Owed To My Dad

On my 15th birthday, you came and said, "Andre, you're a man now...it's time to go out there and learn the world". That phrase has been burnt into my hands, my feet, my eyes.  I watched you as you would drive your sleeping family on Sunday nights back from the country.  I listened, as you made me sit in the passenger seat and tell me I need to learn to be awake for the whole drive, as it will be my turn to drive my sleeping family and I will need to be vigilant. I'm not sure if you thought my young ears would not listen but I did. I listened to all your quotes and sayings over the years.  I never said thank you because, at the time, I was too young to understand or live most of them, but as I went out into the world, they would become my sword and shield.  

We butted heads because you wanted me to be a doctor but when my life was upside down, I joined the health industry becoming a fitness mentor helping people with their health and I was successful at it, as a matter of fact, that's how I met the woman of my dreams.  And look at where I am now, soaring in leadership in the largest Hospital network in the Northeast USA.  I may not hold a scalpel but I've been affecting lives on a daily basis...you win.  

We butted heads again when you wanted me to be a pilot, but I have become a pilot, a pilot of my life. I went out there and took charge, took chances, I figured things out, I did what I had to do, and now I've climbed to heights with even more to soar in this endless horizon I am no longer afraid of.  I'm high on life dad, thanks to you...you win, again.

Whenever a challenge presents itself in my life, regardless of my actions, you're words and mom's words always come to mind first. They're tattooed in my mind guiding me and keeping me safe.  I thought I would never be as great as you, so I never acknowledged my own accomplishments.  But the people I now love and cherish have shown me I have much to celebrate and though not in the exact footsteps, they have shown me my greatness, a greatness worthy of acknowledgment.  They say "Like father, like son", I used to shy away from that saying, now I wear it proud.  As I move further into my own journey of life, I want you to know you have armed me well. You have raised an intelligent, strong, capable and proud son.  I conquer anything I put my mind to, in my name and yours and I want you to know I remain graced to be your son, proud to use my sword and shield, confident that what you have taught me can be taken to the Bank of Life any day, any time.  Being lucky to be your son has not only charged me with having a fruitful life, but determined to carry your vision as my own and pass down this sword and shield, making you live...forever. Thanks Daddy.

The Receipt

 You walk around with my heart in your back pocket like an old receipt you forgot about.

You smile, hang out with friends, laugh, drink, while I'm there, stifled,  hidden...forgotten.

No clue I'm there, no clue how much I loved you, no clue how much I'll always be in love with you.

You go home and throw your jeans on the floor, almost like trash..the way you threw me.

I end up in a washing machine and my heart gets drowned, ripped apart then burned in the dryer but you only take out the jeans. 

Your eye catches pieces of white paper, I think you finally see me and I look up with the gaze of a soul being rescued from hell.

But all you did was gather me up, crumple me, again, after all the hurt and in a final act of rejection, you throw me in the trash, now literally just as figuratively.  

I guess my circle of use and relevance is now complete.

You put those jeans on again and go out.

Pulse

Pulse

I never knew I had a pulse,

until I met you.

I never heard it's beat

Until you kissed me.

I never felt its light

Until you pulled it from the hole it was in.

I never felt alive

until you loved me.

I never thirsted for life

until you told me of your dreams.

I couldn't feel anything

until you put your hand in mine.

If my heart couldn't take it

You would give me yours.

I may lose my way sometimes

But your love will beat for us.

I woke up to a new world

Because your blood watered my soul.

Every pulse of my being now only beats for you.

Your face, your voice, your love courses through my veins.

My very existence is crafted by your smile.

With this pulse, I live.

With this pulse, I love.

Hibernate

I look up to the darkening clouds one last time to see the last sunset kiss my skin before going in.

Winds that kissed my cheek speed up and start to get angry, and rumble.  Sun rays which cascaded the mountain-side recluse and lightening descends. Only, this was not the weather turning the season, the cave I'm entering is not my home.  My paradise was you, your eyes, and arms my home. The storm coming is my guilt from my betrayal, this cave is my castaway.  Expelled from your heart, this cave is now my prison, a world without you. Nothing to do but compress my love and feel my soul crack from the inside. It wales and lashes in my chest, in my head, in my hands.  No sword to kill it, no shield to stop its sting.  I can't make it go away and it will not leave.  I will make it sleep...a silent fight, a silent struggle, a silent torment.  Curled up clutching my chest, holding it with all my might while my love for you slumbers restlessly knowing I can't give it to anyone else but you. 

Outside is pitch black now, just rain and thunder in all their fury. Rain dops so angry, when the lightning strikes they look like bars caging me in. My life rolls on like a sealed can on a conveyer belt, no one knows I'm empty.  I look like everyone else, I have to, or I would fall to my knees in agony, crippled in mourning. You look at me and you see a functioning shell, passing all the tests.  But just below my skin is a scream so soul-shattering waiting to escape.   

When will I have your face 6 inches from mine, when will our fingers be clasped while we sleep, when will your eyes show me forever.  This will never happen again. But this guilt is mine to carry until Anubis calls out to me.  I will never give it to anyone else,  While my love for you slumbers on, I will stroke its hair as I would if you were asleep beside me.  I will kiss its forehead as it is the most precious thing to me. I will lock my arms around it as I will hold no one else this tight, ever again.  I will keep my eyes closed and hold on to your image in my mind for as long as I take breath. I've had your love and with it, I need not love again, for your embrace is perfection and your kiss is an intergalactic exploration.  Our memories will soothe my years. To die alone and join the slumber of my love for you, reunited and I won't have to fight anymore. I won't have to hang my head in shame anymore.  I won't have to look at those bars or hear the thunder anymore.  I can live in the eternal Spring holding your hand and watching you smile at me.  

Until then, hibernate.

Dear Monster

Dear monster, please wake up!
This world is too cold without you, dear monster
I sent you to sleep and cast away the spell to wake you up
Dear monster, please come back.

I tried to love this world with the real me
I gave of me, to help, to love, to protect
But all this world gave back to me was pain
Dear monster please wake up.

When you protected me, we hurt them before they could hurt us.
I was able to save my heart from their scorn
I was able to walk away laughing
Not feeling a thing, because I had you
Dear monster please come back to me.

My world has been stripped like a rose in a tornado
They are cruel to me, dear monster, please wake up
They've used and ridiculed me, dear monster
I told you to go away because I wanted to feel real love
But I was wrong, I'm sorry, dear monster.

Show me your waking red eyes, old friend
Coddle me in your wings
Let me feel your firey breath
Let me hear you growl at them
Dear monster, protect me.

Let me soar though this world and feel no pain.
Burn those who come to use me
Crush those who rejected my love
Drag me away from those I thought I loved
Wrap me in your bosom.

My love will not be returned in this world
Take me away again to where I don't feel, don't care, like them.
Fly my feelings high to where they can't be reached, ever, again.
Come back to me, old friend
Let us fly and rule this world.

Invaded

Surrender your campaign

Lower your flags

Stop the drums

Stop the flutes

Call back the scouts

Tell the centuries to stand down

She approaches.

Archers down

Swords sheathed

Muskets present

Infantry at ease

Let her in.

Prepare the feast

Raise the tent

Ready the gifts

Get the dancers

She is giving her love.

Wake up the blacksmith

Fetch the goldsmith

Gather all the seamstresses

Bring the finest horses

Adorn her with my love.

Get the carpenters

Buy the finest leathers 

Hire the jewelers

Build the finest throne 

She takes her place by my side.

Open the gates

Call the Truce

Let the demons take back the blackness

Reveal the light

Her eyes now light the way.

I burned valleys

I invaded and conquered

I gave nothing back

I answered to no one

Now...I love her.

Three Kings

The Maroon in my blood is injured but still fighting
Swinging his sword, angry and charging with his last few breaths.

The Irish in my blood is hardworking and dreaming of a better tomorrow.

The Indian in my blood respects the gods that made us and understands the spirits of the universe will do what they need to do when they need to do it and not one second sooner.

Black is my blood, white is my blood, brown is my blood.
The fighter, the worker, the dreamer.

They all use my hands, they all walk with me in my journey
They all listen with me but whisper what is true.
They all use my eyes to help me see the world as it is.

Born torn, they work together to create me
A unique me, a me no one else can see
For I am three kings.

When I die, they will go their separate ways
But will forever remember the years they all walked together,
Fighting, working, dreaming.

Black

My back is strained
Forced for centuries to carry your wealth

My feet hurt
Walking endless miles barefoot on jagged rocks and hot sand.

My hands are bruised and callused
Building your mansions and farming your fields.

My mouth is dry
Save the sweat pouring from my face.

My eyes are puffed
Crying as I step over my murdered brothers.

My neck is stiff
Hung too many times

My legs are bruised
For all the times you forced my sisters' legs open.

A mere cut on my body keloids
Still traumatized from endless lashes of your whips

My eyes are deep black 
The horrors we've seen have stained them forever

But my blood is rich red
Holding the spilled blood of all the Kings you killed

You stole our crowns
So we wear Afros to remind our sons where we came from.

We walk tall 
because you stole our sisters' pride, so we step for two.

We run faster 
Because you chopped our feet and shackled our dreams

We sing louder 
because for centuries we were silenced

We laugh harder 
So our laughter can echo to our forefather's graves who knew nothing but pain and make them smile

You killed us
but we have reborn and we will continue to be reborn until we restore our rightful place.

Your swords, guns ropes and bombs can only take our flesh
You will never take our birthright 

Time will see us restored
Time will see your demise
And our great-grandchildren will laugh for us while we smile in our graves holding the hands of our ancestors.

Faster

Like a horse ridden by a demon in a hot desert until it falls and dies of heat and fatigue
Like an eagle that flew so high and so fast it forgot where it came from
Like a gas tank so empty it hisses when you open it
I've gone so fast, so high and so far, I can't tell if I'm still moving
Too scared to look left, too scared to look right, terrified to look behind.
Fast is all I know to go, doesn't matter where, just not here.

Slowing down makes me feel the pain, slowing down makes me remember.
I can't slow down, I can't feel the pain, it hurts too much.
Stopping would kill me, stopping would mean facing it, facing it all.
I just need to go, I just need to run, I just need to fly.

They all want me to give a part of me they would never give.
They all say I owe them, what about what they did to me?
They used me, they use who I was, now I owe them?
If they can't find me then they can't use me, ever, again.
This one-way flight is to save me, from them.

I feel safe in this nowhere, yes, nowhere is now my home, because nowhere doesn't exist.
They won't find me, they won't use me, ever again
I have taken a flight that has no destination and I'm urgently rushing.
My pain is my fuel and it has no end, so I will race faster and faster, forever.
Faster is how I feel alive, faster is how the pain goes away, faster is how I lock them away.

God of speed hear me, let Anubis find me not, poison his search, spare my fate.
My heart will not be weighed, my life will not be written, by them.
No more, like the dead horse, no more like the gas tank, forget me, like the eagle
I comfort my escape, I beg to evaporate these memories, let me blaze my anger 
Let me run, let me fly for you could not manage my wrath if you grab my wrist.

The Loan

Borrow my lungs.

Wait a second, it's hard to breathe, I know.

I'm still in shock since she left.

Let the singe of our burnt house sting your nose.

Coughing is going to hurt, I was in there when it burned down.

Borrow my hands.

They're dirty from crawling, begging her not to leave

I carried a lot so my arms are tired

Let them rest a while now

Those bruises on my knuckles, let them heal.

I punched more than a few holes.

Borrow my legs.

They won't want to go though

I've had enough of this road

I don't know where to go anymore.

Lost and stuck feel the same at this point.

Borrow my eyes.

No use rubbing them though

All I see is her, leaving.

The nightmares will happen even when you're awake.

Her face will haunt you, forever.

I won't apologize for the tears, they come as a package.

Borrow my heart.

shhh, it beats slow, 

but if you listen carefully, you might hear true agony echoing faintly.

I wanted to die that day so my heart is just waiting for me to commit.

Mind the bandages, it's been through too much this time.

Love robbed, love betrayed, love broken.

A cliche sonnet sang over a millennia

But wear the parts of me that hurt the most,

And maybe this is a song not yet sung.

Defiant.

Ga ahead Time, take your best shot.
I can wait.
You plan to torture me with her face forever?
Go ahead, I will see her face until my soul starves at the bottom of a black hole.
 C'mon Time, whisper her voice in my head till I go mad.
I want to be drunk of her until the sun burns every atom of my existence.

You wanna fight me Time?
You think you can beat me Time?
You think that just cuz you know her body and how her hair smells,
that you can take away the taste of her lips from my mind.
No Time, I will be right there beside you enjoying visions of her.
So bring it Time.

Bring your land of solace, 
Bring your desert of pain.
My lust for her will keep my throat wet
My love for her will turn your land of solace into a paradise.

Stand over me and whip me with years since the last time I saw her..
The blood will only remind me of her lips.
The pain will only make me yearn for her arms.
Everything you do will only burn her memory deeper in my soul.

Do you know why you will never win Time?
You can't burn passion.
For it is made from the same element you depend on to snub her out of me.
In the end I will own you Time and I, will own my memory, of her.

Her loves bathes me
Her loves sleeps me
Her love keeps me
My love is armored in infinity.

She may never be by my side 
I may never feel her warmth
I may never kiss her lips
But you Time, will never take her from me.

The Great Wall

She would stare at me when I drove.
The world didn't exist when I was beside her.
We'd sing songs in homage the night sky on the highway.
The air wasn't allowed between us when we slept.
Her body held a treasure that I'd kiss her so deep to find.
She saw her future in me and planted herself as that seed ready to grow. 
But that seed was planted outside my wall, my great wall. 
My great wall that I was so proud of. 
An inpenetrable gate, tall and strong, never to be opened.
But she waited. By god she waited and she waited some more.
What I was protecting behind that wall was so precious to me, that I didn't see her standing by the gate  waiting to give me all of her.
I thwarted her. I turned her away.
When she pulled her roots out, I realised that under the wall, the earth of my core, my own roots had entangled with hers and it ripped the ground from under me as she walked away.
Now my wall protects nothing. It's hollow ground. I searched for what I was protecting hoping I could lean on it to save me, but it wasn't there. It never was. 
She is to be my new diamond to protect. She is supposed to be the world my great wall surrounds. 
I am to protect her the way she wants to protect my heart.
I am to let her in. 
She needs to grow in me and with me.
My exposed roots bleed and wait for her.

The gate is open.

The Great Campaign

Lay down your shield
She doesn't want your protection, anymore.

Lay down your sword
She doesn't want you to fight for her, anymore.

Lay down your helmet
She doesn't need you valor, anymore.

Release your breast plate,
Let it fall to the dirt.
She doesn't need your strength, anymore.

Take off your sabaton
She doesn't want you to stand guard, anymore

Warrior unwanted.
Knight released.

Relieve your post.
March off into the night.

Love me dammit

Find a way to love me dammit!

I hurt you and you hurt me

But your face torments my mind

So find a way to love me dammit.

Like a time lapsed sunset, 

my world went into darkness when you left

I raced to find greener fields but came upon a dessert

So find a way love me again dammit

I kissed my soul into yours

we filled that jug of bliss and now it's in pieces, 

there's no one else to give it to.

So find a way love me dammit

I swear I hated you for breaking my heart

Living with a hollow in my chest

Now I cant love anyone again

So find a way to love me again dammit

You sit in your pain, well I sit in a void 

plastered with walls of your face and how we touched

Crushed by how intense our pleasure was

So find a way to love me dammit

I can't walk away, because my legs won't move

I cant love again because my heart was branded as yours

I can't feel again because my skin is you

So find a way to love me again dammit

Blaze me with your anger

Go ahead, shout your pain in my face

I can't go anywhere anyway

So find a way to love me again dammit

List out all the things I did

Guilt me with everything I did

But will bare it until you're done

So find a way to love me dammit

Cast away from your heart

but I'm chained to it

A lock that will not come off

So find a way to love me dammit

Give me back your embrace

Give me back your lips

Give me back your eyes.

Turn around and love me again...dammit!

Carcass

I stare inside on my life like a homeless beggar.

I watch my life proceed without me.

The party ensues.

No one realise or cares that my carcass on the table is simply that.

Music plays, people walk by, friends, family, strangers.

When they need something signed, they hold my hand on a pen and sign my name, laugh and walk away.

When they need money, they roll my body over and fish in my wallet for what they want, laugh and walk away.

Girlfriends and exes, sit on me and shove my rigored dick inside them, fuck me then walk away.

This whole party celebrates but mocks me at the same time.

I stare in.

Watching this life go on without me.

I'm dead, inside, but outside, I don't exist.

My shell is just for their amusement.

Their chatter of how they think of me is not whispered here, but openly shared like conquered quests, as they match story for story. Many lines starting with "remember that time..." then ending with everyone laughing.

My rotting body lays there and the bustle of the night flows on.

They lean on me as they talk and share drink. I guess they feel that means I was included.

They roll me over again and take more money.

A drunk girl leans over and proffesses how great her love is but then gets up and walks away.

Another straddles me again.

Everyone in this room is celebrating their benefit from me, but I am dead, inside and outside I don't exist.

Behind this glass window I watch time pass. I feel the season's on the back of my neck. But inside, my rotted stenched body lays and they party goes on.

They roll my body again and this time there was nothing to find so they curse me and walk away. The girls come over but there's nothing left to shove inside them, so they curse me and walk away. The drunk girl came back to proffess her love and when my dead lips didn't answer, she cursed me and walked away.

They came to use my signature but with crumpled fingers of no more use, they curse me and walked away.

People started to leave, not because of the stench of my corpse, but because there was nothing more they could use.

I watch them leave, until it was just me outside the window staring at me, dead inside. As they passed me outside, they glimpsed at me like I didn't exist. The real me never mattered. They turned their heads after seeing me...the real me, living, breathing, feeling. But that meant nothing to them. I might as well have been dead to them.

Silence took over. Standing alone outside the window to my life, watching the empty quiet room, as I wait to be adopted, by death. Maybe there, I will matter.

Cloud

Sometimes the cloud in your mind is so thick that everybody's advice only seems like lightning rather than a silver lining.

Sometimes the cloud is so thick you end up protecting the cloud.

Why? Because the cloud has become all you have.

Sunshine on your skin is an ancient parable.

A cool afternoon breeze seems like someone else's dream that you're not allowed to steal.

Misery is your milk, feeding the hopelessness in your veins and in your cloud, your supply is endless.

The cloud owns you, it dances you, it replaces your eyes with a grey space.

Nothing positive that comes in survives in your desert mind.

A trail of dead sunflowers mark a line off into the horizon back to somewhere you've forgotten.

You stare at it and wonder why it's there.

This cloud is yours.

Its gift, though a vast nothingness, makes you feel like a king of a thousand cities...wave at your subjects.

The cloud is your life, a magnificent blindfold serving as your crown.

The lightning strikes fade away and you go to sleep, in its bosom.

You Cannot Stop A Sunrise

2 men fought in the woods.

Eventually and as old as time the successor prevailed when the other was shoved off the cliff.  Sunrise marked this event but so did a woman who came out to pray and saw. He gave chase, for fear of witnesses. Succeeding again but this time needing to hide her motionless body, he dumped her body in a a lake. As he climbed out the lake the earth rumbled, cracked the lake's belly and drained the water away exposing the cocoon he intended for her final resting place. Dismayed, he dragged and buried her on the mountain side cursing the sky as he worked. The next day there was a terrible thunder storm causing a mud slide, unearthing her and sailing body down to the middle of the town and stopped right in front of the town church. The aftermath of search teams looking for the living found her. The cocoon eerily unwrapped by a rescue worker found a faint and very weak pulse and immediately rushed her to the nearest hospital. 

The woman recovered, suffering some brain damage. With a slow and agonizing 2 years of therapy, the woman was able to tell the police what she saw, what happened to her.  A subsequent search found the man 3 months later and he was sent to prison.

When he knocked her in her head she didn't die she only fell into a coma and in his haste, bound her body leaving some air and the earthquake came just in time before the air ran out. When he moved her body to bury her he put old ply wood over her body inadvertently leaving some air. When the mudslide unearthed her body, it flipped her on to the ply wood sailing her down the hill right to the church delivering her as on a sliver platter. 

Some say coincidence, others say divine intervention. I like to think that since God knows and sees all, this woman was born specifically to bare witness and was called into action that morning when he whispered to her to go out and pray. Once God declared her so nothing was going to stop that from happening because it was already written.

Bleed

Walking on broken glass, pieces slicing my feet.
But my only concern is that I don't bleed out before I make it back to you.
Your anger broke the windows and shoved me back.
I even took all my clothes off to show you I am not the enemy.
I walk this glass back to yo to show you that I'm here for you and only you.

My bare body, this walk, this blood, I dedicate to you, my love.
Your beast knows me, I'm sure of it, let me come and calm your soul.
Everyone walked away from you, but I do this walk towards you.
Let me be bare this witness to you.

I'll forget about the bruises, this time...again.
I'll forget about everything you said.
Just let me be yours.
Let me be your comfort.

What I see in you, no one else can see.
I see my home in you
No matter how many times you threw me out
Our love is meant to be.

This pain in my mortal body is my sacrifice to your throne
See how my bleeding  is silent as I only want to scream in passion for you.
Take my broken bare bleeding body
My life if yours as long as I get to love you.

Champion

If it was an argument, I'd win and walk away with a smile.
It it was a fight, it would be bloody and vicious but my victory would be sweet.
If it was a war, it would be calculated and precise and I would take your flag over slit throats with blood on my boots.
If it was a hunt, the kill would be silent and the skin be my new coat with the head in my trophy room waiting for stories to be rgailed.

If it were anything else, I would come out on top every time.
But this was not the usual clash and battle.
It wasn't about fists, knives, bullets or flags.
This was about her coming back in my life and I had to decide.

No enemies, just entangled love with other.
Now, to her I had to break hearts.
I had to rip dreams, I had to unkiss them, I had to rot hopes.
They wanted what she wanted but she deserved it more.

Why did she have to come back now, at this time.
But I unsheathed my sword anyway and I killed their desires.
This time as I walk to her holding my crown, 
It wasn't rose petals but pieces of broken heart being thrown on at my feet.

Her love costed theirs and this victory was bittersweet.
I cannot unlove but I can love deeper, with her.
The wine in my cup was their tears but she will be in my bed tonight.
I'll make love to her then fall asleep to nightmares of them.

She will kiss my forehead while they haunt me inside.
Slain love doesn't die like soldiers on a field.
It haunts you and all you see is them on their knees, holding their hearts in their hands.
A love I never thought I was waiting on, greater than them all came back for me, I chose but this trophy, is heavy.

I broke hearts to to hers, I ruined lives to live my life with hers.
I can only hope the haunting and nightmares end some day.
One eye sees her smile, the other sees the pain I caused.
A win that cost too much.

The Fruit of Pain

When hate is all you've been given, when hate is all you've known to survive on, when hate is all you've been taught, then hate is what you've become.  And I'm not just talking about the outward disdain of others, that's too easy and child's play.  I'm talking about deep seated resentment that gets born from secrets exposed.  I'm talking about the need for spite that comes from failed loyalty.  I'm talking about time and time again, people who claim to have your back but were only riding on your side for what they could get until the getting was over.  Fake lovers, torn and disrupted, bleeding from an infraction that never healed. Putting my heart on the line to say "yes you", but you said "no" and walked away.  Worse is the love that gets reeled in slowly because they didn't want to work through a challenge.  The love that gets filtered.  The love that gets hidden, the love that gets diluted or inflated.  All of these have graced the table that I was meant to feast at.  Bitter meals for years have turned my blood into poison and I no longer remember what a rose smells like.  I see one and all I do is expect it's death.
I especially enjoy when my hate gets turned towards someone so I can play my fantasies of death with them. Pouncing on them in the middle of the night, ripping their chest cavity open to feel their still beating heart or sometimes a sweeter feeling is to just squeeze their neck and watch their fight dwindle until nothing moves.  That drain from them is like a filling to me as I've finally got someone to feel what I feel every time she lied.  Every time she said she loved me when she didn't, every time she said he was with a friend when she was not, everytime she said she was at work but she was out with someone else.  A small taste of that betrayal I am able to return and it feels so good that sharing this pain takes away my loneliness...company for a few moments, stolen though it may be.
Why was it always taken away, why was it never given to me freely the way I was ready to give it to them.  Every time, taken away like you take toy from a child for breaking a vase. Never once did she stand in the hurricane and call my name.  Never once did she let the Carnival sail away and wait for me.  Never once did she fight even after receiving the first blow.  I was never worth their salt even when I poured my blood from my own neck on their feet and washed their heels with it. I drowned over and over again seeking the love to match what I had to give and not once did she think I was worth a cold night. Death to them all.