up earth with new roots
I see the same weeds attacking everything we've built
Choking the life out of destiny
And drying up my garden of tears
You're but a cruel joke continuously played on my open heart
And I can't help but laugh
At my stupidity
I wait for you to become the love you promised you would be
But you sink and never rise to the occasion
You're nothing but a pipe dream buried deep within the darkness of my soul

After-taste

Another day spent lamenting the loss of love and the birth of loneliness
Sprung up like a weed of interruption amidst the flowers in my beaten soul
Beating but cold
I'm but a fragment of the
Sentence I used to be
Can't find the middle or the end because you
Walked away with the words that made sense
And I'm stuck here in the shadows muttering half eaten memories
And gathering crumbs of a love I used to taste, breathe in and know
Now I'm starving
& refraining from acknowledging the look in your eyes
Every time you said I love you, your most painful lie

Hero

In despair
each and every time I
silently wish for a hero
but only you appear
(The one who broke my heart)
With glue and promises in tow
But you look so different as a hero
That I forget underneath it all you were first the villain
I forget I wouldn't need to be saved
If I stopped putting myself in harm's way
I forget I wouldn't need your kisses to evaporate the tears you made fall
Your words dance like bubbles, soft penetrable and limited in their ability to do anything but completely disappear
My fingertips still wet and sticky
with the residue of I Love You's
But that's it -- and I can't be too sure if you were ever here
You've left no traces of an attempt to ever stay

One day

One day I'm going to fall in love, foolishly but for all the right reasons and the person I love will love me -- selflessly, perfectly
The way you never would

She will look me in the eye and I will know that the sounds forming between her lips are merely the cherry atop the whipped cream of her actions
Those words will shape my heart, my life, my present and my future
Into the shape of happiness
You know, that round block you thought fit into the square peg

I'll know that every time our eyes meet she won't be searching mine to see if I recognize the person in front of me
We will be the reflection of honesty and devotion in one another

One day I'll hold hands, watch movies and laugh until my stomach hurts with someone who knows me as well as she knows herself because we live for today
And are grateful for tomorrow
Our dreams are whispers between cool sheets and rustles of morning blankets

Sweet kisses on foreheads and I want you's that linger in a quick glance
This is love? This is love.
Hands that search for the small in her back then gently glide and wrap around her waist
I adore her every inch, every atom of her being
She completes me

One day

Untitled

Stuck at the corner of “I’ll change” and “I didn’t mean to hurt you”

I’m running late for the best thing that ever happened to me

Getting over you

Another detour 

It’s as if I’m meant to be reminded 

That you’re not interested in loving me
Even though my heart is set on being the best part of you
I’ve crashed head first into denial

And the “I love you’s” sound brand new

Give. Thanks.

Thanks?

Give back what weathered hands, twisted backs and songs of redemption lay as the foundation to your stolen empire

A country built with feet on the backs of earth toned skin, so many times

That history is like a record stuck on the same song

Even though everyone selectively forgets the words

And man made illness fittingly will suffice to kill the rest

Blood continues to spill and overflow as they pretend not to feel it splash upon their wrists

It’s not as if any cultural compassion has ever existed outside of the wonder bread variety

Bleached skin, synthetic hair, contacts, erase the identity psychologically so that each time those broken spirits see their skin they curse & blame

They curse & stain

While the oppressor lays in a box and cooks, as if in an oven,
Set to 350, bake for an hour and let cool

Instant results without the minority component, privilege still intact

You are the face you seek to erase, for a price

To look like those they persecute, because they envy

Envy the beauty of brownness, depth, full lips, rounded hips and souls that have carried the weight of hate like battle wounds for centuries

They’ll never be as strong as those they seek to destroy so teaching self-hate is the greatest weapon they have
It’s the most effective

And each day, a country that stands behind the power to eliminate at the expense of their Swiss cheese conscience,
Swiss bank account transactions pending, could care less

About the deeds and wealth accumulated by the destruction of native peoples

Is another day lost

Land taken, redistributed and designated as “their”promised land

Blood money no longer passes hands

But hits accounts on a given date

And in hushed tones others speak of the societal rape

This land was our land, this land was not made for you and me

Don’t suit the lyrics to your history book lies

In attempts to solidify the world’s greatest lies

Nothing was discovered and no one ever needed to be transported by boat, head to foot, foot to head

As body excrements fell at the same speed of tears

On other brown bodies in fear

No legal documents written by the hands of slave owners, clothes made from cotton picked with my ancestors' hands, food produced and consumed at the expense of their freedom

Will not ever reek of entitlement’s stench

It’s filthy and morally defunct

The rungs of hope are hot like coal and burn flesh to the touch
See these ancestors rise yet again to smell the burning of their ambition

.saturate.

Saturate my present with memories of your past and leave my future dry
I'm building a dam to keep what's behind us out
Current love pending with creation of a foundation that can
Withstand the red ink, yellow tape and glaringly obvious stench of moral decay
The most beautiful part of a damaged wing is that it's still struggling to fly
Save me as I save you

untitled

false truths fall faster from your lips
than I love you can hide behind my eyes
the speed of fear and love at the intersection
of reality
chasing you like a thief in the night
you’ve stolen my heart and run away with it
too afraid to stay and let it beat inside the palms
of your hands
so
you squeeze, I’m without breath, air
i’m starved for your affection
and alive merely by the will to eat

.Click.

Fake friends, fake lives, fake pictures, fake eyes. A generation of photoshopped, cut & pasted lies.

Would they know a laugh if they heard it or does “lol” just suffice?

Real fingers touch skin, lips kiss corners & crevices of bodies that
That keyboards can’t touch, no matter how many strokes
 And with a click you’re forgotten

Love becomes a quote, a phrase, lyrics in angst from misunderstood songs and displaced anger becomes lines of white haste swiftly relocating to nasal cavities, deteriorating from the inside out

Souls inside out

Ripped clean from the hinges of innocence 

Dangling arms and legs, strings that guide and overseeing hands tangled in their provocative ties

There’s no limit even after the edge of the cliff when nothing is beneath their feet but air, because society assures them that to pretend is to care

Fighting for nothing and dying for everything but the will to live, these young soldiers thrown into battle unprepared for the war on their minds as a means to their core

Swept under the rug of misfortune,

Misfits miss this and sequential hits to the possibilities of a socially conscious lift

They’re pinned down by their ears

And dumbed by the slicing of their tongues

Language is the barrier to knowing more


But the men on our currency fold and line pockets that disintegrate the keys to that door

Love's Labryinth

Talking until my lips turn blue
Cold air passing between them
Landing anywhere but near your ears
You don't hear me

It's as if the audio on your heart has turned down the logic in you mind and things are scrambled, jumbled and ready to topple over at a moments notice
You're unstable, like a house built without a foundation
You will never be home.

My thoughts fold like origami and try to make sense of the person before me
Layers of something with an end product of hidden chambers, interlocking bits & pieces
How did we get here? Love's labyrinth

I've lost you and myself in the process
Chasing your insecurities like thieves in the night
Wanting you whole was my only crime
Yet I've been sentenced to life without reciprocity

So my hearts stops banging inside my chest and splits into two,
every memory, moment and passion begins to spill out
And stain the walls of my body
I'm missing again

Party of One

You've thrown yourself a party again,
but the only one that RSVP'd is you

Balloons, streamers, party favors & hats. This time you were going big, you said. Party for one?
One.

The only number you can count to since no one else ever seems to exist.

Love is a one man show for you. You flirt, get your own number & forget to call.
You suck at even picking yourself up & following through on a date.

Those nights tossing in between sheets, welcoming your own demons and fighting angels that sought to heal your soul
Suffering is what you do best

So weeks turn to months, years & you wonder what became of that old love you buried on a cold New England day.

It's sprung forth from soil without water, little to no sunlight & an environment of solitude where barely anything can grow,
& became a blossoming tree, beside another tree
that grew from one of its seeds
you see
love has a way of breaking through the toughest misery

Still having parties with only one in attendance while
love blossoms outside your window
all you can do is stare, alone
& watch it become everything
you will never be

-untitled-

Falling out of love is like hearing drops of your soul hit the corners of a metal tin can, a quick splash here & there,
The echoes of loneliness like a hollow drum, beating a rhythm only tears can hear
The sound of pain, the way it reflects & slides down into every corner, every crevice & dries
It's as if it was never there
But the taste of salt still lies on fingertips,
That captured them from eyes, moist with regret
Love once was held there in stolen moments, nights of passion & kisses that lingered in hidden places
Bruises of love's faults left just beneath the surface
Of a heart that beats no more

.lost lovers.

Say you’re misunderstood but what’s confusing is that your words are like the hard coating on your actions
Unbreakable yet so hurtful
So you crave the closeness of two lovers lost at the end of each others’ sentences
But you’re more like the period at the end; content beads up like perspiration off the skin of your lies
Your eyes
Deep hollow and rounded at the tips
I swear they were made for destruction
Yet you claim you want peace rather than war even though your heart is covered in a bullet proof vest
I stopped looking for hints of me in your smile because, your reasons for happiness left right along with them
I listened as your footsteps grew further away with each sound, each beat of your heart like a low rumble of a drum
I’m no musician but it sounded like the death of passion on pavement

.abbreviate.

i've learned to abbreviate
the way my heart feels each time you cut a piece off
and put it in your pocket, for safe keeping you say
but i never see it again
and the hole left bleeds until it dries
forms a scar
and then you return
for another peace of me
f.o. (fuck off)

.fraud.

You're a fraud, you
Tiptoe through hearts where locks were left unturned & steal what wasn't yours to take

You leave muddy footprints & smudged finger swirls upon every thing within your path, you're arrogant

So arrogant that you permanent mark your desire to disrespect on the lips of lovers & in between the sheets of other frauds you seek to compete with

Your eyes bore holes & store information in the form
of facial explanation so at a moment's
notice you can recall & reformat data to do your life's work of being something to someone, anyone
Who will listen or who won't but you want them to

You're lost in a translucent web of emotional destruction on the brink of no tomorrow because your selfishness has sucked today dry

Others are just resources to replenish your empty soul, but it still has that gaping hole --- it all falls through you, it's not you or yours to keep

You're a fraud, you
Tiptoe through hearts where locks were left unturned & steal what wasn't yours to take

I've come for my things

fck it.

When your heart becomes something to be played with rather than something to have, hold, cherish & protect.
When your heart becomes a punching bag, beaten every day at the gym, used for someone else's frustrations & then left in the darkness.
When your heart become a pile of flattened rubber like tire caught on a nail.
When your heart becomes a joke, a reason for stand up, an attraction at parties, an object for entertainment at your expense.
When your heart becomes like grains of sand falling between the fingertips of someone as quickly as their memory of you fades.
When your heart becomes a non factor

- untitled -

Words caught between the world outside and the world on the other side of doors that slam and tongues that still mentioning her love
It's validation desecrated by verses on stale pages to a pink deity whose reincarnation gave hate its most triumphant force - the human race
Race to the finish line and if no one is
there with her, she's made it
Made it so that no one could be close behind, too close to find all
The shattered mirrors because the sight of who she's become was never who she was
It's as if she lives two lives, two lies, too much about herself lost in the emptiness behind those two eyes
And her soul slips away from her body into the night like a silent thief
It wasn't hers to barter and keep
So smiles and empty words about the boyfriend she'll never have with the white picket fence, mother shes crying out to you between verse and nights of tear stained pillows
Asking you to hold her again like that day when you gave birth to your biggest accomplishment turned disappointment because the love your seed feels for another is from a garden where you feel nothing could possibly grow
No one could possibly know the shame and confusion she feels chasing your dreams even though she's never closed her eyes and seen anything but darkness trying to conjure up images of the lies that split her tongue into two like a serpent
Words replaced by a hiss, imbalanced duality caused this, slithering and writhing beneath the layers of hardened regret and yesterday's kiss
A lover left standing wondering who is this
But the question hangs in the air thick like smoke choked from the lungs of one who has never mastered the art of pretending

.the age of disrespect.

I try and try to wrap my head around the reasons people seek attention outside of their "seemingly" perfect relationships. What is accomplished by flirting and getting your head/ego blown up by someone other than the person you are dating? What is the point of hiding friendships that you know aren't just "friendships" from your significant other because you just have to have those conflict causing individuals in your phone, on your facebook, twitter, tumblr, instagram. What's really interesting is why so many people who are out to ruin your relationship have that much access to you at all -- even more curious is why you continue to entertain them after you've been warned.

Most of us who get cheated on (physically and/or emotionally) are usually the ones who'd give our fuckin left lung for the person we are dating, yet it's never reciprocated. Sure, we get pacified with "we're just friends" and "he/she doesn't like me" yet no matter where you turn those barnacle people are still clinging to the rungs of your relation-ship that is slowly sinking into the murky waters of distrust.

Perhaps if they hadn't already been caught in numerous lies in regards to these people, the trust would be there. Just break up. That's what everyone says, but when you try to break it off, no one ever wants to let you leave. After you've invested so much and have done nothing to deserve the wandering eye, you almost want a refund. Like can I get back some sort of emotional reparations for the time, energy and tears I've spent during these years with you? So lemme get this straight, I'm supposed to trust (after trust has been broken multiple times over a few years), pretend your interactions with these people you've crossed lines with in the past are just "friendly" and not wonder who you're texting, tweeting, tumblr'ing with at all hours of the night and just be cool with it all?

Is it the age of disrespect? Literally and chronologically. It's funny, when I was growing up no one sat on the internet day in and day out. In fact you didn't use the internet to date, meet people or cheat. People interacted face to face. One on one. Flesh to flesh. This younger generation is moving at a pace their little brains cannot even comprehend. The drugs, sex, music and inability to communicate without symbols or using ridiculous acronyms is a clear indicator that we've long gone past the time where connecting with each other actually meant something. Socially awkward in person, yet online they create personas, photoshop each and every part of their body until it becomes a collage of what they think is everyone's favorite "eye candy"...no identity and no hope. No originality, no loyalty and no clue what it means to have genuine friendships or relationships. 16 and pregnant. He loves me. Then he loves me not and leaves and now these kids are babies raising babies. I can't help but think so many different facets of society brought things to this point.

As a person who grew up when kids used to still play outside and didn't sit in front of a television all day, it's hard to navigate the friendship as well as the dating scene. People are very different now. Two people can be friends or even in a relationship sitting in the same room, but you'd never know because both are face deep in their new "i do everything but fuck you" phones and other devices. Why read a book when you have another device for that? Why even talk to anyone because more than likely every expensive piece of technology you own will talk back to you if you ask it a question? What does all of this mean? And why do I feel it's made so many of us desensitized and heartless to the point where we'd snap a picture of a celebrity in a coffin for an undisclosed amount of money and post it on the internet just for fame? What is wrong with people and why don't they care anymore?

I guess I'm just old-fashioned because I want that old school, Brown Sugar, "you're the perfect verse over a tight beat" kinda love. I don't feel like it exists anymore except in the movies. There is an overabundance of love movies now because we all crave that closeness, that togetherness that we've lost in all the static. I've seen this more in dating those that are younger than me. My argument of not sitting in the same room for 6 hours on opposite sides on the computer or phone after we haven't seen or barely had contact with each other all day is lost in a bunch of "I just want to relax" hymns. How in the fuck can you relax if your eyes are glued to your phone clicking on eight different social networking sites and the tv is going with some mindless reality show on? We are overstimulated to the point that human interaction no longer stimulates us the way it used to -- for some, I think it bores them. So then your relationship becomes background noise to all the excitement that the pretend people online bring to the glazed eyes of the person you thought you loved.

Now I'm sure this happens to people who date older people as well because for so many the only way to get exposure, be seen and have a "voice" (if you will) is by parading yourself around online for the world to see just how awesome you are at all times of the day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You're sick and with a push of a button and the click of a cameraphone flash, the whole world will electronically see your pouting, but poised "sick" face over a bowl of chicken soup and immediately shower you with the attention that your significant other who's at work can't. What they fail to realize is that people who are always available to like every photo, comment on every post & be over the top sycophants lack the ability to perform in "real life." Real life translates to that place where you have to interact face to face, where instead of commenting on chicken soup, you're the person who actually made it for the person posting the picture. Instead of sucking their teeth at the photos of you OUT with the person you are dating, they could be trying to create a life with memories and a relationship of their own -- but they don't. They sit at home and electronically begin to type into the heart of your loved ones when you're not around. Sure we all like to hear that we are great and attractive, but what I ask is "at what cost?" What is really worth it to lie and conceal inappropriate relationships with people who simply seek the same attention you do? Half the time when people leave the one that loved them, for the one that acts like a groupie, they find out very quickly that loyalty died when they crossed that bridge. If he/she is spending hours flirting with you, can you not assume that they are doing the same to 10, 20 maybe 50 other people if this all they do all day long? Most of them don't even have anything to offer your significant other and realistically can't compete, but the lure of "attention" proves to be more enticing than anything that your love, loyalty or stability can offer them.

No relationship is perfect -- and nobody is perfect, but don't we all deserve a chance at happiness, free from the stain of infidelity, mistrust and the need to always be some place where you think the grass is greener? I don't want to look over my shoulder to see where my Love is. I want my Love walking beside me as we look forward, together.