I've been searching for you
at the bottom of cigarette cartons
trying to remember
if your touch was ever hot
as the ashes falling from my fingertips
I've been searching for you
between the breaths charring my insides
taking my time to wonder
if the warmth between your thighs has faded.

In a city of strangers and uncertainty I waged the final war to close the chapter of aged heartache that’s been stretching on for far too long
       I found everything I needed in London without knowing what had been missing
  The blistering exhaustion of my feet couldn’t stop my soul from rejoicing in the wholeness it found after so long
     Hours blended into days that became a week, a week of healing, of hope, of a life reclaimed, refilled.

In a city of strangers I found myself
                 24 is the year.

My heart felt heavy in the spaces of your musical farewell
        
      I knew then, with certainty I lacked before, that I cared for you
    Far more than our prescribed roles allowed for
             I knew then, as you played your own composition,
     That I’d failed you in some ways
             But in others I still wondered --- about hours that felt like minutes, about how the time between us was art
   Something in all that I am found home in something you are
       It screams within me for more time and less boundaries neither of us can give

You’ll leave soon, the urgency to make meaning is stifling because I’m afraid I could love you
              But will never know
                            You’ll build a life, one you’ve already planned and I’ll miss you like crazy, wishing I’d been around for the planning years before
    Forever changed by thoughts and stars in November
Changed by thoughts and stars of you
during our only season

I’ll send some light and love when I think of you, of our maybe, perhaps, our almost
    When you feel the air exchange in and out
        It carries my thoughts; a little light and a little love
From one, of two people, whose only regret wasn’t the mistakes either of them made
     But simply
  That we didn’t have more time.

A visitor rang at my door late one night, an old friend,
Taking his hand in mine without words we held no identity and breathed as one,
He held a bag of emptied hearts and broken spirits
His eyes held the burden of truth,
We knew, in the silent darkness, the way only hearts can, our parting that night would be short lived
A few days more my door rang again and there with his bag he slipped right in,
I heard all the words he had to say, all the truths he’d forced me to face and begged him to go
Sadly he shook his head, kissed my forehead and took residence in my bed,
I fought and persuaded, pushed , and hung my head defeated
This old friend, he told no lie,
That time for now was no friend of mine,
He never left my side in those months to come, in return I dropped my contributions into his bag,
His hand stay tightly woven in mine as my eyes witness the cancer take so much from the youthful angel, the world only briefly could know,
My friend, he saw this too, he’d wept with me weeks before, and for so many yet to come promising never to leave, at least never for long,
I collapsed into him, into his tragic security
As a loved one slipped away to death he slid into my home
His name was grief and while I live neither he nor I will be alone

I’m ribbons and lace, polka dots and florals
          Naughty and nice, femininity embraced
  I’m scars and secrets, broken hearts and hook ups
                
                       I’m exhausted

                     Defeated

      A captive of my past, uncertain of my future, longing for wholeness
   Congruence
     Afraid of who I become in survival mode

Broken.

  Praying for relief
      Unable to handle this world of political ties and lies
  Wanting to remember what air used to feel like before it was stained with despair and regret
  Hoping one of these days turns out to be better.

"The problem is..."
he drawls
"that it is'nt us who see people differently from you,
but you see things different from us. We are not the problem you are.
You see the basest humans when we paint majestic creatures,
we tell stories of superheroes with no faults,
we expect our boyfriends to mirror night skies in their comfort,
and speak like Kerouac. Kiss our scars like white girl tumblr pictures."
"People like you," he says;
"...Dont ever **** yourselves. You're used to the disappointment. Your used to kissing your boyfriends sweaty upper lips and smelling...just that. You clean up the puke on bathroom floors without complaining because you know what people look like from the inside. That's why your art will never be good. Thats why today in class when I asked you to paint a human body cut open, you drew a colorless man with his organs splaying out of him, and *******" he laughs..
"I have to fold petals into my boyfriends armpits just to stand the sight of him
our ******* is'nt *******,
its *******. Supposedly.
When I tell this story later,
I'll leave out the spit and saliva and how the human body
aint that pretty, especially *******. Even 6 ft 3 chiseled muscle of it, ill write metaphors about his eyes and similes to his fists,
you will tell us about the humaness of his breath and how
it annoyingly kept you up at night,
you will speak of storms but not of the ones in his eyes.
The ones in your belly
when he farts during *** and you will
describe every putrid detail, like the fact that waking up in the morning aint so pretty,
morning breath is something we dreamers leave out in movies. And, it must be exhausting
living here seeing things how they really are, but atleast when you expect disappointment, theres room for surprise.
People like me expect the good and are disappointed when its ****** on."

The musical screech acts as the pleading prayer I could never quite articulate
     the jazz moves around me and through me
I don't understand but I find profound clarity in the minutes that transform into moments
                the album bares witness to the realization I never gave voice to

           that I've only ever held the illusion of love
                                                            ­                     the impression of caring
but love isn't found when you're the other woman,
                                            in addicts broken promises of next time or a summer love in the age of innocence before either of us were aware of ourselves or who we needed to become

true love isn't riddled with entitled expectations
                                                    ­                                      it's given

                                                          ­         it's a gift

   when you begin expecting it, feeling ownership to it; over it
                                                              ­                            that's the same moment you begin to lose it
I believed I'd been neglected; abandoned, God's not given me the love I want
       but inherently in the want it was wrong
  and in the earnest it was flawed
                                          all my examples are broken
                           and today I wondered if maybe, just maybe
   He gave me so many broken spots so the Love,
                                                           ­                 both His and the one I await can be a salvation I can't fathom
                 today He filled all my gaps with the promise this won't last forever
       that what awaits is greater

Through tear stained jazz gospels I felt healed
      not by the removal of problems or broken pieces, because they will always exist
but by Hope
            by Home
                  and by Love                                          in due time.
                                                        <3

Scraggly curl hair bounces in the air
wagging with whisky eyes breezy pleasing the eclectic electric hectic now mind
like finding a papaya inside an oyster
battery powered like a pomegranate passionfruit flower growing and glowing
around my trinity heart with the noise of a sphere's galactic ******!

Crystal Citrine Mountains provide water fountains of sunlight
as so tye-dye t-shirt hip-cat hippos smokin' coconut shisha bathe in barrels
of bourbon.
Lion snakes spit words of worlds hurling nebulous timeline's spiraling
and crashing and splashing baptism ripples together painting Pollack Splatters
with the aroma of Byrd Jazz Jam on rye-whisky bread.

Fractal Berries served by the Far Out Faerrie Ferryman Skeletan with bejeweled emerald eyes
winks while I read in the reeds panting in pan-flutes while water rabbits scamper
into clay enclaves to bathe in pinecone designed sand-tubs.

The hieroglyphic phoenix twists and skip-scats neon green vinyl
turning the wind inside out to x-ray flames of fireworks.