Cinnamon Sticks In My Tea

Love?
I can’t put it in my pocket
Or draw hearts around it
But these lips
having a conversation with
yours
You
unbuttoning my thoughts
existing in the space between
orange and green
on leather leaves
before they kiss
the ground, or
snatched by the wind
and locked
in a sentence
without a period
like sticks of cinnamon
in my tea

Ralph Ellison

I was born in the sun
and raised in the night sky
until I fell on a page
that made me aware of
the color of my ink
it is too dark
but if it were
any brighter
they couldn't see me.

Untitled

Don't slow down
there is nothing to see here
stale years are waiting to be released
locked behind curled bars
she could fill up wells with her clear ink
he is a clenched fist
that she has been trying to hold hands with
sometimes you invite the hurt in
and hope it doesn't stay long
but it became home
pieces of her poem
have been shoved into jeans pockets
next to blunt wraps and condoms
dragging her dreams along
crack ridden streets
then sneaking in to morning.

August 8th 11:25pm

She was such a pretty girl, with caramel curls and words that burned like raw morning

Write Backwards

Knife. tongue. scarred. lips.
will make this kiss
a little difficult
an ocean with a map
trying to fit into the mouth of a river
flow back words
and catch the fall
but there is a verbose boiling
in this bed
seven heart attacks
in the past four years
passing the past on
like it isn't vivid black
but it is like the first line
repeated as the last. knife.

You Are

My momma named me after
somebody on General Hospital
so I am a poet named Ashley, revolutionary
because you can't scrub the sun off my skin
they pull out their index
at the sight of me, Medusa's kin
their fear is man-made
and past its expiration date
but they still keep refilling their prescription
who is this fucked up pharmacist?
for them, there is venom in my pen
and I'll make them swallow this black licorice
if they speak of the other in colors
wrapped around crayons
that kids struggle to get off
and adults stick on their left breast pocket
they will lay on their labels
six feet deep in a sheet
I am fascinating, exotic,
a white girl dipped in chocolate?
a subject to be mastered
a sample under a microscope
someone should have told me to prepare
for this show
I tried to write a script
but all I could come up with
is this...

She even promised herself she wouldn't write about him

She is three weeks from lonely
her honey isn't as sweet as it use to be
she use to kind of sing her words
like Billie's vibrato over strings
you could slow dance
under a half moon to her metaphor
but that was before
now she has coal rimmed eyes
and nothing on her lips but smudged
disappointment
He made flowers drink heavily
and lightening bugs catch fire mid flight
but he will be remembered as nothing special
by her ink.