I'm sorry

Before he could even sharpen his tongue
start slicing away at what I had left
I said it first
I'm sorry
I'm sorry that I expected greatness from you
pyramids of possibility built on a mustard seed
or limitless lyrics running on a continuous beat
without ever crossing a bridge
I have intangible artifacts of what we could have been
you were Jean-Michel Basquiat
scouring my skin, looking for places
to test a new technique
colors that prisms search the light trying to find
it was the most gratifying graffiti
but again, I'm sorry
I'm sorry that you don't know your father
that you have this manhole
in the center of your chest
a crawl space where you avoid the son
but you are his shadow
and I have climbed out of enough to know
that you can go blind
living in the dark
you see, I don't wear these glasses for fun
I should have known
you could never finish a poem
and I'm sorry I look like your mother
a piece of bark
torn from a tree
cut down and twisted into a cross
then set on fire
that still stands tall
it's probably why my words burn like raw morning
and I have this caramelized coating
with a soft center
but you would prefer something more exotic
concocted from a perpetuated fantasy
I'm sorry I have bad hair
and too much common sense
to let your lies lie here
take up space in my bed
I would have to wash my sheets 5 times a week
use bleach
and get them dry cleaned
to protect them from potential hurt
so I'm glad that you're doing this now
because baby,
I feel so sorry
for you.

How to Eat Sugar Cane

I use to be a detective. Harriet the Spy. transcribing the lives of unsuspecting strangers. examining their rippled hands. making up stories about Southern women in full length furs buying milk at the grocery store. silver rope tossed across their shoulders. Decorated warriors. wondering how many times they've folded their paper hearts and floated them on top of roaring oceans. Waiting for high tide on shifting floors. Nine life living. Now I follow men. Convicted criminials with no records or recollection of their sins. Stealing tithes from a lone congregation. I know them. Wu-tang loving, weed smoking, mama's boys. who can pull Pomegranate seeds from their pockets and make me eat from their hands. Them. Walking out of the same doors their fathers did. Forgetting to close it. Them. Engraved pens that can't write for shit. I put puzzled pictures back together. I prefer Scotch tape or vodka. But this one taught me How to Eat Sugar Cane. brought bundles of sweetness back from the Sticky sun. and tucked me in. But when I came home, probably after scrapping another chapter. My Mama's permanent First Sunday smile was lost. I looked for it. under brown couch cushions and in the frames of the ten pictures of me on the mantle. I found it in the overflowing dirty clothes hamper. I should have known, it was in his pocket. I threw away my magnifying glass.