The Self Mutilation We Call Love

I dig into the sun to paint you into this poem

because I couldn’t think of any other proper form of ink

than the one that gives life.

Lately I’ve been sipping on broken hearts,

Collecting silver linings,

Trying to get a hold on this mess of a heart that I have slowly

sewn into this work of art,

Every now and then, I keep my hurt in my pocket like spare change,

hoping I could give it away little by little to anyone I came in contact with.

You see, I crave your closeness but apparently I’m unreliable and inconsistent,

because sometimes I needed you, and other times I wanted you,

and even today sometimes I still need you.

Why would you ever want to leave when we found shelter wherever we lay,

Did you not hear the rhythm of my heartbeat beat differently around you?

Or did I not recognize that I held myself in too tight and didn’t allow enough of you in?

I told you I love you not expecting to bring you back,

I told you I love you because you live in the delusional crevices of my mind,

sending shockwaves into my soul,

and I just needed some form of peace from that piece of your love,

I told you because I was ignorant to how naïve I was before

in lying to myself that I didn’t love you,

I told you because I didn’t know where else to put my love

for you,

because there you are, as always, your silhouette in cursive appearing in every line of my every word.

I told you because my love toxicity was too high to function and you have ways of stirring me into an emotional wreck,

so badly,

that lately I’ve asked myself how can I make myself feeeel better?

So I’ve been cuddling up with serpents hoping with the lights turned off I could feel a little bit closer to you,

I would strip vocal cords from someone else in hopes their high notes would dip into me like yours did,

Hoping that being too blind and too drunk to perception I wouldn’t come to realize that it’s not you…

I told you I love you today because I never had the chance to wake up and tell you sweetly, picture perfect, what’s been the truth all along….

Bottomless Pockets

I am a sell out to your love.

I remember me when I hear you,

I can’t escape or pretend that you’re not intertwined with my insanity.

You have me wishing on orphan eyelashes, picking petals off broken flowers,

 gambling coins in wishing wells, conversing with shooting stars.

I have lost count of how many different ways you have found to destroy me.

I’ve always appear to have the ability to learn to pull myself together...just enough,

But there on my skin, I found a leftover kiss of yours…waiting,

I read your messages, your poems, and your letters and cross reference them to the slight rips in me,

honest,

I wonder what your bed feels like when she lays in it.

I remember the days we hid away from our responsibilities,

Long days we spent broke but not broken,

Matching breaths as we fell asleep,

We loved hard,

Our love was absurd,

naive,

and lethal,

it was so damn beautiful,

I knew love when it made me want to do it better!

If I had known that was our last kiss,

I would had tattooed my poetry on to your lips,

So that if you were to lay them on to anyone else they would recognize my presence.

If I had known I would never enter your heart again I would have imperfectly sang

‘I love you’ to you because love is found in that soft hesitation before the confession,

But our love shifted like fall’s falling leaves,

I heard the unhappiness in your voice and denial in mine,

You asked me to love you without saying a word

 and all I could say was take it slow,

Take your time. I’m not there yet…

because once I love

my love is bottomless pockets but because you tried to weigh it’s worth

it wasn’t enough for you…

Love Out Of Lust

A pulsating breeze stretched and swallowed the sun,

Birds laughed outside my window as tears engulfed the rusted metal sky,

What some would call a misplaced sun kind-of-day,

A tidal wave of interruption shipwrecked my conscience’s joy,

Believed to believe I was dragged here without a reason,

Lies of course,

Sinker anchored at my ankles to submerge, dissect and rummage through

an empty sack of possibilities and broken hearts,

a funeral,

resurrecting ghost steps and goodbye lullabies in my soul’s bones,

nominating me to grope this madness,

In a race to my next frustration my initial excitement roams aimlessly away

as my frame now fragile from the slow stirring of a quiet pain,

I don’t want his name in here,

an intruder boldly invading my mind eventually to possess my heart,

the word “always” swims along my lips, knotted around my throat,

if you were to listen to the waves in my heart you would hear

articulated tiny, repetitive explosions of fears,

suicidal questions of the heart,

drumming intimate coded messages behind my restless eyes,

my stubbornness working overtime to confiscate my thoughts,

my feelings,

my- you know, the shit no one likes to confess,

and on occasion we fail,

catch its breath and call it “that’s life”

so I’m left with…

with struggling with you,

You make me become a spiritual rebellion,

Coveting you,

with a pinch of shame,

Catapulting me to change each glance into a gaze,

Notice the curve of your lips and how it reveals that infamous smile,

 or the glint of your eyes that is just…

simply right,

sweet paradise let me be your Earth,

celestial glory,

a touch of fantasy fused with lust,

a chemist of pleasure and pain,

I would love to play the part,

I’d like to keep you all to myself,

in no mood for substitutes,

So continue to show me what I’m looking for,

and hopefully I can show you

what you need to feel…

Universally Speaking

Cotton clouds scratched across as the morning climbs into my blues

Cold winds rise shoplifting the warmth of the sun

Time hurdles like a river and I’m drowning,

Quietly,

Eyes calling out for some comfort,

Submerged, face first, in the question Why

The word draws a bridge before my door,

Question,

Have you ever built a bridge and watched it fall before your eyes?

I have,

Bringing home the reality of inevitable withdrawal,

I knew I hadn’t met my match, and yet I don’t know why I let myself,

Let myself get so attached,

I’ve noticed I’m rather blind,

Probably as to why I dare not to acknowledge the fine light exposing the soft silhouette of the love I left in the dark corner of the room,

A haunting silence fills the air before the whispers panic into my ears,

Lick over my eyes,

Consume my dreams,

What a girl like me got if not her dreams?

I ask,

I’ve loved love until color fades,

I’ve been crushed and put aside,

My souls been psychedelic…

for you,

I’ve looked for an exit sign to lead me on my way,

But only found your barriers, and your name,

The first flying thing in the room without you ever entering,

So I sit and stare, listen to the Earth’s affairs,

trees twist in the wind, as I feel every movement I make,

Needing the breath I must take to move…

on…

I Think I Love You

Solitude seduces these high pale walls as I stare at the ceiling,

pause,

rewind and play again a series of revelations,

Stomach filled with stones as shadows of the past stretches and encases my mind,

the moon’s steel fingers reaches into my room,

washes me in the moonlight,

gracing wounds that begin to glow and sing,

and so I ask give me the sun, give me the ball of fire’s heat,

remind me it’s better… that it’s better to be alive,

but it’s never half past safe as a constellation of thoughts revolves around in my head,

my intuition is M.I.A…..

red afro dizzy biracial rebel I am …terrified,

feeling good is the bait,

comfort is the poison,

I mummify the secrets of this,

my secrets that fits so close I have grown attach to it,

beginning to understand the darker side of midnight,

and I,

because the more I fall the more he lets go,

and I start to know less of how to win that smile within his eyes,

and yet I’m in love with his loveless eyes,

and with me not knowing where to begin or where to start,

it has accumulated for some time now,

I want to give up wanting him….but will I?

Bullied by the sudden thought of

“Will I miss the taste of wanting him…”?

I contemplate whether I dare to risk,

Continue to suffer his misunderstandings of me,

Stumble for him in the darkness,

Be willing to stand at his door insanely and completely uncalled for…yet hopeful, asking “come here, let me have you”

Tip toeing on the borderline of romance and loneliness,

and often when I feel like this, there’s a knock on the door

…and it isn’t him,

So I fuck something only to discharge the electricity since he won’t let me digest him properly,

he rarely notices how I hang on to his every word,

how I want to touch his body, walk through his mind,

take my time undressing him slowly, my voice fondling his name as I disappear inside his thunder storm of hot, loving arms,

hoping to be coated and crushed in his thick set of dreams,

bathe in his smile, held hostage in the grip of his voice,

be infected by his poison ivy kiss and frozen lips,

wishing for wine on his empty kiss,

but he pick pockets my heart, gathers himself up and leaves,

and I’m here, holding him in that brief moment, sounds of the future tangled in my pockets and I’m trapped in a block of words

I cannot say,

cradling full paragraphs of things “I should say”,

I digest his departure yet needing him to finish me as prescribed,

My black crater eyes unroll delicately to dust, I’m drowning down the feeling again as half smiles and half words mingle with full naked plastic passion and lost,

Hiding the many faces of pain,

Shaking them with the promise of “never again”,

scrubbing clean of all attached and fallen expressions,

accepting to learn to love love’s abuse,

because hell is only temporary… right?

Sadness scribbles its name on my heart, spreading like a stain as it sips on it’s pretty eyes, and yet I’m comfortable with the way I seek to survive…hidden away,

Solitary tear as I dip into the dark, Left alone with only reflections of memories, undressing him from my future,

So I’ll hang this, this gigantic red metamorphic butterfly of a heart,

Hang it right here on the wall,

Just to remind him, it once belonged to you….

---Miss Ember

Life Loans a Lesson

The purple veins of the night dissipates as the devil sun smashes behind,

morning is here, pulsing and screaming over the horizon,

a classroom backdrop, the room is silent,

empty, longing to be filled,

trees bend and thrust the wind as it hounds outside her windows,

light leaps between leaves, gradually poking through the glass before bouncing gently off the black chalkboard reading

Final Exam: Life Loans a Lesson

a perfect combination of the sun and childlike hurricanes,

and she laughs

and laughs some more at the sunbeams,

sunshine doesn’t live here she says under her shattered chuckle,

this is what one would call a wounded morning,

a genesis of destruction,

she parked herself at the wooden desk, groping it as she shuts her eyes,

head bowed, hypnotized by the darkness, embracing every second,

she has a phobia, lately, for the light of reality,

so she sits and waits like a wish in the pits of a fountain,

anticipating for her mind to touch peace,

time circles around her head and she issues a silent prayer

this too shall pass, she says to herself,

false peace glows, infant possibilities shudders as

déjà vu creeps up inside her, operating to steal her breath,

her stomach filled with sharp stones and heavy bricks

makes her want to surrender to the tiredness fueling her thoughts,

but she resists,

She remembers every collapsed relationship,

every heart piece misplaced, powerful words left unsaid,

the nightmares of love and the fears of lust,

she’s a living example of fractured poetry,

Where do I go to hide from me? she asked,

Staring wide eyed now, revealing red veins encompassing over dark irises,

eyes wounded, she’s feeling the need to cry,

but her tear ducts are too proud,

She has a smile that can light up shadows

that play tricks swiftly in the room,

but she barely wears it, lately,

she gazes in smoking wonder at the memories she bumps into

when silence pops in and surrounds her,

she twists her fingers around other fingers,

probing for answers for oppressed thoughts that mingle,

lock together, kicking and screaming,

she caresses the paper subject line displayed in front of her,

it reads YOU

feelings begin to drift inside,

she takes them in to keep them blind,

yet emotions grovel for release,

when did it begin,

where each breath she takes becomes resilient suffering

until the release?

She’s working up the strength to tear up all the written

future ideas and plans staring below

under the topic line reading YOU,

and scatter them into the ocean of truth

but she’s quarter half not, quarter half ready to push denial down the stairs,

or is she feeling careless and will play the fool for one more day?

She craves for one more moment of passion,

If we shake off the shackles of knowing,

can he and I, be…maybe allowed….she debates,

I guess this is what running into the wall of exceptions feels like,

Hell after all is an acquired taste,

she says as a smirk edges towards her lips

Tiny beads of sweat populate on her top lip and the bridge of her nose,

her body temp starts to climb as her heart little by little begins to gallop, stressing, sensing the collective lonely plastic hearts shivering outside her windows, bathing in the sighing broken grass and cracked leaves,

her right hand grasps her chest where her terrible wreckage resides,

drowning in it’s beats, her heart had learned to listen this time,

it worked to detect the truth in a lie,

even when clouded with emotions and sights of him

her heart bent backwards to hear her and

was able to conclude and collect a thought, or two, in it’s hands,

her heart understand she’s a master piece of Picasso, perfectly fucked up,

Silence no longer splashes its color,

she’s surrounded with scattered searing sounds,

the screeching of trapped hates and past lovers,

her butterflies flutters by the window pane,

his memorable organ of laughter ripples closely behind,

his name curls under her lungs shoving her honey soft lips to call it out,

and she does, its hungry echo echoes a quarter of an hour later,

making her break in all the right places, so she holds them hostage,

working to not break down,

Inhaling the smell of what was done,

exhaling the sound of disbelief, requests for silence and strength

tossed up to God as she digs her toes into the floor,

She doesn’t know much about him and he doesn’t know much about her either,

Do they prefer to keep the mystery, or maybe, just maybe,

they’re both comfortable not knowing

While screwing up her breathing, there was no escaping from her voice,

so she decides to steal away a moment, chew it out of taste

to arrange a get-together of her thoughts and her heart,

listening to that twisted heart of hers she might just learn something, spilling potent words and questions,

How, how did he become my torture?

How could this...this feeling be born from another?

I did not plan on staying this long; I didn’t think I would need….

I want you,

yes you, I want you to stop disturbing my sleep,

having my mind feed on you,

making me ask should I think to give it all,

give it all in a world where not much ever seems to last?

Ha! You know, cool points for you,

for thrusting your way through,

choosing to work to be that “one of a kind”,

stapling stenciled images of you in my mind,

clever,

I isolate my heart you draw me into your world,

if only you knew the immense power you hold at your fingertips,

I’m terrified yet surprised I’m still intact,

So I’m tapping out now, last call,

It’s half past of making no sense,

flirting with ideas of possession,

the ideas of what would happen if I do,

what would happen if I don’t?

I could resurrect you from this curse you believe you’re under,

but you don’t want that,

I could hold my wings under your wound hoping I heal you soon,

but I can no longer,

make myself fall backwards into how I used to be,

It would be easier and okay for me to say I’m over it,

pretend to not care, be the type that never admits,

say that when I dream, that I prefer for you to NOT be there,

and that you’re like a great dream that I later won’t remember,

and you’ll go back home and I’ll go to mine and everything is…

you know,

make me be the one to make music mute your smile,

stomp all over the memory when you first caught my eye,

I understand that shit like this under-whelms you,

And if I could love you, I would…

I’m not sure what my words mean exactly, but I do know

that I’m losing sleep over it,

you need to… I need you to be honest with me,

instead of shifting uncomfortably in your skin,

so I ask let me in or let me out,

I need to know so I can let you go and eat the key…

to my own happiness…

And with that said, she packed up her luck,

side steps away from the desk, holding on to the paper the reads YOU

then he walked in,

a sun baked skin walking dream,

a tall glass of water sipping on a glass of water,

at that moment a cloud ripped in two,

clock’s arms decapitated, spins out of control, turning back forbidden,

sounding out alarms she accepts the sirens of time,

a breeze squeezed through the partially cracked window stroking her hair,

this is where hell begins, it whispered,

he sets off beautiful disaster in her,

she goes limp as she swallows his eyes,

plugs her ears into his words, ready to drink in his sound,

ready to crash test her heart,

secrets were tearing her apart inside, dining at her expense

trying her hardest to make all those feelings she spoke of unbend,

but words froze,

the taste of ice in her mouth and a dreading moment happened,

her words

….fell

fell…. through her, making her unable to react, a fool she became,

the very liquid of her soul was gradually eroding,

he was committing poetry murder and didn’t even know,

she appeared seemingly normal to the untrained eye,

especially since she presented herself with her head up now, shoulders pulled back, tossing a smile on her face as their eyes merged,

worried she would lose her eyes to him,

her sense of humor rose for fog of protection,

run for cover she whispered,

waiting for him to say “I will let you in”

hoping she had conquered him with her youth,

but…

but they don’t even speak,

what a shame she thought If only he was here a moment sooner,

because now that you have arrived, I have forgotten how to do it,

sucking up her last breath of him, leaving him with the look that

everything will be alright

she sees happiness waiting for her at the door,

she hands him the paper subject line now reading ME,

passes him by, leaving no footsteps to track which way she went,

not even throwing in a last glance…