Author: poetryfest

“You’re not enough, You’ll never find love”
“You’re a liar, You’re the one who set us on fire”
“You’re the problem, You should be the one to solve them”
“You did it, You’re the one who needs to quit”
The voices of my past always seem to linger, I never thought it would always be a trigger I was told a million times I was the issue, when nobody even heard my scream and saw the million tissues
The past will forever haunt me, but at least now I can see
I was misunderstood and alienated, and that continued until I broke the pattern and stopped faking
I caused some harm throughout my life, and that caused me to be way too good at goodbyes
Whether it was my fault or the others, either way I learned how to be in my own corner
The demon comes and it goes, around and around we go
One thing I do know is I know myself better now, now to tame the past with other sounds
Nobody can say I haven’t seen the light, because as far as I’m concerned nobody is ever 100% right
All I have to do is move on and try, because as far as I’m concerned these are the lies

For the Man who thinks He needs kinks worked.
For the Man who thinks this is an unforgivable sin.
For the Man who thinks he knows Her.
For the man who can’t make up his own mind.
For the man who patronizes with psychoanalyzation.
But who can know the mind of Lincoln but Lincoln himself?

For the man who thinks she is The Antichrist, just as she thinks he is.

For the Man who knows this is inescapable, as she’s faced already.

For the Man who needs comfort, she is here.

Let’s go back, darling.

Which, is something I’ve never quite understood.
Why kill your darlings, Anyway?
If it isn’t right, it isn’t right, but when it is, it fuckin is.

The Man I know knows this.
The Man I know wouldn’t need any explanations.
She will not be able to hold it all in for long, it seems.

But let’s go back.
I am no saint.
I am no angel.
I am no savior.
I am no compass.
I am Human, Darling, just like You.

She’s known to be owned by no man for many years.
This is a war already fought.
How much do you need from me now, Darling?
How much should I iron for you?

Let’s… Let’s just go back.
The day she sent her true feelings.
No, let’s go back further.
When she was hoping to form a tight friendship,
A writer’s bond.

She watched The Man’s videos with The Officer.
The Officer who supported their friendship.
For years. He’d say, you should reach out to him.
You two could talk for hours about this shit, he’d say.
Ha.

Let’s fast-forward now. Let’s go to…
Evelyn, because that’s the girl’s name.
Unless this is just made up too?
Then maybe the child’s name is… IDon’tMatter
Because everyone calls her a liar enough already,
And she already knows she’s a fraud.

But, Evelyn.
Sweet Evelyn.
Was hurt.
And She didn’t know of this damage until this night.
The inevitable.

A member of The Officer’s family hurt Evelyn.
Unforgivably.
And She has already left a man for Threats of hurting her baby.
But that’s not the point, is it?
The man wants to know what’s in Her mind now, right?

But Sweet Evelyn was hurt badly.
She still doesn’t know the extent of the harm to Sweet Evelyn
And She was writing on that writing-binge when the harm occurred.

And The Officer did nothing.

And She hates him for it.
He was supposed to keep them safe.
Safe from people like that.
And She hates herself for hating him for choosing blood.

But wait, we’re skipping too fast.
Forgive Her.
She’s told herself to never explain herself to Any man ever again.
But those days are gone.

For days after She learned of this harm,
She was a zombie.
Couldn’t forgive herself for putting her baby in that position.
And she wanted blood.
Understandably so.

Until it just made her feel so sad.
So sad she could disappear into the pond.
How would she help her baby heal?
How will she help her baby know she is better than what that Fuck did to her?

And something, she can’t remember what it was,
Maybe one of The Man’s videos.
But she was reminded to send him money.
So they could talk about books.
Her books.

And all she wanted was a hug.
And when The Officer gave her a hug,
She felt nothing.
And knew they were dead.

All she wanted was safety.
And she get’s it up the ass.
But more importantly,
Nobody believes Sweet Evelyn.
The babe didn’t speak when given the chance.
The babe won’t sleep in her room because that Fuck lives four doors down.
And her mother needs to keep her safe,
And this all fuckin happened with impeccable timing.
Clearly.

Don’t isolate me further with your uncertainties.
I may be a piece of shit,
But the babe is Her legacy.
The babe means more to this world than either of us.
The babe is The Future.
And this place has hurt Our Future.
And what do The Babe and The Mother deserve…

What, Anyway,
do The Babe and The Mother deserve?

They flutter like flags
High above tailgates and
Blowing through November skies
Like signal smoke

I put on my mask and intention
Dressed like no one worth a second glance
With camera in hand
Just another shade of silent white
In a sea that smiles too wide

They are so nice
Too nice
The sugary grins are brittle and fragile
That shatters if you speak wrong

And I walk anyway
Up the middle of Pennsylvania Ave
The empty arteries of the most democratic
City in the world
Are lined with souvenirs of hate
And scented with deep-fried grievance and denim.

Pickup trucks as altars
With zip-tied flags in profane trinity
Bound unwillingly, the American flag
A hostage held for ransom
By the One-Percent

Children march alongside parents
In miniature red hats and slogans of hate
Tiny blank faces beneath bright declarations
They can’t read but will remember
Forever

The chants rose
Like false church Psalms
The congregation synchronized
To a man’s disguise
A cheer on cue
With a fist pump

I came for the photos
And left with a warning
That fear wears smiles
And hate waves flags
That history can be hijacked
In broad daylight at Freedom Plaza

I.
there’s something different
about loving a Black woman
when you are a Black woman

something outlaw

something so alive
it hums in your teeth
and dares the world to flinch

It’s walking into rooms
where no one knows what to call you

and not giving a fuck

It’s catching eyes in restaurants
and throwing stares
that say
we’re still here

because this ain’t rainbow capitalism
it ain’t ally-approved affection
this is love that got jumped and kept swinging
love that hid in parked cars
and sometimes pretended to be straight

If it meant being safe

II.
we don’t kiss
we mark territory

she ain’t no secret
she’s the thunder I wake up to
hands that don’t ask

because they know

our love ain’t quiet
it’s tactical
we love like two ghosts
haunting the American dream

she doesn’t just see me
she reads me
like
a stolen diary
full
of secrets and sirens

she knows how I like my lies
honest

how I like my pain
shared

how I like my body
worshipped
and without rules

III.
we don’t date
we conspire

she smells like gunpowder and lavender
laughs with her chest
fucks like she got something to prove
and then cooks grits with salt
pepper
and bare feet
like a victory meal

we love in shorthand
touch like coded language

no labels
no pressure

this love be a riot

IV.
this ain’t about attraction
this is allegiance
war strategy
with tongue and teeth

we don’t fall in love
we take it

we made a home in each other’s mouths
when the world turned on us

we are the architects of intimacy
assassins of shame

we kiss in daylight
hold hands in red states
fuck like a middle finger
to your fragility

your gaze never earned the right
to see us

nah
we don’t need your politics
we are the politics
your think pieces can’t hold us
laws can’t define us
you will not police this

not this joy
not this rage
not this love that unearths

we are not a spectacle
we are the consequence

and we ain’t asking
outlaw love

It’s a small language in a big universe, spoken only by two. We invented these words. We gave them meaning. Our tongues became fluent unwittingly. The linguists and archaeologists all agreed that our dialect was ancient. Nanoscopic. All two of its native speakers have been carbon dated. They prodded at the excavation site, at our fossilized alphabet. They studied our once intertwined bones in labs and lecture halls. They asked themselves the question: how does a language die? They answered: when no one’s left speaking it.

It’s a small language in a big universe, spoken only by one. As the sole survivor, I tried to teach the world our otherworldly lingo. They’ll never know about the spaces in between the letters. About the spaces in between the spaces. About the shape your heartprint made next to mine. About how no other brain arranged syllables in the same manner as you. About how no other brain ever will. About the trill of our dueting laughter. About the silence of a Harold Lloyd film. How does a language die? Once upon a time, I swore I would immortalize these texts. I went out kicking and screaming, snapped my ribcage in half to make room for the mutating thing in my chest.

How does a language die? Slowly but surely. Mouths are scheduled to decay and they intend on taking their kisses with them. How does a language die? As a neon blip on a dark radar, a fleeting thing of beauty. How does a language die? In the fashion of an upside-down bouquet, of brittle petals pressed between pages for preservation. How does a language die? On a fucking Tuesday. How does a language die? With its throat pulped in between your white-knuckled hands, the sputtering of its final gasps rhythmic with its myoclonic twitches. How does a language die? Lonely in the throng, grief lost in translation. How does a language die? In its frilly Sunday best, the last pair of knees glued to the last church pew, the last ears to hear the last hymns, the last time you said I love you.

The Earth staggers down the darkened alleyway,
Wobbling from the hits;
Body blows from the sun,
The Atmosphere unable to block.
The Ice melts—increasingly;
The Sea overwhelms—angrily;
The Fires burn—unapologetically;
The Rivers run dry—continuously;
The Soil wilts—dangerously;
But people don’t care.

No, their eyes are focused on distractions;
Elections, with no viable options;
Porn, with no satisfactions;
Crap, with no limitations;
War, continuations;
While the Earth, needing but not getting, satisfaction.

Heading toward catastrophe,
Like a river boat going over the falls,
People partying unlimited,
Unable to hear the Earth’s calls.
As it staggers, shakily,
Into on-coming traffic….

The story of David endures.
Biblical boy versus giant allures.
Why this tale evokes glee
Owes to simplicity
As defying a giant assures.

America and China conflict.
The young one decides to constrict.
In a world of appeasement
One acts up for a reason.
Which the powered condemn as too strict.

The giant that’s challenged is real.
It whips its own people to heel.
Using force without measure
Stealing lives, blood and treasure
The giant may yet come to deal.

I never understood the phrase “deafening silence” until your departure, until our bodies no longer inhabited the same sky. Until I understood that our last words to each other were just that, the last. That they were our goodbyes. Until I gazed at a stranger and realized that you each had the same eyes.

Until my ears rang from the sound of grief, when melancholy robbed me of its dichotomous enemy, as a shovel pierced the ground beneath my feet. In this soil, that is now your body’s home. When the sound of dirt stained by death made the hairs of my body stand still
as yours lied
idle, alone.

It was not deafening,
but deathening.

As we all felt the fog of the dawn, beaming against our skin, when moments after, we swallowed libations of an unnamed
and unknown elixir, tasting of the bereavement within.

When you first departed all I could hear was everything, just as I saw.

A fallen angel on someone’s doorstep on our way to you. A clock paralyzed, like your legs, at 9:32. In our home, I heard reverberations of the machine that couldn’t keep you alive. The chatter of the TV that you never turned off, I can’t remember, was it channel 5?

I felt your hair. Still in my brush

Still.

I saw expired food, untouched and unconsumed by you,
leaving our fridge empty once thrown out, as our hearts and
stomachs were.
Though not our minds,
for they were still trying to accept what was now true.

I never saw any of these things before, not until the color scales of my life were no longer stained by you, or yours.

I watched the illusory sight of a lightbulb in your room flicker in the afternoon. I watched the clock draw past 9:32, as I watched the sky finally change its hues.

Only this time,
I knew that it was you.
Because you painted the sky blue

Each day represents a turning page, and a blank slate
We get to start over each day if we choose to, isn’t that beautiful?
We take what we’ve learned from previous chapters and implement them into our next one
Each day is a new start, we get to write our own story, even if sometimes we feel like it’s already been written for us
Some things are inevitable, plot twists will happen, the climax may not always be what is expected
We get to choose who we keep and who to let go of
Sometimes characters will be there for a few chapters then leave, doesn’t mean they weren’t an important part of the story
Some will stay through thick and thin, no matter the storm or twists and turns that arise
We get to choose to restart again and again if need be
Isn’t it beautiful how we are the authors of our own story?