Call Me

Don’t call me Queen…
because I know every time you put this arch in my back
you can see where feathers were once hand stitched into the thoracic curvature of my backbone,
so call me your archangel.
Your rough hands trace over their silhouettes.
I know,
you don’t have to tell me.
The shadow the span of my wings casted still lingers lucidly over my shoulders.
Draped and heavy,
like robes of royalty,
maybe this why you have mistaken my name.
Bent back,
reach for the shattered pieces of the golden ring that once adorned this crown
but is now hidden in this mane.
Fragmented pieces cemented into fragile thoughts,
they are my best kept secrets.
You will see then.
Call me a universe on fire
Let your skin kiss the Sun in mine.
Taste the galaxies that burn through each one of these cells.
Concentrated incandescence,
sweltering planets.
We have been in orbit for some time now,
and my milky way has been waiting.
Lying dormant beneath this belt of Orion.
Sweat beads string together the constellations my skin forms for you.
Atmospheric tension,
we could fuck like lightning bolts.
and make love like shooting stars
Rod reaching up for Heavens unknown.
We can glide through the infinite together.
Call me an unfinished masterpiece and paint me.
Brush strokes blend colors together to form Romanesque arts.
Lips part to flood canvasses with fulfillment,
Purpose.
Purposely transcending the work of those who have come before.
We have both come before,
but never like this.
Kiss me…
but make no mistake,
we are so much more than this.
Hearts beat heavy
slow, but instinctual
like they’ve know this rhythm before.
Do not call me Queen,
it is too over used.
Wasted on those who have come before me.
So call me a forgotten memory,
and just before you love me,
remind yourself that I was never them.
I will not leave unless asked to.
This is a new beginning.
Call me your comfort zone.
Burry your burdens in these hips and I will help you carry life.
Swollen with potential
Trace your insecurities into the softness of my skin and watch it reflect back everything beautiful about you.
Call me life’s elixir and drink strength from the oasis hidden in the dip of my back.
Just call me Shay,
better yet Shea butter
let me heal you.
I need you to realize everything harbored within in the threads of my being
are gifts greater than anything else I could give.
Though small in stature,
coiled around my spinal cord are the blueprints to worlds that God forgot build.
Lost languages are immersed into my nail beds
so when I can’t find any known words to describe to you how I’m feeling
I drag my nails across your back and hope you can understand my translation.
call me...
everything they never realized I was.

A Rehabilitated Prophecy

There are some things that some people live to regret…
Addictions that never should have happened,
but ish happens right?
I have a problem and it’s something that I’ve been trying to work through for years,
but I just can’t help myself.
So I felt like this would be the perfect time for me to start my apology.
To my family,
closest of friends,
and strangers wielding scoreboards,
I am so sorry that I…
…spit the hotness.
Lyrical mechanics that will transform your mind that’s why I renamed my pen allspark.
We make it happen.
Once the cap is off my pen there will be no rise of the fallen,
so you might as well call my ink Optimus.
My words cut cords to all mics that haven’t quite learned how to rock right,
but it’s alright,
just watch
and learn.
I don’t think you understand
Fuck a mic.
I shatter stages
bring down whole venues if I want to,
rape scoreboards,
and turn virgins,
into poetry whores.
I can’t rock skinny jeans because my rhymes won’t fit,
no one on this mic rock it better than muah.
I don’t even need the whole 3 minutes and 40 seconds to make you respect this.
I couldn’t be more cocky if I had one…
but it’s only when it comes to these ink spills.
My pen is so…
so…
so supercaliswaggalisticexpiswaggadocious!!
My pen is a Godsend.
It parts seas of mediocrity
and sings to the Heavens.
It be a blessing.
Rivaled only by my tongue,
I got ‘em lined up trying to drink my spit and bottle it.
They say that studies have proven that it can cure aliments such as:
writer’s block
wacktragicness
and the oh so deadly-
lack of creativity.
I be deemed poet
aka
architect.
I construct cathedrals of conscious that captivate corneas stimulate subliminal purpose.
I be
everything they never wanted me to be.
microphone mechanic,
jump start your voice box,
and tune up your note pad,
it’s time for an ink change.
Re-arrange your thought process.
I have a problem.
And I could be all cliché and tell you that I call myself a poetry junkie,
or that the mic calls to me,
or that I feign…
….for poetry.
But in reality Hip-Hop be my religion and poetry is my testimony.
My bible scriptures.
It is to me what the promise land is to Christians
or better yet what the cross was to Jesus.
A blessing and a curse,
a beautiful burden I am more than willing to carry.
Once upon a time they had this name for me…
it was something like,
like poet
no more like,
like prophet.
I have a message.
I carry it in my safe space
were all blessings and miracles are created and protected.
I birth verses.
My heartbeats in Haiku.
I carved sestinas and sonnets into my mother’s tubes until I ran out of room.
Pushed myself down into her womb.
I shouldn’t even be here
but I am.
I am them,
they are me,
we be poets.
Standing on stages with open rib cages
baring our souls just so we can try to feed yours.
We spit the hotness.
Respect this.
S P I T P O E T!!!!
And Go In.
I know that I am not the only one standing in the middle of this volcanic eruption,
I’m just the one taking the first step,
and I hope you all can accept my poetic apology.
Signed sincerely,
a rehabilitated prophecy.

Memories....

I remember who we use to be…
memories keep re- playing with my mind,
hit like back spasms.
Stuck on repeat like the playlist we use to make love to.
And I wonder if you still even remember how my skin feels…
How my hair smelled…
Remember how interlocked fingers made hearts invincible,
but this grip slipped.
I never claimed to be perfect,
and I will be the first one to say that I’m sorry,
but I tried.
And after the first break I guess we just couldn’t figure out how to fit right again.
It’s so hard letting you go…
but I guess now I have to.
It’s too much hurt here.
And I have not yet learned how to forgive
or how NOT to be the victim.
Cloudy mirrors often make it hard to see your own faults,
maybe that’s why I haven’t cleaned mine in a while.
But I’ll remember south-side showers after water parks.
Forever lasting 45 minute drives to pick up my “brother” on weekends,
I still hate the name Gary.
I’ll remember the first night you let me hold you.
Remember the impossible…
holding the Son under the moonlight while the stars played follow the leader with my tears. Remember the fading light of super nova at the end of my tunnel.
I’ll remember the first time you called me Mrs. Harrison.
Drunk voicemail messages.
I’ll remember when you told me that your money is more important,
the pillow fights and fake arguments
and don’t you dare not act like you won’t not not remember them too.
I’ll remember the first I love you,
the famous Ben’s Chill Bowl and Lincoln Theater.
I’ll remember your insecurities
and how beautiful you are to me.
Remember the blue and the brown.
Facebook status,
your absence,
presence,
smell.
I’ll remember silhouettes on bedroom walls,
praying pyramid palms pressed together.
The curve of your lips.
The day you introduced me to your mother,
graduation,
and Basic-ly
all of these things and more will remain intact.
Head held high
I’ll take this one day at a time.
Look forward to the day that someone will come to asks me
“Do you remember the last time you were in love?”
just so I can look down at my incomplete prayers,
smile…
and thank you for being the reason I can say
“Yeah…..I do.”

How He Use To

You look at me kinda like how he use to.
eyes wander carefully as if you molded this sculpture personally.
I’ve caught all of your glances.
And I will ask you please….
Do not call me queen.
I will just sing you heartache
you touch me beautiful…
but history has built wall greater than those of China,
I’m sorry,
this won’t be easy.
I’ve watched you from day one.
Your voice,
echoes through my head.
Resounds off of the inside of my temples like choir songs on Sunday,
I think God
is trying to tell me something,
but my hearing is selective.
I never really knew what the sincerity in words like “I love you” should sound like.
And I don’t quit remember exactly what being whole feels like,
but it’s ok,
I’ve grown so accustom to being broken.
Blurry reflections
Yet you,
you look at me like you see me clearer than I see myself.
I wonder sometimes why…
how you manage to utter these strange words
beautiful is such a foreign language to me.
So can you please stop speaking in tongues?
I’ve admired you from a distance for a while now.
My eyes silently sing you symphonies.
I’ve screamed so many mute messages across this tight rope
that strings your clef note with my microphone
but my words are not acrobats.
And sometimes I think that you are just playing me anyway.
I am not here to be your amusement.
I’ve been through to many games already.
Yet a part of me wants to believe that your intentions are not set in heartache.
You stay on my mind.
Wrapped around my cerebrum
and I still don’t know how you got there.
I can’t get rid of you.
Cigarette smoke caught in hair follicles.
You’re addictive…
I still don’t know what this fix is.
but I do remember the last time that I felt like this
Maybe that’s why I’m running.
You are not him.
You are beyond him,
and I thank you.
You look at me
and the song in my chest skips 6 beats
breath stops short.
I don’t know what this is.
You are stunning…
but you do not belong to me.
Untouchable.
She is very lucky.
I think I hear what He is trying to tell me.
Please remember that you love her.
Call her queen,
she deserves to be.
Be careful…
You have shown me potential
and I will wait for it blossom.
Alpha
You just showed me what the beginning could look like,
and I,
I will wait for the next person that looks at me…
kinda like how you do.

May 5th (Birthday)

He sings to me sometimes…
and I’ll remember him like labor pains,
2 fingers pressed between pelvis and thigh,
you use to sit here.
Just outside of healthy,
but you followed mommy’s foot steps,
became a pipeline dreamer like your father.
I guess you got stuck in the plumbing,
and I told myself that I wasn’t ready to be a mother anyway.
Made excuses not to mourn you.
Told myself to listen to my doctor,
there was nothing that could be done,
I would die if I kept you.
Thought maybe one day you’d come back to me.
Avoided thought’s like maybe I didn’t deserve you,
I’m not fit to be a mommy
all this is my fault.
Pills silenced the dreams,
but not you voice.
And as I thought about rising razor to wrist
Sunday school lessons still play themselves over in my head
“He‘s got the whole world, in his hands.
He‘s got the whole world, in his hands.”
Then why the fuck do people tell me not to blame Him?
My knees had never been so red in my life,
I begged Him to keep you…
more than the night I begged Him to keep your father,
and just as much,
if not more than the night I begged Him to keep my own life.
See I think He’s playing with me.
I had nightmares about being sterile
due to the 2 assaults on womb
that spread my hips as wide as they spread my virgin lips…
The last time felt like I was on fire.
They told me only had a 75% chance for reproduction.
So I guess He sent me you as a way of telling me it was possible,
just to turn around and snatch you from me.
Funny how we’ve made so many medical advances but still haven’t found a way to save a tubal pregnancy.
I wanted you.
And I hope you heard me talking to you every night.
I swear I have never felt so empty.
I swear I have never felt so helpless…
Laying on table,
I would have traded my life for yours,
I tried to trade my life for yours.
I thought I could wait it out.
Thought that maybe if I just kept talking to you
you’d hear me,
push yourself down to where you needed to be,
but I guess your ears hadn’t quite developed yet.
I was knocking on deaths door,
one week before rupture.
I’ve never felt so alone,
I know he’s sorry,
but I still haven’t forgiven your father for not being there.
He should have been there,
my hand was as empty as my womb would soon be.
I still can barely look him in his face without seeing yours in it’s shadows.
I know he loves me.
I love you,
sleep easy.
My son,
you would’ve been my Sun.
No you would have lite a light in my life so bright
that ball of burning atmospheric gas would have dimmed in embarrassment
My son,
my soul...
keep singing,
I hear you.
I guess I needed a guardian angel,
and who better to fit the job description than you?
Yeah, I’ll remember…
Carry you in my walk so that you can help me find peace.
You see he sings to me sometimes,
and I sing back as he wipes my tears…
I hold him.
Between pelvis and thigh,
he sits here…
and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A Toast...For You

So how long are you going to hold it?
Keep acting like they don’t exist?
Knocking ‘em back like that…
Unspoken words burn backs of throats like shots of alcohol,
so I hope you can hold your liquor.
Keep dancing around your thoughts,
but you can’t run from you forever.
I never took you for the alcoholic type anyway.
So if you don’t mind…
can you please stop tongue kissing the bottle.
Silence doesn’t suit you.
Blessed with the ability to perform lyrical gymnastics.
Every time you try and speak after swallowing your words I can hear the sounds of the vocal holocaust trapped inside your trachea.
New age Hitler,
it’s ok to be human sometimes.
What is it that you’re not saying?
Or did you leave these thoughts in between the parentheses legs made that night parked behind bushes?
Did you think I didn’t know?
Did you confuse your muse?
Keep sipping you silence,
maybe the taste will grow better over time…
Perched on top of your vocal chords are fermented testimonies that you soul never got a chance to make.
You should stop prepping you mind for battle,
your heart has been through too much already.
And you of all people should know best that a warrior that has nothing else to lose,
will gain everything by winning.
Those beats have never been that quite so stop trying to silence the music.
I’m not saying make a public service announcement,
but I mean c’mon son…
I thought we we’re better than that?
You can tell me anything you need to.
Who are you to decide for me what is relevant,
or not?
I recalled you telling me we could tell each other anything
Maybe I heard incorrectly…
Or maybe you’re upset that I chased your shadow when I could no longer find your stature by my side.
6 ft golden brown body,
I never thought I’d see this king fall.
I’ve tried to help you,
but you’re like sand gripped in tight fist.
Keep running,
pushing me away.
I promise you will succeed in your efforts.
Maybe that’s what you want.
Secrets kill souls.
so speak now or forever hold your Rest In Peace.
Maybe some things are best meant to stay unsaid…
So swallow,
let your words carve hieroglyphics into your esophagus,
leave them there until the next archeological metaphor finds them
and pushes them into your frontal lobe.
Maybe then silence won’t be so golden to you.
I know your throat is burning,
I can see signs of inebriation,
are your drunk yet?
I warned you to stop kissing that bottle.
Now it’s too late,
your next round of shots are waiting,
and who are you to refuse?
We’re too far of into this drinking game for you to forfeit,
so here’s a toast to you.
Cheers…

I Am

I am…..
Toxic
Poison
Venomous
Deadly
Woman
I…
am Woman.
My touch is toxic.
Everything I hold between these hands is instantly my entity.
My hands have meticulously inspected each grain of sand that
Father Time fucked Mother Nature on
so now they know exactly how a super nova feels
when suspended between natural explosions.
These palms preliminarily produce predominately progressive prophecies.
They know the secrets of secrets
mastered the art of being mysterious,
sensual,
powerful
encrypted and gifted,
toxic and oh so talented.
though deadly
My pulse is poisonous.
Life’s elixirs flow through vessels that braid into patterns underneath this exterior.
Veins be hungry so I feed them ink,
and let it bleed into pulmonary arteries.
I carry stories in these elixirs.
Poison has never tasted this lovely.
My vernacular is venomous.
My tongue will leave you stunned.
Standing in awe of how beautifully you’ve just been ear fucked.
Eardrum cumin poetic scriptures into your cerebral
I’ll leave you so addicted
to what my bic did
that you’re forced to perform silent soliloquies on lonely nights
when I can’t be found wreaking microphones.
Trust me,
these fangs wound deeply
so be easy…..
I walk with purpose
wife of Earth,
widowed before father time saw fit…
which makes the moon my bastard
these stars are my grandchildren
disowned by Sun.
rivers are jealous of me
“Their children sing the blues”
“I am weaving a song of water”
And oh what a tangled web I weave.
Intertwining history with pieces of hearts and souls lost
I watched me…
made into a martyr before my own eyes.
I didn’t choose it,
but for now I’ll accept it
carry broken on belly,
hands drenched in the blood of souls.
Red as love lost that leaks from these branches.
Damn it I hate this,
I mean made this,
I’m blameless
nameless
faceless
so face this.
I am
a constant reminder of the woman I came from.
Powerful,
and deadly.
I was born from this.
It courses through my being
like my soul was made of ether
spirit on fire,
pupils made into nitrogen bombs,
it’s so easy for me to give you death stares isn’t it?
My tears are corrosive,
they have the power to eat through any hard exterior you my present to me.
I am all of these things.
Destined to become
since the day her teeth pierced through ripe skin
though I was never really that found of apples…
I will wipe this juice from full lips.
I’ve learned how to live with me.
So beware of the things you can’t understand
let alone control.
The chrysalis phase is over,
I bare wings lined with razor blades
I emerged from the flames of my own rage.
Choked on the feathers I plucked from my own wings.
I grew to be this
Venomous Vixen
Poison Princes
Toxic Temptress
deadly and beautiful
I am.