napowrimo 2017: #14 & 15

my thighs feel dense
and
i pray these thickish ankles
are just PMS.

but
there's also
something sweet
and inviting
about the cushy roundness
of it all.

napowrimo 2017: #12 & 13

the myopic views
of old,
impotently “powerful”
white men
exhaust my compassion.

it is the height
of ego
to work out your issues
on our television sets
and not the privacy
of your therapist’s office.

get over yourselves.

all we want
is to
live
thrive
sing
love
dance
revel in a vision of life
absent of
your nonexistent glory.

get your minds right
(outside our institutions)
pay some restitution
and you might be welcome
to join us.

napowrimo 2017: #10 & 11

i am done apologizing
for my massive
boundless
enveloping
sticky
desire

and what i do with it.

love me,
love my gravitational pull;
fight me
and get pulled apart.

napowrimo 2017: #9

i stayed up too late
to write this poem.

traded giggles &
a touch of ecstasy
for creativity.

a completely worthwhile endeavor.

napowrimo 2017: #8

it's been
4 months
and 19 days
since...

venus rollin' backwards
mercury 'bout to act a fool,
but even when they're in my favor,
my bed stays cold
'cause old flames won't do.

still, i declare:
every day
is one day closer
to finding
you.

napowrimo 2017: #7

born with
the piscean calm
of a glassy lake,
my peace
forged itself in grief
kiln-glazed with lost innocence.

(a dull
greenish-blue,
i think.)

behind my enduring belief
in miracles
is the world weary soul
of an immortal.

i remember
bloody pasts;
i’ve lived through
better futures.

i know we recover
(not always),
yet suffer the paradoxical sin
of short memory.

still.
there are limits.

immortality
isn’t divinity.
i am only of this
i did not create it.

so, like the rest,
i endure the riddle
of why we keep returning
as ourselves.

napowrimo 2017: #6

the universe expands
and stretches us with it

no matter that we’re
more bone
than rubber

it only recognizes
the light
beneath the flesh,
the intangible substance of atoms
jumbled in our blood.

we perceive a centrifuge
tearing us apart...

it knows us
as the knitting
lovingly twisted and turned
between its fingers.

napowrimo 2017: #5

everyone should experience the sensation
of being looked at
like they hung the moon
stars
and a couple planets.

a useful phenomenon,
it inspires
and humbles
while repelling
lackluster engagements;

ruins you
in the best ways.

napowrimo 2017: #4

god in the alley,

hiding behind 

humanity's petty arguments:

there are wings

beneath your t-shirt

and a crown 

in storage.

napowrimo 2017: #3

i may be writing
love letters to ghosts; complex
imagined fragments.

napowrimo 2017: #1&2

revolution comes
in the quiet spaces:

an art of paradox
contradiction
and complication
made frighteningly simple
by
urgency.

it arrives
between breakthroughs,
over breakdowns;

on the soles
of praise dancers;

dissolved under the tongue
like curing poisons.

by the time it's witnessed,
the work's already done.

the end. {napowrimo '11, # 30}

this year didn't flow like last year...

for one thing, the month went by much faster. i wasn't able to queue poems as readily. and the other work i'm doing right now forced quite a few stops and starts.

however--similar to last year--it was an interesting exercise in creativity. it got me journaling more and pushed me to be present with my emotions. sometimes they were my only source of material.

who knows if i'll do this in 2012. i can't say where i'll be, or what other obligations i'll have. but thank you for reading, congrats to all those who made it through another year, and i look forward to catching up with the stuff folks wrote that i didn't get to read during the month.

all praises to the word.

a thought {napowrimo '11, # 29}

endings don't get enough credit.

they are just as deep and wide
as beginnings
and lead to
just as many
interesting places.

spring {napowrimo '11, # 28}

the earth
offers her gifts,
sending visions
of fragrant,
growing
green things.

who am i
to refuse?

living deliciously {napowrimo '11, # 27}

i don't know if i can explain
the many ways
pleasure has saved me.

this is not a treatise
on hedonism
or naivete;

pleasure permeates
every bit of air
we breathe,
begging
for conscious inhalation.

it is inviting the sun
to play in your skin.

it is
loving children
flowers
and music.

the flavors
and scents
of food.

it is dancing
for no reason at all,
anywhere at all
...even while sitting still.

or
simply
smiling sweetly
at myself
(or a lover)
in the morning.

untitled {napowrimo '11, # 26}

inspiration's short,
but sleep is long. the struggle
continues. four days.

something sweet {napowrimo '11, # 25}

bathed
in lover's honey
waiting
for warm moments
to crash over me
like ocean waves.

mercury retrograde {napowrimo '11, # 24}

retrograde shatters
illusions; we make room for
new realities.

sista {napowrimo '11, # 23}

a tanka

mami wata hair,
knotty like tree roots. lagoon
eyes, black, reflect your
image, not color. she is
proof: beauty's diversity.

untitled {napowrimo '11, # 22}

i've been
one of those women
weeping in your arms
helpless against
your particular enchantment...

but in the end,
your ice
cooled my core.

you could
listen
lust after
but not love.