love – Poétique

Love Sans Armor

Also malevolent imagery
Although it feels like a
Life is ending that lures
Rather than attacks
A wilderness of adventure
Before me with a hollowed mouth
Paired with inviting eyes
Creating a very breathtaking
Psychological absence

I asked before bed.
Where are my angels?
How could you?!
Abandon me forsake me.
Leave me to the grave
Of my sleeping chambers
Push me into this
Out of this
What is your whim
Should you not wish to carry me?
Unprotected from targeted arrows
Flashlights in the night
To leave me hanging
In sadness with wounds for months
It’s ephemeral but shadowed hard
By my past a history to tell
A legacy built now
Reclaimed by the ashes
Of an end that is coming
So you drop it.

Exhausted and pleased
Simultaneously
Laughing and crying
Mostly sobbing then wrecked
From unintended consequences
Just for trading places

Poor nugacity
Flagrantly you then
Stopped protecting people
From themselves and
Hurt yourself again
In the end

Are we dying
From love?

Rendering

Uncertainty didn’t disappear before
passion— it was
positioned outside of you.

Looking for it—
Somewhere here inside of me

Not because you held power,
but because you built
an illusion that buffered you
from seeing where power
actually wasn’t.

Authority stabilizes uncertainty.
The bedroom becomes safety—
Sheets, a place where wanting
doesn’t have to fracture.

Don’t judge me for choosing hope.

I wouldn’t invite you
if I didn’t trust you
to be close,
to stay close.

Méfiance
ne m’a jamais appartenu.

I want your passion—
not to take it,
but to hold it
with my hands opened,
slowly enough to stay.

J’ai tellement à donner.

Axis

I move within lines that
Aren’t drawn by this room
I stand at the axis
The noise circles me

Somatic placement is
Readiness staging
Intentional allocation
Of expressive energy

Me watching you forget me
I opted out of carrying
What was never mine alone.

Self-possession under pressure
Willingness to be disliked
Without retreat
Refusal to trade this position
For your approval

Telling the self:
You wanted that—
It creates room to act
Not just room to survive.

That’s the space
I’m stepping into now

Voice inside the head says:
Choose yourself
Instead of disappearing

Remain unavailable
For emotional processing

This inner life
My sanctum
Wasn’t part of the equation

Somehow
My humanity didn’t register
As something to protect

Like I dreamed it did
Imagined it would
Wanted it to…

I’m intense
I can’t help it
Is that ok?
Can I be intense now?

Translate indifference
Into generosity
Interpret avoidance
As misunderstanding

Silly me absorbing the cost
Of preserving a bond
That isn’t mutual

Grandma said not to do that

Severing feels violent
Dignity wounds cut deep
I found my dignity
Underneath you

Someone said
I was seen as useful
Not relational

Petting my head
My inner voice said:
You’re losing the version of reality
Where your care was reciprocated.

Stop disappearing for people
Who don’t notice
The cost of your loss

Minimal

Psychological vulnerability
Ending a pattern
The decision stands
The feelings are hers.

My box is squared
Top open

“Yes it’s for the best
But she’s not happy.”

Gives me strength.

It can be right and still
Be uncomfortable
For someone else

The forest lives
And breathes with
Unwelcomed visitors

Incorrect outcomes
Still equal
Universal bliss

Broken consensus
Feelings exist; my boundary remains
Operating inside a system that
Enforces decay

An exit
Whether we agree or not

Ejection is brilliant
Luminous loss
Love found

Mohā

Lift up the nidus and watch
As the murk and the sod
Of a hungering love sinks
With warm wet feet standing
Without consensual witness
A coherent interiority
Drawing floral like patterns
Underneath the skin as
Tattoos might appear
On our insides the stories
That we tell ourselves
Novels in umbras
Shadows of illusory nights
Fabricated love and
Appreciated empathy
I imagined in the shape
Of a friendship I was
Holding up like a tower
Reduced to bricks that
Felt capable somehow
Of building something
Still in the fibers of
Protection and forlorn
Security cleaning house
Like a favorite food
Or crucible magic
Forgotten streams of
Resonating hope and
Mitigated energetic boundaries
Once calms the calm
Beauty rests in a tale
That reads more powerfully
On the other side
Once it’s lived

Weighted

Heavy love
It’s coming for you
Not just sex
A lot of romance too
Heavy love
Dark corners
Painted rooms
Rugs on hardwood floors
Spread out on the
Ground with you
Heavy love
It’s starting
On the way to you
Haven’t met you
But I know the truth
That when I get there
We will find the view
Sitting looking at the sea
With you is the beginning
Heavy love on
It’s way to you
So many weeks
Will turn into days
And when we get there
Reflection
To give you space but
Also hold your heart
If you have no one
To love you
It’s difficult to learn
To love yourself

Stories

Am I ready to tell
The end of my story
While I’m still so young
Proprioception
It never feels like
It’s my turn
I wanted everything
My grandparents had
That’s what made me
Feel like I made it
How else would I know
Now that I have
Squired all of those
Things I fulfilled
A purpose
All of them feel as
Achieved boxes
Equally ticked
Anything but
Fugacious
I knew everyone
Was going to die
I just never thought
That I would be left
Completely alone
After it happened
They say when you
Come into this
World you are alone
But it’s not true
What you are
Left with in this
World can leave you
Alone
Even with all the
Love shared
The journey wasn’t
Lonely but perhaps
The end of the path is

She taught me
How to be a gentleman
Where did I go wrong?

Wedding Bells

She gave him that cover
A protection to hide under
There are countless ways
To open a door

I got on my knees
In front of my step mother
And said it’s not your fault
We were forced to be together
Thank you for trying to
Love me I always wanted
To be loved by another mother
I want my dad to be happy
I want a complete family
I want my mom to be happy
I want a complete family
I didn’t recognize her
She tried to pull me up
But she also understood

There was a family that
Offered to host my wedding
I didn’t say no but
I also didn’t know them
I was amazed by all the family
That showed up which
Wasn’t mine

So kind that I said yes
In our celebration of beautiful foods
I’ve never seen prepared
Dishes that stood like
Beautiful colored towers
I asked her to introduce everyone
So I could be familiar with the
Entire room and she did
In this moment now found
I stood up on the table and
Made an announcement
As well about all the family
That I had that didn’t
Show up for my wedding
And all the ceremonies
I went to I exclaimed
I had an entire family
On one side that didn’t show up
My Aunt Cheryl’s wedding
I began my Aunt Cindy
We all had to wear pastel like
Easter I shouted!
My dad and his second wife Nancy
And even my uncle Dan and
His second wife Judy
As I began to lose my voice
I asked for a microphone
Someone brought me one
He was tall and black
And had an unkempt Afro
All natural like the day he
Was born and
With a mic in my hand
I started to sing with
What little voice I
Had left
It’s strange when you
Actually start to care about
The things that matter
Nothing else that’s
Forcing you to pay
Attention to it does

Heartattacking

Standing in the midst of
What I thought might be
The most epically beautiful
Poise to the existence of
Unlocking the code to love
I found myself stomped on by
An agression and entitlement
Of a passerby an unknown
A human who probably
Needed love the most and
In that moment of standing
In a shower of his spit
And fear and rage I found
Myself exclaiming that I was
Only trying to save his life
And yet his own intentions
Of provoking whatever is the
Opposite of love be it anger
Or something stronger
I felt myself in shock as if
I could not be more
Challenged by the universe
To express love in true
Composure completely
In a way that says I am
Looking out for you
So many people might
Lose their lives if we
Don’t speak up for
How important it is to
Value one another
Drained and steamrolled
As I was after such a
Horrible confrontation
I felt so alone asking if there
Was no one that could understand
How vulnerable I felt to
Opening the door to
Universal love and being
Shouted at in such a way
That could tell me to
Believe it didn’t exist
But there was truly
Nothing in me that was
Willing to accept any
Possibility that the only
Reason for my existence
Would be trampled and
Smothered out by the
Likes of someone who
Absolutely didn’t know me
Or could not see my
Desire to encourage
What we are surely left with
Only emptiness and
A desire to know
What love can actually be
If only I could
Imbue it upon you
With less than words
Vacant touch
Push through those
Dark sunglasses
Like a frequency to say
If it’s worth dying for
It’s worth loving for

Drum

Falling in love with
The outsides of people
Realizing you’re molding
The insides and then
Maybe not forever on earth
Maybe just for a shaping
In a short time
Until they move on from you
Why fall in love with
People that cannot
Fall in love with you?
Romance is precious
Intimacy the thing we
All wonder if truly
Exists we ask ourselves
If it’s real and we see others
Who seem to be
Experiencing what we
Aren’t sure how to
Find digging a hole
In the backyard or
Scratching through the
Concrete on the sidewalk
Just to get down
To the crust of the earth
Maybe the heart of things
Drum the drum
Make the sound that
Beats for some that
Know the calling of
True love for this
Is that time
Woody cracks
Sacred snaps
Pdum pdum
Ratatat bom
Bom bom
My heart calls
From the core
Of the earth
To the ones
Who hear a same
Recalling of sweetness