this is what your mother does not want you to see,
that your ancestors rattled the cages so hard they broke
and learned to tame the lioness that stepped out from the aftermath.
you can find your linage in the dirt beneath your grandmothers fingernails,
here is the fight that they poured into your soul,
the mountains that they climbed,
the battles that they conquered.
your mothers grandmother laughs like wicken,
carries something valuable in the deep creases of her skin,
tells you not to waste your time with love and lust,
but to chase the wind while your feet are strong enough to carry you.
this is what your mother does not want you to see,
that you come from a long line of women nothing close to tame.
that you carry the blood of those who molded the world,
instead of letting it mold them.

Morning Sunlight keens like a mother
cries for her dying child & leaves
abandon their trees

while fall presumes winter
will glower like black
ice

hard from
preceding
months,

where the promise
of spring seems
unattainable.

Poets are supposed to be deep
And I am stuck in a rut.

I stood there and I stared at him
I told him I loved him and it'd all be okay
But he knew I lied again.

2am and I'm barely getting home
He's waiting in the living room by his phone
Waiting for enough strength to tell me to leave
Instead, I open the door and he leaps to embrace me.

He knows what I'm doing
He looses his mind, I continue to submit
He's screaming and crying
He pushes me and I deserve it

There's not a thing that I can do
There's not a word I haven't said
I shatter him into pieces
Every night I come home from another's bed.

One dozen migratory Black-and-white Warblers lay
like fallen piano keys on the sidewalk in front
of a 14-story glass constructed building;
I watched as the janitor swept
them into the street.

on October mornings
when the world outside my window
is lost in a pale fog
& faint white light slips between
the spaces in my blinds but spares
me, cloaked in shade & free
to sleep a little longer (if i could)

when the cozy scent of coffee
drifts upstairs, through the chilly air
& kisses me awake
how to savor a stillness so delicate?
threatened by little more
than the **** creaky floor

on October mornings
born mild & undisturbed
i tiptoe through the quiet
vacant rooms that smell of
spice & stale smoke
all is as i left it.
(draped in loneliness)

when i've accidentally made
one too many pancakes
& the wind's whistle haunts me like
a distant friendly ghost
it seems to always be
on these October mornings
that i wish you were here

the most