If the bird flipped was a peace symbol
Like its name implied

If nerd was sexy and paid as such

If homies on the corners listened to Common Sense
Before he went commercial

If money grew on trees
And didn’t leave cotton splinters

If the elector’s voted like they went to college

If college didn’t treat me
As just another commodity

If the dreams weren’t always more vivid than reality

If drinks tasted the same
In cans and bottles

If marijuana was conjoined
With every new treaty

If food was served family style every night

If rain came at uniform speed
And always with deliberate warning

If the clocks had fatter faces

Then, life would be air conditioned

she had a smile that reeked of
“i’ve been there before”
and “it’s been awhile since we’ve met”
so lets take a moment to get re-acquainted

The last time we cuddled like this
we were merely thoughts
muddled between heavy breathing and “i love you’s”

playing hopscotch in heaven

i remember letting you win
knowing it would come in handy 22 yrs later
the funny thing is
you grinned
like you already knew how to make me feel like a king

I was shy for 9 months
i have a feeling you never were
everything about your breath
reminds me of the bright side of my heart
that I always tend to forget too easily
like some drunken bartender who misplaces his keys
there’s a North Star in your fingertips

I was in a hole once
more like a crater
The deepest crevice this side of heartbreak
and you candle-wax blew me a safety net
even before you knew i was drowning
there’s something epic
in that lifeguard red soul of yours
something that deserves more than words
you deserve a sonnet
spit over a shooting star
a song so beautiful
only Queens were afforded the chance to listen
but we both know
you would find someway
to let everyone in on the secret

you are everything subtle
and everything grand
a bright light under bushel basket
who waits patiently
knowing one day the world will be ready enough to see her shine
there is more than just wonder in your spine

more than just swagger in your hips
there’s a universe in your ribcage
that I’m just learning exists
a world of relief under your skin
and
the
jukebox in my chest
playing songs i’ve never heard before
and making me feel nostalgic about places
I’ve never been

A few months ago
i would have never dreamt of being
in a Greek god fairytale
A Promethean fire of a cipher
an adoration battle
between your eyes and my soul
The way you always seem to win
there something to be said for the way you glow
and the transparency of my skin

when you smile

even remotely in my direction
i light up
like red white and blue
rocket pops
in the middle of july
God has blessed me with a modern day miracle
in the sanctity of your eyes

The Mount Olympus in your voice
reminds me of everything coveted
and everything beautiful about “free will” and choice

You are the woman i’ve written about for almost a decade
a sat-fire in the dusk
a prayer that i have been blessed enough to touch

Your a soft whisper in a mother’s bedtime story
the footnote to my heart beat, the breath on my breast
a queen in waiting
a temple surrounded by holy water in your chest

you are everything i have prayed for
and everything I didn’t know i could have

you are the punchline
the climax
in every poem
I have ever written

And I am forever grateful
that God blessed me with the chance
to meet
My inspiration

But I am no longer that much fun
and it doesn’t matter if I write poems with crayons.
The white walls of my room
with all it’s techni-color memories, and posters and glossy paper mirrors
just don’t seem like a giant coloring book anymore.

T-shirt. The one where she leans over the turntables, arms covered in tattoos. The geisha,
that is, not the girl. Though she does want sleeve tattoos someday, the day she fools
herself into thinking she’s willing to spend that much money. I can’t believe
people pay to go through that much pain, she ponders. Random thoughts run through
her head of justice and her drama teacher’s kid sister. She wore overalls and had black roots
too, come to think of it. But she’s probably married now, dreams on hold, sorting through piles

of laundry. Maybe she thinks back to past relationships that didn’t involve compromise or piles
of clothes to hand-wash. Maybe she’ll find lipstick on her husband’s collar, deep red like a geisha’s.
Everything jerks. Our girl barely remembers how she got on this train or scrolled to The Roots
on her iPod. It’s full, both of songs and the cough syrup she knocked over on her nightstand. Foolish
of her not to stand it up once she noticed the bottle had fallen. But the iPod still works, and she runs
through songs on shuffle. Some remind her of him, none remind her of her, and it’s unbelievable

how many songs have swearing. In high school, she wrote a “This I Believe” essay
supporting edited music. Why pay more to buy something the way it’s marketed to you? People pile
onto the train and a woman steps into a puddle of spilled coffee. It runs
across the floor beneath the seats, milky, but no one’s crying. A man eyes the geisha
on her shirt, or rather, her breasts. The girl’s, that is. She folds her arms, wondering how this fool
thinks he can ogle her so shamelessly. He averts his eyes to the map of the train’s routes

mounted on the wall. Strange people take public transportation. Like the woman quoting Roots
who says she knows her Malcolm X, her eyes desperate with doubt, like she can’t believe
in sound advice because it goes against her principles. Like the boy who thought our girl had fooled
him. It was in Biology class. And she’d told him lobsters scream as they die before diners pile
butter sauce onto their tender flesh. He’d thought it was a lie and refused to fall for such a “gay”
lie. Words like “blatant” and “outright” are above his reading level. He writes in run-on

sentences and is the type to leave his windows up if in a car during a tornado. So she just ran with
it, too exhausted to protest and too naïve to be offended. Because she prefers root canals
to confrontation and prefers ideas to people, but she loves aesthetics the most and wants the geisha
to really exist. Whether she wants to look like her or be with her she’s not sure. But she believes
she’ll one day meet the person who’ll make her trust in love. She bumps into a stranger as she piles
off the train two stops too late. This is the third time this week. She doesn’t know who she’s fooling:

she’ll never be served runny eggs and turkey bacon in bed by a hip-hop loving geisha,
her foolish heart will never find the one—it will settle for the time being, only to grow like roots
firmly anchored into soil, and she’ll compile a list of ways to happy, but won’t believe enough to try.

Nighttime.
Less like
time for sleeping.
I think better in
darkness.

II.

Collage.
Claimed, spliced.
Cutting, placing, pasting.
Cover the blank spaces.
Self.

III.

Hello.
We fake wide smiles
effortlessly. Sore cheeks.
This isn’t going anywhere.
Goodbye.

once. (1) Shake. (2) Serve… for old time’s sake.

It’s a piece of junk.

I fell in Lolita with the first two,
They were so ungroomed and took to the nakedness of wisdom as easily as expected.
I told them nothing. I gave them suck. They liked the lie of silence.
The latter I adored with all my dwindling optimism.
It loved the secret of my ankles and for that I told it:
“I know I can narrow my gaze, growl my desire, lick my fangs like any trained predator,
But when you hold me I want you to feel innocent, my blood.”
That was as close as I could come to “I pray to God I don’t turn you.”
But I did and when it died
It pumped its final breath out of an opium pipe.
I mixed it with magnesia and to old age be true
I have lived a hundred lifetimes in those last words.

The river of analyses, I’ve played in. Pon de river. Pon de bank.
My head beat like laundry against the rocks and I thought
Of ironing boards and getting everything straight
But I fell inside the wrinkle of another dream’s forehead.
In the trench war – memory versus records- I met Athena
And I’m telling you she couldn’t weave hair (or victories) worth a damn.
She was no virgin, she slept with my rage and I swore not to tell my religion.

When crossing my fingers
I am fickle as a mojito with a twist,
And in the peaceful decadency of Old MacDonald’s rolling pasture
Surrounded by lilac blooms, fastidious bumble bees
And the dainty cough of summer
We lived for the damnation of doing so.

Here’s to choice!
Here’s to the bacchantes!
To the laugh!
To what’s all the rage in the black-eyed skull of night!
To the corpse, she river-dances!
And life’s yawning zipper!