Wherever you are, no matter what you are doing
Or how frequently
I want you to think of me.
To take a breath and inhale our memories.
Become one with those summer nights
Relive those intimate conversations.
Hear my lips part as I smile or
Taste the candy of my mouth.
Imagine when you lay down it's me there.
Simply remember why you loved me.

"No questions.
You ain't gotta a-s-k."

They strive to know what we already do. Leave 'em out there wondering.

exactly a year ago, i was here.
reflecting..packing
feeling as if i'd outgrown these childish bedroom walls
anxious as to what the following year would bring

its scary how all the problems i had then seem minor to what i face today.
so very few people that remain consistent then and now.
looking in the mirror
weight gained
along with experiences
people
knowledge
and healed wounds

i left these childish walls striving to be great
today my goal is the same

i won't try to fall in love
i won't try to make someone fall in love with me
i won't fake what i can't feel

i will let go and let god.
as always.

Who wants that perfect love story anyway?*
This all feels as if it never left.
And I hate myself for loving every moment of it.
Knowing I can't expect forever,
so i breathe in the right now as our eyes set as the sun rises.
if i could make time stand still…

I don't even think it's fair.

Ever had a moment where you forget where you're sleeping?
So lost in your dream that you forget the bed that you're in is not your own?
For a few hours you don't feel them embracing you or the awkwardness that is waking up not knowing what to do next.

I forgot where I was. Didn't feel him. I rolled over and saw his image and remembered maybe this is where I needed to be all along. I didn't have the impulse to flee. I just watched him sleep.

He rolled over and saw my bright eyes smiling. He pulled me in closer, kissed my face as he greeted "buenos dias". An hour before my alarm clock so we had just enough time.
Loving you is too easy. It overwhelms me sometimes.

My grandfather's face is heavy with worry.
He sits on the piano bench in a room empty of sound.
Just breaths.
Breaths of me holding mine
Breaths of him releasing sighs
Breaths of my sister sleeping peacefully on the living room floor.

Heavy with worry,
He reminds me that times are hard snd people are dying. He can't take another phone call.
I watch him try to find answers in the carpet because my face reminds him of youth and possibility that is running out from so many.

Blues melodies are echoing in the kitchen,
Shrieks from an over eager two year old can be heard up stairs.
I have no answers, just prayer and love.
Grandpa don't worry.

It hurts more that in the time I am away, you question if I am worth it.

I am not enough. This heart is not enough. We are not enough. What I give you is not enough.

This heart that stayed up until the sun rose and watched you sleep is not enough.
These hands that have written you love letters almost everyday for four months is not enough.
These arms that embrace you, this mouth that tastes you, these eyes that search for you, these palms that feel you, these smiles I bear you, this time I spend with you.
Is
Not
Enough.

I use to question why I was so lucky to find such a true find worth loving. Someone worth losing for a short time just to find again. Now I question how someone can easily just rip a band-aid from a wound that was nearly closed, stitches nearly cinched.

What do I matter when everything I love I lose.
Staring at me.
No situation that can be taken lightly.
Teary-eyed as I walk away.
I will never let you see me cry.

You are not enough.

I'm dark because I couldn't say no.
Letting him kiss my face, my shoulders, my arms, wherever place his lips could meet, I let him have it.
Those kisses keep me warm, make me illuminate as if I am a reflection of him.
So when you tell me I'm "black as ****" while I used to flinch, now I do not stir.
But now I realize you my friend are the lonely one.
The sun finds me, loves me down all over, leaving traces of his prescience as if he doesn't mind if my daddy comes hunting him down.
You search the sun out, maybe he'll squeeze in time, but my sun. Oh my sun.
My sun has a way of seeping deep into my skin, leaving me marked each time he comes and goes. No matter the season, his kiss remains. Tan lines that have marked his territory.
My friend, you fear for that real love that has no limits. You search out something more temporary such as the seasons,
While I open myself for all love he gives.
"Black as ****" you may exclaim when my pretty brown brown drives you wild.
Well, the sun and I have an eternal love affair.
Each kiss just adding more beautiful to my brown.

Together we feel like the color yellow
Just as bright as can be
Happy to just be together doing nothing
Rather than being bored doing nothing
Separately

There's something in you that intrigues me, but it's overpowered by an urge to pull away. I don't even have to pull anymore because it feels like a push. I've always wondered what it'd be like, being yours. But it always seemed like one of those lifelong crushes that just aren't meant to be cemented, not meant to be permanent.

It gets confusing though because you're the only person that can make me smile so fast when this heart is so angry. It's just that sixth grade girl in me all over again He noticed me, he noticed me

In reality anyone can be noticed, few remembered. I just wanted to be remembered, even if it wasn't as yours. It's always so easy when it's just the two of us in our own worlds. So easy to pretend that i matter so much. you're gonna make a great man out of someone one day waiting for this man I'm supposedly going to force to change his ways for me.

I never wanted that though. I wanted someone that I didn't have to worry about. Mine. A person that I can openly love without feeling ashamed, disloyal, secretive, or left out. mine

They've all had you.
And maybe they've all had me too.

And once he got it right, I rose along with the sun. Exhale.

I can argue with you more than anyone because somehow you'll show me that I'm lovable beyond my means.
Even in our mess of confusion, we make sense. Not always, but we make do.

there is nothing more rewarding than when a person is genuinely happy to see you.

unafraid to release the anxiety that was the waiting for their return.

hug me.

happy fall.

Day 2

For a second I felt missed as you yelled what was wrong with me

Then I watched your eyes roam
Then I watched hers watch you walk away.

Maybe you missed me until you saw her again.

He sleeps so late.
Wake up, wake up
I miss you too much.
It'd be different if I could be a part of your dreams, see what's behind those eyelids that keeps them closed so long.
But I'll never know.
So wake up, wake up
I miss you too much.

Dear old me

I'll do this for you. You remind me of how far we've come...together. I fought for us to get here and I will carry us on my back to make sure next year the new me will continue the legacy of progression.

I don't judge you, you taught me so much about what I didn't want to be that right now I feel overwhelmed with blessings to be standing here happy with how we've managed to keep it all together.

Can you believe we've been at this for 20 years now? Scares the **** out of me too. But we've done pretty good for ourselves old me. I can't wait to see what we'll continue to do.

Dear

My dear friend.

It's hard not to think of you all the time when you're constantly blessing my ears with your laughter, and my heart with your warmth. I daydream of you often, waiting for the day our mouths will meet, until then, I'll just breathe next to you. Inhaling your smell, feeling you as you feel me breathe. I'll tense up when your knee grazes mine, and over think if it's meant to be there because you never moved it. I'll get through my weeks by knowing there is someone out there whose hands can remove all the stress that piled on during those hectic seven days, whose words can temporarily remove me from them as if he worked the miracle of time travel. Your presence turns my stomach in knots as I can smell you before I see you. "You smell nice." "Thank you mama."

He could not hear me
At my normal tone and pitch
Then I imitated a man
And he suddenly heard.

If I could remember I would.
Remember who you were before this
Find myself in your face
Feel the pattern of my skin in your palms
It shouldn't be so hard to find your memory
Especially since you keep recurring
But I don't want to remember
No point in traveling down that road again because there's no guarantee the destination will in fact be the you I once knew. I won't know if the journey was worth it until it's too late. I threw in the towel early yes, but where did you expect me to go?

I don't remember anything.
A blur of friends and drinks
Dances and laughs
You fell in the mix, but I don't remember
I just woke up smelling like you.

We grow up and fall in love with ppl and things that were never meant for us. We make these things our own and become more alive than we ever were before.

keep me

i don't wanna go back out there.
just to be cold and alone.
just as i am here.
might as well suffer with you.
be alone next to you
even if i know someone else was here
will be here
is here.
this spot isn't mine.
neither are you.

but don't send me back out there.
although i'll be cold and alone
with or without you.

It's hard to love a friend and lose love without feeling lost. Staring in silence wishing you could find answers to questions you're too cowardly to ask. Afraid the answer can only break you more.
i fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly at first then all at once

Falling out, however, is a whole other battle.

Lover of black men and all their
Flaws and glory.

Stuck like your smell to my skin that reminds me of where I've been and always want to be.

because i defend you when they can't seem to understand
holding on because i know what they don't
and it's possible they never will

because when i laid in your arms, i looked in your eyes and asked
where did you come from?
wondering how we got here
when just a week ago i was panicking at the thought of not being able to ever go there

because i watched you sleep and my heart sped up at the sound of your breath
and my skin went cold at your every touch
how did we get here?

because even as the sun rose you wanted to stay in that moment
why are you leaving?

oh, but honey

i would never.

It's coming to an end.
A month of new people, experiences, tasks, students. It's ending. I came in just ready for a job, now leaving with so many new outlooks on life, so many new faces that will appear in my dreams, so many more people that depend on me. I came in ready to do whatever it took for the guaranteed $1500, leaving blessed to be receiving a check from doing a job I rarely thought of as such. As if I was being paid to laugh with students, answer their questions about myself, keep them structured, just to be there for them.

Don't get me wrong, I was stressed often, but it seemed worth it the first heart to heart I had with a student. It was beyond worth it when I participated in the fashion show wearing my clothes and they all cheered for me. It was the moment I got my counselor reviews back and all my students said my personality and energy was "lovely" and they knew they could come to me for whatever reason.

I never held so much responsibility. One of my students was legally blind, I took it upon myself to always ensure her safety, medications, and accommodations. It was the first time someone really depended on me. I loved her like my own.

I realized why some people don't always take the job that promises the highest wage, because now that I think of it my work was worth more than $1500, but the experiences make up for it. The moments you look forward to greeting your students and them laughing at the awkward moments you too went through in high school. I wanted to cry when they told me I had to return next summer, when they had no trouble reminding me that I am beautiful inside and out as I ironically preached it to them.

It's a bond that cannot be broken amongst staff and students. We survived together on this island, and now that it's over I can't even remember what I was like before this.
I love these PEOPLE like they were my own.

Crave me when the world is repulsed by all I have to give.
Show warmth as the flurries dance on my eyelashes and my breath becomes visible.
Remember there is only one of me,
And all of me wants all of you.

Not just love. More than these moments that get us off or make us feel elated, wanted, undeserving. Separate but equal just the same with distance. An ability to crave solitude, a power to decide when you don't have to be alone. A constant light when they tell you that your solitude is gloomy, darkening, all consuming of potential happiness.

I don't really know what love is because in all honesty it doesn't take a whole bunch before I'm inspired to take my desires to the paper. That's just documentation. Memories so when the real thing comes along, I'll know exactly why the others never worked out. Poems that just show how anti-alone a young woman can be.

I don't want my poetry to thrive based on how someone else can make me feel. A passion of mine that has to be constant, more inspirations, however I'm feeling. I don't want to be known as the girl that always wrote about being in love because I don't know if I ever really was...

Just when I was thinking my crush was one sided, he asked me if I wanted to dance. Usually I only dance with someone when there's enough people dancing that it doesn't really matter, but this time I didn't care. I wasn't (that) drunk, and there weren't that many people there. I wanted to dance with him though. So as he grabbed my hand as R.Kelly played I felt his hips behind me, his hands keeping me balanced, his back slipping lower as his legs opened wider. I saw people looking but I just didn't care, he didn't either. And before the song ended we left because his hands kept wandering to my **** "So you're just gonna keep caressing my *** huh?" "You never said stop". I didn't.

So we snuck out into a stairwell for him to stare at me until I smiled, telling me how weird I am in the best way. And I stared back until his eyes wandered down to my lips, my chest, my hips. Finally.

I love reading poems about love.
About sisters like me
finding love
failing at love
not giving up on love
tired of love
grateful of love
needy of love

I love reading about those people that change them.
In their words I find their love as if it's mine too.
They give me a safe space to share my love
or lack there of

And even if each week our opinion of love changes
I know someone out there will read about my love
or lack there of

This week my love lives.

I see lonely hearts and falling leaves.

Falling, but I am not a leaf.

Where do those hearts go?

Trying to find a place for my heart, she needs a home.

Maybe she's best with me.

But she wants to be loved, she wants to be loved*

She's best to be loved by me.

I'm a servant to the pages
Intruding on infinite realities to distract me from my own
She's always yelling
For a day I can be someone else
Keeping my nose tucked
Serving as a fly on the wall as all hell breaks loose
It's never over
No book between my fingertips shall prosper as long as I'm stuck in this
madness
Saddened as the thickness that once was the unknown dies out until I reach the highly unanticipated author's note
Not five minutes passed before the yelling revs up again
Like a bad engine trying to restore it's life
I want to hit the road too

I pray that in my year of 20 I am slow to love.
Bitter it may sound, but really...
Those moments of euphoria are so deceiving

I vow to stop looking. He'll come when he is ready. Until then I will work on me. Being someone that I can love before I expect someone to do the same.

I'll write you letters that smell of new beginnings and fear hoping to receive letters of comfort and strength. I'll love you from places you may never get to see, and you'll remind me of all that is waiting for me back home. It will be so hard, but what's a rock to a mountain?

When given the chance,

*Why do you always choose love over sleep?

Dear you,

Some people are complicated inside. They take work to be understood, like it takes work to master the courts, work to get through tough times, work to find love when you think the meaning itself has no purpose anymore. I'm here to remind you it does.

Someone once said when you need love, look to yourself and find what  you're looking for in you. Personally, I never understood how someone could find hugs, kisses, understanding, and comfort within themselves. I guess it wasn't until I'd been knocked down a few times that I started to get the point. Sometimes you are all you need.

See, that sounds weird, maybe even lonely, but when you look inside yourself, what do you see?
What are you made of? Who made you? Who got you to this point? That's where the love within you is. Find her smile.

She'll see you through.

Ironic enough
You embody the man I despise when he is loved
That power you hold
I'm aware
You think I'm already yours
Just waiting for you to come claim your prize
now my eyes fill with realization
I refuse to give you more power
So I'll lower my brown pools when I once was warmed with the moment the stares would meet
I'll leave the room to show I don't yearn for your prescence
I will not let you be loved

It was the way he kissed every part of me, felt every part of me almost every minute. The moments he didn't think I was paying attention, but he was never slipping. Kissing my hair as I slept as if we'd known each other for years. Holding me as if it'd break more than hearts to let go. Snoring on my chest, suddenly waking up to my face and never returning to his slumber without a kiss.

It was the way I woke up to his kisses and him stroking my hair.

"To ask him now, it ain't fair. So yeah, he lost one."

Sometimes you get so exhausted repeating yourself
Just to hear him say
"I'm sorry"
As if it's everything you want to hear
So you just sigh and ask

Is it even worth it?

One day I will walk past the mirror and not check to see if I've gained weight overnight. That day I will not stare at my body until it changes.
I'll come to accept my form is mine, and I'll be loved for it. I have been loved for it.

*who ever told you that you curves and lack there of weren't perfect? Why did you believe them?

Sitting on a bus wondering where I'm headed, not location wise, but where with this fellow I came all this way for. Slowly doubting if this could really be it. If it was just another instance of me not wanting to be alone.

Then the crowd parted ways like Moses parted the sea and there he was.

All for me.

It is in these moments of utter nothing I know I am not meant to be here. We are only missed when we are far from home, far from others' convenience. Far, I want to be stretched across the borders,  full moments spent exploring. Take me somewhere where my mom can't call me back in a heartbeat and friends can't stop by on their way home. Away. Because I, by myself, do not measure up enough to be missed if I am within distance. By anyone. So only 1 person will call, probably because he's so far... I just want someone to play cards with me in the grass, walk to the park with and talk about life. Breathing with the breeze when there are no words left to speak. People lack compassion, not realizing sometimes you just need to be in someone else's prescence besides your own. They deprive you of this. Leaving you with a solitude that was once so sweet that it rotted before you. Now brown, once the ripest green. One day I will be missed, that's why I always want to leave.

Hopefully one day you'll listen to you & i by john legend and think of me the way i always think of you.


*out of all of the girls, you're my one and only girl. ain't nobody in the world tonight...you don't have to try.

Full of life
I can't squeeze a word in most times
He can't hear my voice
He's drowning in himself

whats wrong love? you look like you've lost your best friend...*

one of those endings that hurt because it wasn't suppose to go that way

same song different note

except

He's rare.

Just be you
In this world of us
Doors closed

Trap them all out
Let's just stay here
No one will have to know

Hopefully they'll forget about us
Just for a few more hours
Have to savor these moments of you
And me
Just being us

Breathe. No one to listen.
No one to repeat.
No one to judge.
Just us
Being us.

Little do they know I have small fantasies imagining what life would be like if he were mine.
Not one he in particular, but just someone.