tuned in....

                 For a long time I’ve been contemplating on what to write, what to say, and how much of it to say… I could never decide, so I decided that it’d be best not to say anything, maybe wearing the weight of life on my hips is enough, maybe being silent is the remedy but, I have found no refuge in the fogginess of silence… and since my thoughts are no longer peaceful, I began to write again, not on paper but on the walls of my thoughts…for the most part I am satisfied in the sanctuary I have conceived but I often wonder what will happen when I fill the walls of my thoughts, and bend my brain into pages… will I pen memories or dreams? Will some intellectual dam break and bleed out?


I still question what to say and when to say it…

Stay Tuned…..

valentine hope

every once in a while i get the notion to share , i really don’t like to share my writing… mostly i keep it to myself, partly because i’m more of what i write than what people see. if that makes any sense at all… so i share with strangers here…leaving the most intimate parts of myself on here and refusing to think twice about what i’ve said or what they’ll take it to mean…i continue to be selective about who i invite into this area of my life… i choose people who have war wounds, scars that life kicked salt into, fresh bruises from old lovers, scabs that haven’t completely healed, and blisters that need stitches instead of ointment…they understand that everything is not what it seems, and appreciate the truth instead of beautiful lies…



once in a while i get the notion to share like on valentine’s day when i wrote him a poem, hoping it would explain the things my mouth wouldn’t say…knowing that maybe he’ll understand and maybe he won’t…but trying nonetheless to reach pass all the concrete, and break away the granite, so i could sit next too his shuddering heart, just to keep it company…build a campfire and listen to it beat, be its company and maybe hear it say “thank you, i was cold and lonely”… i wrote what words couldn’t say, and asked him to name its spirit… i signed my name and wrote:




i’ve wanted to hold you for a long time now...

wanted to wrap my mind around yours and warm your heart with my hands,

wanted to hold you in places you won’t go,

places you’re afraid to acknowledge,

places you haven’t discovered…



i’ve wanted to hold you in moonlight according to candlelight psalms,

watch the heavens heal the earth and call it a horizon…



i've wanted to measure your pain with pleasure,

match your distance with comfort

wanted to be your fever so you’d sweat passion…



i’ve wanted to hold you for a long time now,

so let me…




he understood,
and said,
"b, you make me want to write you poetry"...

salvaged

he didn’t always understand my poetry…. he didn’t always understand that sometimes, i talk in riddles… but he understood that i love the way sunshine feels on my skin, he understood that i liked to share…

i tried to love him

tried to tie it around his neck,

stuff it deep in his pockets,

and told myself that,

he’d carry it around with him…

promised myself that it’d be enough

but…. it didn’t work…

plan aborted… access denied…mission unsuccessful…

it didn’t work….

but i wanted it too, i needed it too…

he didn’t always understand me but somehow i fascinated him, and somehow i intrigued him into loving me because my affection was innocent… i loved without conditions or return…i loved the man he was, and the man he wanted to be…i loved him when he had nothing to give and everything to gain….for these reasons he loved me but…

couldn’t sustain, couldn’t fight,

didn’t know what was at stake,

with temptation invading,

there was no fail-safe, no life jacket…

so we sank, drifted, and sank some more…

somehow i managed to find the find the surface, managed to collect some of the debris, and cast away the forsaken memories…comforting myself with possibilities of resuscitating what died in his arms,

drifting…

floating…

into oblivion.

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