High Twitter, Good Mourning

I don't want to watch
your potential go up in flames. Don't
 want to see you rewrite your past, flip
your script,change your name. You
go by the middle name you used to hate.

I'm tired of watching your brain
go up in smoke. Bubbling nonsense through
someone's bong, on someone's couch.

I can't watch the deconstruction
of you. I created you too beautiful.

I put too much hope in you. Ascribed
too much meaning onto your successes

and failures. I see mine now.
Clear as day.I missed my window.

I pour my regret onto the page.

My body aches and I'm tired.
Tired of worrying more about your
life than you.

I'm tired of little birds
telling me what I already
know. The state of your

mind. You think you are
getting your head right.
I'm afraid you're getting
it all wrong.

Prove me wrong. Pretty
please. Do it for me.

"Happy" -Blackout Poem from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech"

Join today in history
the greatest Freedom,
a great American shadow,
seared in the flames of withering justice,
the long night of captivity.
One hundred years later, life is crippled.
The lonely island of poverty is still
in corners of America.
In his own land, we've come to a
shameful condition.
Our nation's capital: the magnificent
were signing a promise all men would
be guaranteed--happiness.
It is obvious, America.
Instead of honoring funds, refuse
to believe in the great vaults.
So, riches demand security.
We also come to now.
This is the time to engage the luxury,
to take the drug, to make
real promises. To rise to justice.
To lift the quicksands to solid rock.
Make justice reality, for all children
would be fatal to the urgency of summer.
Legitimate discontent is invigorating.
Freedom, an end?
Those hopes will now rest; granted,
whirlwinds shake foundations, but the
warm threshold which leads into the palace,
our rightful place, must not satisfy
our thirst.
The cup of dignity, our creative soul,
today: Realize destiny is inextricably
bound to freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
We cannot turn back. The victim of unspeakable
horrors can never be satisfied; long bodies,
heavy with fatigue, cannot gain mobility.
We can, as our selfhood and dignity believes nothing.
I am not unmindful; fresh narrow quests
for freedom left you battered. The creative
suffering earned knowing, "Be Changed."
Wallow in the dream, rooted in this nation.
Live out the true meaning of freedom.
Dream of Glory.
Reveal all.
See it together.
Hope, with despair, transform into a beautiful symphony.
Work. Struggle. Stand up for freedom. Know,
One day,
This, too, shall pass.
A great hilltop, heightening, curvaceous.
Only that: Freedom.
Lookout. When we allow to speed up that day,
all children will sing:
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!

Ambergris

Ambergris encrusted earring lays
beneath receipts and change.
A tangible reminder of a night
long since past.

A powder-caked quarter settles
for change for a soda, still
wears the memory of our last dance.

I wonder what happened to you that night?
You kind of just disappeared from sight?

Whatever happened to me must've happened
to you; we both
kinda sorta disappeared from view.

The strappy black heels hiding behind the door
have been replaced for a more sensible shoe.

One that doesnt' remind me quite so much of you.

Days that you don't cross my mind
are still far between and few.

Everything's been blurry these last couple of weeks,
my eyes don't focus too well and the right one sort of leaks.

I'm missing who I thought I was and what we might have been.
I'm certain I'll get over you eventually, but when?

Big Love

I have an elephant named Love.
Begged her to stand still.
Instead, she pirouettes
too close to grandma's china.

Her trunk wails a familiar tune
Anita Baker and Luther Vandross
dare not croon, in mixed company.

Maybe James Brown, though.

Tail swinging, feet stomping;
Her mass can't contain her
excitement.  Anticipation of
the rare treat, a true friend,
she is complete.

A girl can't help to jubilee
at her first taste of destiny.

                             --For my You

Dear Emily,

Your words rest
in quiet proof
of an unfettered life.

Spared public shame
and private scorn,
never heralded: wife.

Not from your father
forced to cringe
from a stranger's touch,

Nor be belle
of any ball.

Life, for you, lay undefined,
waiting for your pen.

In your words lay
humble truths and
worlds yet unexplored,

a testament to
freedom, neither
cherished nor deplored.

No expectations
nor demands, no
pedestal from
which to fall--

One doesn't have
to have seen much
to have seen it all.

Baklava

Like so many layers of phyllo dough
my grief compounds itself
each time
my life touches death.

My grandfather's passing crushed me at five,
then a friend at thirteen took the joy out of life.
My mother, too young, muffled the world's buzz,
cocooning me in strife.

Each death weighs on me like
stones on a grave.

Each wave of grief
crushes me.

Daring me to be brave.

I want life how it used to be.
I want to be saved.
I'm exercising futility-
I know there's no escape.

FaerieWolf

Three glistening gossamer girls decreed
an end to Summerlin's tyranny.

A stunning new breed was revealed
to share the talents we most revere:

Keen eyes that slice through the night sky
fast wings enable the beast to fly

Ears both pointed and made of fur
disclose this animal's both Fae and cur.

Light and Dark, predator and prey
signaling Summerlin's end of days

For what's to come of us People of Trees
when Wolves use wings to hunt Faeries?