M-16

if i could be a weapon
i’d be an m-16
stuttering with resisting,
a roaring of explosion,
leaking my insides on wet pavement
and pouring salt into my own wounds.

but i’m not that m-16 and some how i’ve managed to misplace myself
managed to lose myself in esteem,
managed to walk over myself…
managed to set my mangled limbs on fire and rock myself to sleep on gasoline beds of silence that bleed hope.

if only i could be that m-16

hitting moving targets,
smoking the slight movements pouncing in and out of eye-sight….
freeing “little refugee me” with cocked barrels
rescuing “tied down, undressed me” with gnawing triggers,
spilling secrets, in soiled grass crying to be bathed.


but i’m not an m-16
instead…
i am the swaying silence in trees
the song that can’t be shaken from the willow’s weeping branches…
the lullaby mothers won’t sing to their young,
the sad ballad lovers won’t play because it hurts
to hear the pain decoded by the piano’s keystrokes.

i wish i was an m-16 stuttering with resistance
but instead i’m a silent song, quietly screaming in pain.

© brokenS I L E N C E
3.26.10

mother

my mother told me that i'm not supposed to cry
not allowed to be angry
not supposed to be afraid
so i carry it around with me,
in back pockets, on shirt collars, buried in cuff links.


mother said that "i have to do, what has to be done"
not because i want to
but because
i have to.


so i work and i fight for things
i don't necessarily need
because,
my children
are their father's lies and their mother's dream,
they are the only heaven i know.


i'm not supposed to cry, not supposed to be afraid,
not allowed to be angry, so i carry it on my shoulders
praying that my angels will never have to.




since friday i've had 52 cents to my name (i got paid that same friday), i tell myself that it is what it is, the bills have to be paid and the kids have to be fed, and somehow i explain to them that mommie can't afford the luxuries of going bowling, or ordering pizza. life is hard but single parenting is harder especially when you know that their fathers don't give a damn much less know their middle names (Da'Naja and Bre'Sean)... so i think about the beginning....in the beginning there was me, and later a seed was planted, a seed i didn't want, and in that same beginning there was mother, and when she learned of the seed she wanted to water it, when I wanted to abort it...and now that we are living in the future i think about the why and how, on her 52nd birthday as i am making her a card and writing her a poem.... i write two one from the heart and one from the deepness of my pain...in the beginning i would have said words that hurt, but now i cannot, not knowing the deepness of her own pain...i can only imagine it but i cannot question it, because my own pain won't allow it...

nervous virgin

i thought i was sure about what I wanted t say but i'm not, and pin pointing the words to match the emotion is difficult, but since i am here i will try...writing should be easy but not when my teeth are chattering and my fingers are stuttering across the keyboard, i have to remember that this is the first time and i am a virgin...

i wrote this for him
and maybe, just maybe
he'll find a way
to understand the missing words
separated by space,
and the meanings draped around
my signature...
if he could only comprehend
the feelings crossed out and replaced with periods
then he'd see it...

P.S. i love you