We Both Loved Words

I was sixteen
he was too old for me
But
we both loved words
So I let him
Kiss my verb
He tried to
strip my thoughts
But the zipper kept getting caught
On my tongue
Or his baseline
I’m not sure which
one
Bright like Black smiles he was
raised on Holloway St.
Where they brew poison
that burns like honey
Taking swigs on Sundays
Until the bottle is finished
I took a sip
And haven’t stopped drinking
Since
his lyrics slipped down my throat
almost choked on the word bitch
But censors couldn’t stop his flow
He wore precious stones set in metal
A medal
To hide rope burns
I learned that he was born in the Bronx
Explained his accent
And his grit
We broke up once
Because he wanted to fuck
Every girl in the world
But were back together again
Call me an alcoholic
because as I lick
The foam from my lip
All I can see is the sun
Reflecting green glass
On concrete
Our symmetry
embedded in
Beats and trees
The ones he smoked
And the ones I wrote
On

I have five minutes to write

I slid in between bars
contorting to fit
neatly in this space
but chaos;
matches in our eyes
toes coiled to the soul
climbing up my wall
kisses laced with lies
innumerable exit wounds
congregating in my mind,
chaos
doesn't fit neatly
and I have five minutes to write.

Heartprints

Words
writhing on the back of my tongue
burning taste buds
prying lines from my neck
mixing pigments in my irises
the perfect shade of
black
the kind the moon soaks in
peeled back
and dipped in sugar
forgetting to write
this down but
you were here

Oak

Unrequited,
quiet
I can't hear my song
with all of this
thumping in my chest
of steps taken by men with no clear destination
just up
where on my knees
I floated my fragmented peace,
to the Son
I heard was a carpenter.

Black Coffee

You would think she felt it
the way she melts syllables into song
tip toeing on her tongue
losing their balance on the rim then
falling on to her audience
they call her black
because she has skin like scrolls
with no more room to write
wrongs, but she keeps finding places
like the lips of a gutter
she sips coffee without cream or sugar
waiting on this feeling
to walk through the door
and it will, but it won't take it's shoes off
tracking mud all through her home
on her raw knees
scrubbing
the paper clean

French Kissing

Translating a foreign tongue.

Janie

Night fell on her, seeping in,
leaving stars sprinkled on her skin
the moon stood in awe.
her art beat loud
and you could read the lines of her lashes
blinking, the preface to infinity.