Earthquake

I never thought I could love San Francisco because of the weather.
Sporadic earthquakes and 300 days of fogs that suffocate the sunshine right out of smile
I thought I would always resent it for this.
While preparing to board an outgoing plane for the third time since I met him,
I realized that this was not the case.
It is never the weather that makes a city.
Rarely the events,
sometimes the history,
but always, always, the people.
I fell in love with San Francisco round late 2011
immediately following what my friends deemed “the end of the world”
but could more accurately be described as a tremor.
Still…
I liked the way it moved me.
I like the idea that something outside of my peripheral could shake me.
I like the night we met,
I like the fact that I was facing the entrance of café
and didn’t even see him come in.
I love how mundane that night could have been
but still…
I liked the way it moved me.
Some days when you texts me,
I find myself sitting in my doorway for comfort.
This is where you wait when you're waiting for an earthquake.
Before an earthquake,
snakes have been know to straighten their spine
and remain erect
birds fly wildly,
fish swim the marine internationally to find a safe location
Dogs barking at thin air,
My hair standing on it’s hind legs.
My body has been in a constant quiver
My bones don’t move in predictable ways
My hands twitch inexplicably
I’ve been finding fault lines in my hips since I met him
I gotta be honest,
I dream of your last name.
El Henson
Wake up with his first trembled
against my lips
reverberating…
like a song.
Like a flower’s vibration just before bloom,
like the earth trembling before it opens.
It shakes my whole body.
There are rumors,
of the next largest earthquake in San Francisco since 1906
and I am positive
you will have something to do with that.

You exist in earth quaking prose.
Show up in my dreams like you pay rent,
No permission,
no permit,
just loving brute force.

My walls shiver like Jericho,
the tomb stone murmurs it’s exit against the gravel.
My body convulses against your intentionally destructive hands,
the same hands that remind me there is no rebirth without causalities.
You are so deliberate with my  resurrection,
invested in my release,
in my pleasure,
in the quiver of steady hands,
hovering breaths,
ricocheting bedsposts,
in tidal waves.

I do wonder if a tsunamie could quench that thumping thirst of yours
but we are not meant to wonder,
we are made to do,
designed to live
so if you ever find yourself of primordial waters with nothing to paddle but your tongue
you will know who sent you,
because it’s this twitching in my lower back that’s got me writing in fault lines,
it’s this ritcher scale in my throat that’s got me craving a 7.0
so taste me
Until my parted lips tongue you back
Until we learn the method
of sub-tectonic plates.

There is a scientific method to our love
as undoubtable as gravity,
Newton’s third law,

a2+b2=c2 just like you+me=meant to be

 and I know it’s corny, 

a little too cheesy for most people’s taste,

but I wasn’t looking to appeal to their appetite

 Baby, you’re the only one I want hungry for me.

I am familiar with the way you make my bones quake

but I have never seen an earthquake hold anything like the way you hold a sunrise

or blanket the dusk

with outstretched arms

and a curved smile. 

You are Kemet’s finest,

heaven’s hope,

everything Heather Headly claimed He Is,

what Jill Scott only WISH she had 

“The Truth” as described by India Arie.

You are…if I could in a word…breathtaking.

I’ve been called a love poet,

despite the fact that I’ve never written a love poem,

just vindictive poems about the men that I love 

because when they miscalculate where I’ll land

or refuse to catch me,

I don’t know want there to be proof that I fell for it,

because I fell for you 

and I apologize Denver,

you will always be my first love

But I am 1,000 miles away from the nearest earthquake 

and my lower back is still craving the quiver.

I miss his golden skies,

the timber in his voice,

the roughness of his hands,

I miss his touch.

I would never be caught missing a city for it’s weather 

but I would give anything,

just to feel a tremor. 

Sabath

It started with a simple question,
“Why would anyone ever choose to be celibate?”
My answer is as follows,

In the months leading up to my wedding,
there will be much debate about honey moons in Fiji,
or the Virgin Islands.
but we will settle for the fortress of our own home.

And while most couples need but one night to consummate their love,
I ask that you do not try and contact me for at least
seven days.
Here’s why…

On my wedding night,
If he does not sink into my quick sand lips,
or Hawaiian sunsmile.
It will be my desert hips
and Amazon thighs to do him.
Because there is no island on this planet that you can get more lost than my body,
I give three days to realize this fact.

Three days to treat our bed like an episode of Lost,
fully-aware
that at every turn there is a sexual beast waiting to devour him.

I will watch him morph into an explorer before my eyes
with the hands of an archeologist,
he will treat my body like an ancient temple
because he know at the site of it,
that nothing was more carefully constructed.

His mere breath on my ear will curve my neck,
arch my back,
curls my toes
and when I beg his name
He will tell me to be patient.
run his hands down my torso
and remind me
every artist knows their canvass long before they wet their instrument.
Consequently,
he will have worshipped the doors of my temple years before he opens them

For his patience
My praying legs will reward open prayers to his saintly fingertips
He will be the first to ever tell me that my natural juices smell like wine
meaning he
is God ordained to get drunk off my essence.
I will beg him not to drink responsibly on this night
where I’m the designated driver and I vow to make him my stick shift until his engine stutters
and explodes.

By day 4,
with nothing but deliberance in his hard on.

He cums slowly.
Makes a moan like a breeze slipping through heaven’s orchids.
My body crashes in waves at his doorstep,
pen to paper,
ink to quill
He reminds me why poetry was ever invented in the first place.

And saying his name becomes a gospel hymn arched in ecstasy,
Until he is banging my body up against the pearly gates because
Fuck it
sometimes you just want it rough
Poetry aside

Until our sweat drips Salvador Dali into clouds and it’s raining clocks,
7 days can easily melt into seven months.

Either way,
I am saving myself,
because I am well worth the wait.

That trouble you been looking for came looking for you...

So what did you want to do love? Crack his head open, you can't make homes out of human beings, someone should have already told you that.
He's really good at making people feel isolated. Excellent at it. Probably because he feels isolated. "I had a violent childhood" That's crazy, that truly explains those dreams. It also explains why I should never hit him again. It also explains why he is so sensitive. I need to watch what I say. "It's probably best that you don't come." I didn't mean that. I-25 and Broadway, love. You know the paths you need to take. Take them, don't wonder where the other paths leads. We already know where it leads. Right here, to heart break, to distrust in yourself, to bad memories that cause low self-esteem, that need more left turns to be made to feel better. Less going straight, less of this road of least resistance. Go left. Just go left.
I need to slow down. This was a small hiccup but I was on the right track. I spoke to Perez with my full attention. I genuinely enjoyed my conversation with Daqeun. That communion with the trees with beautiful, the moment where I went with Anne Marie to the fashion show on a whim was wonderful, the way I felt when I woke this morning, all of it; I was learning the peace of being in the moment, of staying still. I am learning this peace. Keep learning this peace. Everything turns out well.

...you shouldn't open doors you don't plan to walk through.

Earthquake

I never thought I could love San Francisco because of the weather.

Sporadic earthquakes and 300 days of fogs that suffocate the sunshine right out of smile

I thought I would always resent it for this.

While preparing to board an outgoing plane for the third time since I met you,

I realized that this was not the case.

 

It is never the weather that makes a city.

Rarely the events,

sometimes the history,

but always, always, the people.

I fell in love with San Francisco round late 2011

immediately following what my friends deemed “the end of the world”

but could more accurately be described as a tremor.

 

Still…

I liked the way it moved me.

I like the idea that something outside of my peripheral could shake me.

I like the night we met,

I like the fact that I was facing the entrance of café

and didn’t even see you come in.

I love how mundane that night could have been

but still…

I liked the way it moved me.

 

Some days when you text me,

I find myself sitting in my doorway for comfort.

This is where you wait when you're waiting for an earthquake.

 

I gotta be honest,

I dream of your last name.

El Henson

Wake up with your first trembled

against my lips

reverberating…

like a song.

Like a flower’s vibration just before bloom,

like the earth trembling before it opens.

It shakes my whole body.

There are rumors,

of the next largest earthquake in San Francisco since 1906

and I am positive

you will have something to do with that.

April 5/30 Luka workshop 5

She slipped into a coma
felt nothing.
Not the fire on her tongue or the water flowing through  her fingertips.
Perhaps a panini could awaken her senses
her dog stole it from the table 10 min. ago

1.past
2.emotion
3.element
4.food
5.animal

April 4/30 Luka workshop 5

I meditate on the same things.
There are mentors  att my door.
It takes a village to raise a child
I will no longer be in birthing pains after 10 years wrapped in one.
Where do I belong?

4.action
3.character
2.quote
5.future
1.place

April 3/30 Like workshop 3

My tongue is the home of many flames.
I have clamped dow  tbis furnace.
The fire man sits at my feet searching for an entrance,
claiming, " storms don't last always."
all ofbthis is bound to change.

[the structure of this and the last is a five line structure.
1.place
2.quote
3.character
4.action
5.future

April 2/30 Luka Workshop 1

Kemet is no longer a village
but judgement day is still today
Tehuti sits on my tongue and reports to Ma'at
I fear this judgement.
pray I'll release the shackles tomorrow

April 1/30 "Your very thoughts are poetry"

 Kemet is the thing that most inspires me. I like talking about my mother. She truly is a wonderful woman. I don't talk about her enough. I don't raise her high enough. I should write a poem about her. I have always wanted to write a poem about her and she has always wanted me to but I sacrifice thing I truly want to write about for the sake of slam. It's just stopped working for me.  That was a really good exercise. It felt good to get everything out without having to create a story. Stories are what get people in trouble What makes us embellish, makes us tell the things we shouldn't. I have Tehuti writing in hieroglyphics on my tongue, only I can translate. I have things to say that are pre-dynastic. I am the only vessel by which to say these things may be reintroduced. How dare I latch the stone of my jaw on Tehuti like a tombstone.

To My Unborn Son Draft 1

An effective Heimlich maneuver

will often brake the tip of the sternum. {no pause}

30 percent of successful resuscitations

end in at least one broken rib. {longer pause}

 

They also end with a survivor walking away from a scene that could have otherwise taken their life.

Most things meant to heal you,

have to break something first.

 

So to my unborn son,

you will be the heart breaker

everyone warns their daughters about.

Not because you are insensitive,

or in-compassionate.

but because you will have a heart the size of an ocean,

but a mind wise enough to know the difference between a chapter

and forever.

When you leave them,

something inside them will BREAK

   feel like I need something here

and they will hate you,

{pause} until they learn to love themselves.

 

To my unborn son,-feel like that’s a little generic. Is there anyway we can have a better lead in?

You will be a mama’s boy,

and will hold no shame with that title.

you will treat every woman you meet with the gentle love, respect and honor you give me,

you will respect them

because they deserve it

and if they do not act like they deserve it

you will treat them like they deserve it

until they respect themselves {pause}

 

My unborn son,

you will not be perfect

you will fall,

fumble,

say hurtful things.

could talk about what and how-mass media, negative stereotypes, degrading women

and will SMACK these habits out of you,

but realize that only break you,

to make you stronger.

 

They say it is an irresponsible time to have a child.- I don’t like this part because 1. It makes it seem like I’m pregnant 2. Who are “they?”

That this world is so far gone,

but why not give it a reason to correct itself.

YOU

will be a reason for the this world to correct itself.

You will pivotal.

Necessary.

It would be irresponsible NOT to give Gaia you as a gift.

 

You will be a sunrise without smog,

a breath a fresh air.

You will be a mama’s boy. {soft}

You will treat this earth with the love, respect and honor that you owe it.

You will nourish the desolate soil of the ghetto,

you will break it,

so it’s root can reach the .

 

You will break hearts so we can learn what makes them beat,

break soil,

so our crops may harvest,

 

When a throat is lodged,

the sternum must be broken to unclog it,

when lungs fill with liquid,

ribs have to be cracked in order to drain it.

 

When this world is fills with toxins

and counterproductive behavior.

Some habits need to be broken,

some patterns need to dislodged,

you will the son

 

that SNAPS the horizon,

the light this world needs,

to see itself,

to love and respect itself

so we can finally rebuild.

Chains and Knives-Draft II

So I have this fear right?
And it's really shiny,
Like... a knife with no handle.

And I keep holding on to it,
this blade,
Because I figure

if let it go,
I'll have nothing to protect myself with.

27 days after you gripped my left hip,
it cringed…
Delayed reaction,
opposite of the one it seemed to have that night

The way it learned into you like a whisper,
like a hand on the small,
slender,
end of a woman’s back.

Like a faint moonlit shadow waning in it’s attempts for attention,
now it is a clamp fist screeching.
Blade protruding,
yelling something about abuse.

I wish I wasn’t so accustomed to holding you,
wish you didn’t fall into my palms so easily,
wish I could clench my fist,

I crave too much the grip of a man who wants to break me

in a way he will described as pleasure.

Whisper cayenne peppered Spanish,
and rosemary simmered French into the wave of me that will unfurl like the palm I never should have left open in the first place.

You are not my boyfriend.
No matter what happens as we lay together,
no matter how much energy is shared,
how much you give to me.

I know,
In the morning,
I get to keep you part of you.
Not the residue you leave on my skin
or the scorch marks in my throat.

I will take showers,
deep breaths,
and do yoga
to shake off your pieces
and send them back to you in the mail
No claim you make to any region of my body would ever be held up in court

You have no jurisdiction,
I was never promised to you,
Nothing was ever promised to you
or my ring finger,
or this heart that never learned how to love it back

27 days after you hand,
gripped my left hip,
teeth marks were shown in my skin,

There is something so inherently inconspicuous about you,
it can only be perceived as dangerous.

The first time I considered giving up my celibacy to you
I told you I would bleed.
You said, “please do.”
The most confoundingly sexy thing I had ever heard
but I wondered if you understood the repercussions.

I've been celibate for sometime now.
Never had a sexual experience,
I fear I never will.

Muscle memory has me reliving the abuse,

reminds me of he ex-boyfriend who admired my chastity necklace in daylight,

but seemed not to see it at night,

Who knew how to beg to push in without it sounding too much like rape.

How to use words to make a blood stain less suspicious,

I am no less suspicious of your intentions.

What if I let this blade go,
what will I have to defend myself with.
If I let it go,
let someone hold my hand,
someone who doesn’t mind a little blood,
a little humanity,
a little honesty to rub off on them

Guys don’t want the mess,
spend most morning after cursing the girls
they ran through for inconveniencing their sheets

You don't want blood on your hands
and I don't want to be the one to soil you.

When asked the reasons I am celibate,
I like to make them up,
decorate them in flowers and lace.

Truthfully,
I'm just afraid.
The first time someone let themselves in
it was without my permission
and it took sixteen years for that wound just to scar.

And now you come to me
As I am 20 years of age
and wan access.
I don't have another sixteen years
to wait for a scar.

Chains and Knives

It’s this chastity thing I’m holding onto.
It’s like a blade
with no handle.

The more I trust,
means the more I loosen my grip.
Then I get scared.
If I lose that weapon,
what’s to keep them from striking again?
It’s an imaginary knife that couldn’t slice through a metaphor,
but it’s all I have.

It hurts like her,
holding onto to something so pretty,
so promising,
only find out it will hurt you more than letting go.

Ok, so I let go,
say I let someone in to this bloody open mess
that is now my hand
blistered and scorn,
Are you telling me there just gonna know what to do with that hand
That they’re just going to nurse it to health.

It was the way he unfurled my hand though
how clenched it was,
he intentionally interrupted the energy I kept crowded in my fingertips.
There is something healing in blood,
not nearly as dark and disturbing as the emo era dedicated poetry to making it sound.

The antibodies,
the fighting power in it.
Something so miraculous,
beautiful;

Maybe I could find,
after all this,
that I can heal myself

Oshun

do not ask a hurricane if it is thirsty.

the answer is always ‘yes’

the core is always empty

the peace you find in the eye of my storm

is just an empty stomach that’s given up protest