Day 682:

spring spirit turns warm here
forget the rain
all those things
that fall and break
tomorrow those kinds of things will be built again
fall always turns to winter
somehow finds spring

somehow

Day 681: tomorrow ill write real poetry

We are sometimes to broken to be real people but somedays we can make the best of the oxygen that has been left in our tanks we are beautiful brown bodies that dies before they were conceived
Jesus forgot us in the womb

Day 680:

Born. Brown. Broken everything. Always fighting.
this is the way my father raised me

DAy 679: have you?

Have you ever met someone so strong they didn’t need to be loved?

Day 678: Steak, chicken, turkey, women

I like meat
But I don’t like hormones

Day 677: grave

We dug our own graves
Dressed our sons
Layed cosy together
Pretending it was just nap time
Waiting for morning
But the gas carried the sunrise away before we caught her

Day 676: whAT WHATT

My prison is a broken library
Where the knowledge cant be reached
yours
was a love tat couldnt be fought
we are two trains too close to not collide
our bodies
are the shrapnel
thats why its so hard to touch you without crying
so hard to leave you
without trying
to put things back into place
we leave shards of ourselves every time we turn around
leave
return
we are getting smaller everytime
we leave
return
less of who we were everytime
we
leave
please
return

Day 675: mesmerising

I am a misfit
My legs are too weak
I write poetry cuz I have nothing else
There are sacrifices I’ve taken without wanting
This college could make me
break me
cut me into a million pieces
shift through the dust
love me
but miss me
she says sh'd kiss me
if she could touch me
but im a million miles to sunrise
and she is
feet planted
to the surface
we are so different
its mesmerizing

Day 674:

Rainbow circle love
Boxed in your creation

I can taste death on my fingertips
Your heart in broken stuck in my fingernails

Stardust cannabis

We can combine our naked bodies like sports

She was horror frozen

Day 673:

all the love in the world
in two lips
fingertips
a shining smile
its something that has stuck its way under my tongue
taste like honey
caramel
i want to keep you there
a part of you
forever

day 672: crap

if i could skip the days
i'd find the ways
to build this body differently
but there are not days
not ones left to fray
that cannot be dismayed

Day 671: you do

push the boundaries
find your body a temple
a home
a sand castle
that sparkles

i want to build you a Colosseum
hold you an ocean
kiss you a skyline
tings that stand brilliant
like you do

Day 670:

i cannot remember the last time i thought in hawaiian

Day 669: 21 years

its taken me 21 years
to know
that every part of this body is perfect
i am broken and whole in all the right places
each scar is a memory
a story i might tell you
if you get close enough
to notice
if you stay long enough to know
what it means for me to even speak

Day 668: short

sometimes the words are on time
sometimes they arent
sometimes
we are two buses
running parallel

never touching

Day 667: revision. again

Moving Target

‘My body, on the day I learned to remember became a labyrinth of secrets’
-Chinaka Hodge

1.
the day my mother promised me the gravity
of the moon was the day I found my body
was meant to be a ocean
but was only a hallow shark skin drum
only pillars of stories that never stuck
a belly that would never swell, tides
that never pulled, mountains
I couldn’t conjure, scars
where hips should have been, beauty
was the lie our mothers told to us in tradition
and truth was a story that left
a bitter taste like sour poi on our tongue

2.

Everything was brown when I was born
Family was a gradient crater that was too wide to understand
but by age 6
my eyes learned to polarize and measure
I learned the difference between mother and father
was a continent
and 15 points on a chromatic scale
I knew then
I would spend the rest of my life
Trying to fit into the oceans between them


3.
our skin tone kept us
quiet
from questioning these bodies
wondering which parts were broken
we learned to be
complacent in our difference
while we soaked in the silence
let the salt seep into our skeleton
leave its mark
make us feel like we belonged to the ocean

Day 666: heterooooo

Heterosexuality! You are inexorably approaching

The body of a woman
Remains soft
Even when she isn’t
When she doesn’t want to be
She is silk under sunlight’s shimmer
Even when she is a burning furnace
Her body
Will ask you to move closer
Touch softer
Love harder

These are the parts of you I’ve loved
By mistake
The parts of me that have fallen
Trapped under your skin
And the way it moved under me
I admire that trickery
And am curios to your scheme
But curiosity can only hold so long

some mornings I wake
finding a gravity in my body that you cannot calm
I find a home in the craters of a harder place
That doesn’t shine
Or shimmer
Doesn’t hold like you do
The fear of change
Is the same fear that kept me hidden in closet like dungeons

Day 665: father

for my father
who has showed me that living to 60
beautifully
is a masterpiece is itself

Day 664: after Chinaka Hodge and Rita Dove

(this was a project for a poetry class- these are not my words, think of it more as an arranger taking the music someone else wrote and re-arranging the pieces)


This is as far back as I can think


1.
This is no place for lilac
or somebody on a trip
to themselves. Hips
are an asset here, and color
calculated to flash
lemon bronze cerise
in the course of a dip and turn.
Beauty’s been caught lying
and the truth’s rubbed raw:
Here, you get your remorse
your

Tragedy
Involves
One.
History
Involves many
Toppling
One
After
Another.

But This is not a riot.
This is NOT a riot.
The best I can explain is this:

Every month she wants
to know where it hurts
and what the wrinkled string means
between my legs. This is good blood
I say, but that's wrong, too.
How to tell her that it's what makes us–

expendable
Shaved and scraped from the inside out
there are no people here and it’s exhausting…
how to tell her that every day begins like this




2.
spent sex years coming
to dream my body steel
create these arms as weapons
bear them daily
sub hellas with mad
replace mad with anger

skin is stretching to accommodate woman
when it opens
where a scar
should be, I think nothing but
‘so I am white underneath’-

don’t expect it not to pain I
walk like, the devil slided up my thighs
play better with myself than ever

here, I nightmare of guns
cause im here
and metal rules the world

3.
it is 2008 now
the year of dreams
we are dazzled by inauguration
and rightfully so
there centuries of memory between this fury
and a joy we have never known
we are pressed for time and so
we are praying for an apology

but The wages are heavy
and that leads definitely to an attitude
and an attitude will get you
nowhere fast so might as well
keep dancing dancing till
tomorrow gives up with a shout,
’cause there is only
Saturday night, and we are in it -
black as black can,
black as black does,
not a concept
nor a percentage
but a natural law.

4.
the sky is wired so it wont fall down

if only we could lose ourselves
in the wreckage of the moment! Forget
where we stand, dead center, and look up, look up,
track a falling star…

now you see it


now you don’t

Day 663: moving target

3.
promises are made to be forgotten
secrets
to be broken
our bond
was perfect penmanship
and personalized stationary
the things that kept us quiet
from questioning these bodies
wondering which parts were broken
when we learned to hollow ourselves out
like a drum
something to be filled
we forgot to leave room
for the ocean
the tide
the mountains
the sparkle in the sunlight
we set ourselves ablaze instead
cast aside everything our mothers and fathers promised us
and cried when we didn’t know what to call our skin
our sex
our hearts
looked nothing like the fist they were born to be
we would search inside of ourselves for answers if only
we had remembered how
if only

Day 662: race

2.
Everything was brown when I was born
all ashes and shades somewhere between today and the distance
a sepia sunrise
but by 6
my eyes learned to polarize and measure
I learned the difference between mother and father
was a continent
and 15 points of a chromatic scale
i found only parts of my skin
were made of the ocean I called home
Burnt bronze promises
Nothing about this body sparkled in the sunlight
I am citrus copper
Sunset on sand stained skin
I knew then
I would spend the rest of my life
Trying to fit in the craters between them

Day 661: sex

1.
the day my mother promised me the gravity of the moon
was the day I found
my body was meant to be a ocean
but now was a hallow shark skin drum
only pillars of stories that never stuck
a belly that would never swell
tides that never pulled
mountains I couldn’t conjure
scars where hips should have been
beauty
was the lie our mothers told to us in folklore
and truth
was a story we couldn’t remember
but left a bitter taste on our tongue

Day 660: the wake

‘Your absence distributed itself like an invitation’
we all took a piece
slipped it in our back pocket
carried you until the weight was too much for our bodies
then tucked it in an empty shoebox
at the top of the hallway closet
let it collect dust
let the thought of you
go rat and moth eaten
when our kids went searching for early Christmas presents
they climbed to top closet shelf
beneath the mist of termite sand and silver fish
they shook the dust off parts of our hearts that we had forgotten you once touched
made us remember the pieces of you we tucked away for safe keeping
that we refused to forget
but couldn’t hold on our bodies
any longer

Day 659: family's significance

we love them because
they teach you how to miss what
is right before you

Day 658:clear skies

where have you been, love
i have been waiting for a
storm under the sun

Day 657: Moving Target (edited)

‘My body, on the day I learned to remember became a labyrinth of secrets’
-Chinaka Hodge

We spent our youth
Assuming a loaded barrel
Even when it wasn’t
We had all the parts to be complete
We just didn’t know how to properly assemble
So instead
We bent over backwards to keep our hearts off a trigger that didn’t have a consequence
And Between breaths
Pounded our bodies into small bullets to fill spaces where promise are held


1.
they day my mother promised me womanhood
was the day I found
my body was meant to be a temple
but now was a hallow drum
a space waiting to be full
only pillars of stories that never stuck
scars where hips should have been
only a part of what should be complete
beauty
was the lie our mothers told to us in fairytales
before we learned to scrub truth from our scalp raw
we kept ourselves open for interpretation
a lonely empty magazine


2.
Everything was brown when I was born
all ashes and shades
a sepia sunrise
but by 6
my eyes learned to polarize
I learned the difference between mother and father
was a continent
and 15 points of a chromatic scale
i found only parts of my skin
were made of the ocean I called home
Burnt brown promises
Bronze bullets
Nothing about this body sparkled in the sunlight, like my mother
I am citrus copper
Sunset on sand stained skin
I knew then
I would spend the rest of my life
Trying to fit in the margins between them
in the barrel the size of centuries of expectations
Waiting under the weight of a golden trigger
I am a bullet
Everything about me wishes to be kept quiet
secret

3.
promises are made to be forgotten
secrets
to be broken
our bond
was perfect penmanship
and personalized stationary
the things that kept us quiet
unaware that this silence
was the breath under the trigger
something waiting to be pulled
to be changed

we spent out youth
wishing to stop growth it its tracks
we found our mothers
stuffed into small cylinders
waiting to be pulled
but we never had the heart
to properly assemble
that parts of our selves that weighed us down
I woke up this morning to my secrets screaming through skin
Wanting to free them
But not having the faith
To squeeze the trigger

Day 656: to rita dove and chinaka hodge

Moving Target

‘My body, on the day I learned to remember became a labyrinth of secrets’
-Chinaka Hodge

We spent our youth
Assuming a loaded barrel
Even when it wasn’t
Bent over backwards to keep our hearts off the trigger
Between breaths
Pounded our bodies into small spaces where promise are held
Counted in secrets

1.
they day my mother promised me womanhood
was the day I found
my body was meant to be a temple
but now was only barren
only pillars of stories that never stuck
scars where hips should have been
beauty
is the lie our mothers told to us in fairytales
before we scrubbed truth from our scalp raw


2.
I was 6 when I realize my mother was an American
And I
Was Oceania
Brown skinned
Nothing about this body sparkled in the sunlight
I am citrus bronze
Sunset on sand stained skin
Nothing about this body
Resembles her
Or the promises she made to me

3.
promises are made to be forgotten
secrets
to be broken
our bond
was a perfect penmanship
and personalized stationary
the things that kept us quiet
unaware that this silence
was the breathe under the trigger
the space stuffed full
in the barrel

we spent out youth
wishing to stop growth it its tracks
we found our mothers
pushed in small cylinders
waiting to be pulled
but we never had the heart
to free them
to squeeze the trigger

Day 655: Barely Audible

You’ve followed the trauma to the bone
Where things stick
Pulled your story through vein
Ink
This is the place where memory lives
But we don’t always speak when things sting
Sometimes
We just trace shards of yesterdays until its marrow deep
Til a part of our body sings
But who of us is trained to hear a silent cry
When so much of our lives are loud
Beats broken of the walls
We have drowned ourselves
Not knowing how to speak up
Not remembering how to scream
What are our memories worth
written
If we they
Barely audible

Day 654: after bukowski

I pick up the boots
the sparkling cuffs
in crome
this thing that danced once
around caloses
and I call every sunrise a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my body
could never leave
in the common verity of leaving
and I pick
up his shirts broken buttons
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the walls
white walls dark walls
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
flies in the gravy of two gone quite mad
without a chance,
skydiver promise, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know
his boots upon my arm
but
they will not
bring him back to me

DAy 653:

long haried form the year
you hang yourself
downside up
across the sky
writing
one dream idly sunk into a cloud
of promises
secrets with smiles stamped on
i think they are growing wings
leaping up the bitter air to reach you
infinite woman
my small reminder
you sing
in the silver mornings
when i lie
sleepless
near jumping
rock-heavy
your palms are the bright sky i look for
loves handle
pulling me,
holding me heavily down

Day 652:

the ashes stuck to each corner of the box
clumped like someone had left their tears behind
mary scrapped at them with her fingers
catch parts of what was left of him under her nails
no one else would have touched it
they all still couldnt believe
she had chosen to burn him
something about it seemed unhawaiian
inhumane

they climbed out of the water
pulled the outrigger to shore
trading salt with the sea
mary rinsed what was left of him from her hand