Forced Living

I’m forcing myself to write about you

Since you’ve been gone

I can’t eat

Can’t sleep

Nothing is right without you

Can’t go on living

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

I spend most moments in a panic

Life without you is real and I can’t stand it

No one understands it

Can’t weather this storm

Can’t do this no more

How could God close the door

On a life that was needed here more

I won’t ever accept this

As a fact of life

Or something right

Or one of God’s lessons

I’ll spend the rest of my days pretending

That you’re still here

Somewhere

Enjoying what was left

But you left before you experienced the best

I feel guilty

That I didn’t do more before you left me

But life is tricky

We know too little too late

Life is devoured before the taste

And before I know it

You’re not with me

I’m forcing myself to write about you

So here it is…

How am I supposed to tell my kids

…about you?

How can they ever know me without you?

I’m everything I am

Because of everything you were

I hate who I’ve become without you

Who's supposed to remind you of who you are

When everyone who knew the real you is gone?

The gifts you gave are immeasurable

The void you left is impossible

Now I lay hostage to your absence

No time

No rhyme or reason

Can stop this bleeding  

Or the pain from you leaving

Can’t stop the burn

I’ll never learn

To live without you

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

So…

I’m forcing myself to write about you

Because since you’ve been gone

The nights are too long

The days are a fight

Can’t eat

Can’t sleep

Nothing is right without you

Can’t go on living

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

This poem won’t have a happy ending

There’s no silver lining

All wounds don’t heal with time and

This is a burden I’ll carry with me

All of your sacrifice to make us happy

We never fully appreciate

What we have til it’s too late

Now that you’re gone

The faint sound of the songs you used to sing me

Live on in your memory

Memories

Please don’t take them
When you erase them
It’s like losing pieces of my existence
Memories get trapped in the prisons of our minds
They escape with time
And since there’s no rewind
No way to go back
We lose them
For life
But not forever
I know memories must exist somewhere
When we forget
They take on wings like birds
And fly high above heads and grave sites
Bodies of the dead
Motionless
But warm thoughts give them movement
Keep them vibrant in our hearts
So that we never lose them

So I value “we will always remember” t-shirts
And “rest in peace” buttons
Of passed parents, friends, babies, spouses, aunt’s uncles and cousins…
Memorials
Posters, pictures and teddy bears tied to street signs
Illuminated by dull street lights
Reminding us to never forget them
And even when the rain has washed them away
We’ll remember
Even after the casket has closed
And the words of poems written on loose sheets have faded
Even after the obituary pages lie dusty on the bottom of keep sake boxes
Or after we’ve finally decided to toss them

Because it becomes harder to hold on
Than to let go
When it’s not as easy to hold tight to memories anymore

So after we’ve ID’ed bodies
Way after sewn up bullet wounds and goodbyes
Replace texts of “I’ll see you soon…”
Road trips, petty arguments and play fights
Nights spent angry over who was wrong or right
We’ll remember which moments to treasure
And which to forget
Which pieces to hold onto
And what we regret
Will hold no significance
Life is a bet
And unless we’re willing to throw all of our chips in
All we’ll have to pass down to our children is fear and lament

But I want for our children to know
That we’ve placed them on fertile soil to grow
You will always be a part of that foundation
Future generations will know you through us
Through the dreams that you’ve passed down to us
Your memory will be bound to us

Through our stories
We’ll give life to you
Like windows to your spirit
Our children will be able to look through to your existence

And I’ll do everything I have to do
Because this is what it means to remember you

And I will ALWAYS remember you

Memories

Depression

I know this place
A familiar state
One that sadness cannot duplicate
One that happiness will not replace
It envelopes me
Dark cloud drenches me
No salvation
No patience for deliverance

Solitude in this confinement
My divine assignment
Why have thou forsaken me
With such treacherous misery
It lives inside of me
Where no external vision can see
Nor comprehend
A wound no time can ever mend

I remain fearful that my wounds are showing
My heart is heavy
Overflowing
There’s no place to dump this excess weight

My fate
That was never mine to own
Never mine to carry
In need of an annulment from this arranged marriage
Into which I’ve unwillingly married

God please help me,
To escape from this shelter of alone
It’s where I’ve built refuge
Where I feel at home

Impossible to be loved
When loving myself feels forbidden
Oh prison of despair
My sight is conflicted by blurred vision
Really I care
But it blocks out all instinction

This “feeling”
It won’t go away
So instead I succumb to a world filled with grey
And pray to God for salvation from the pain

Love Is Enough

This poverty weakens me
Keeps me from fulfilling my God given gifts
But if not for this struggle that fuels me
My dreams would be no more than only a wish
Cast upon shooting stars
They soar through night sky
But eventually they die
Leave me vacant
But who am I to expect more from an existence
That’s lent itself as a poverty prison
For past generations of poor women before me
The seeds they’ve sown
Have grown up to offer more nutrients than ever before
But still we go hungry
Our children ask: “Mommy what will you eat?”
When the pennies we’ve scraped together still aren’t enough to make ends meet
Feeling like we’ve failed
When really it’s the world that’s claimed defeat
Sick to our stomach from life’s hunger
So we consume each other’s dreams
Devour their potential
Climb over each other
Like crabs in a barrel
Craving a solution
We all feed on this poverty pollution
We’ll starve
Malnourished
Forgetting the seeds planted for us
We’ll ignore the harvest
During disputes of who’s the poorest
We begin to waste away
To feed our spirit
We pray
Reminding ourselves to feast on love
It’ll nurture our existence
And it’s more than enough
Little did we know,
Love has always been enough

asking too much

mean what u say
say what u mean
dont sell me a dream
less than what's fit for a queen
so when i awake on my throne
sure to have missed the scene
i wont question my spirit
and know what to believe...

dont discredit my heart
or undermine my faith
with purpose and love
i'll erase this page
and move onto a new chapter
that i've yet to create
with hopes of new beginnings
more worthy of fate...

prematurely u arrive
too late u depart
no time to rewind
back to the start
but assured am i
if ever i thought
away with u, u'll take my heart...

so farewell sweet dreams
now only memories
of what could be
if u respected me
but the truth too late
and the heart too dry
it now beats of false hopes
and countless goodbyes...

this one the last
i'll let go of the past
and never again ask
too much of a man

Untitled

March 2, 2006

If I could float on my dreams like clouds,
I would disappear to a place in the distance, way up there
Where days don’t begin without sunlight and nights don’t end without resolution
If I could, I would fly away and pack all of my problems into one day
Then erase that day off of the calendar
Like the 30th of February
If I could, Id marry destiny and convince him to fly away with me
To that place in the sky
Where dreams exist
And the world would thank me because of this
If I could…

She abandoned me....15 years, 10 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes ago, she abandoned me. I daydream of days where I don’t feel locked away by cages, raping me of my humanity…how could she abandon me? It’s gonna take some time they said. It’s gonna take some time to forget her. But how could I forget the woman who breathed life into my soul, made me whole like knowledge makes the mind? But I allowed myself to believe that in time, she’d come back. If I just kept holding on, like songs that drag on for too long. And the truth is that I’m angry. How could she abandon me?! How could she be witness to eyes that she once prized? Dark skin, small waist, big ass, thick thighs...just like mommy’s. And she lied when she said I was her everything, heard birds sing when she was around me. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t be, couldn’t live without me. Said everything she did would be about me. But then she gave up way too soon and sought another route without me. “Its not your fault,” she said; as she held the shot gun to her head, one shot to her brain, and now mommy is dead. I was only six and saw life flash before me way too quick. She couldn’t cope with nowhere to go. She was a drug addict, addicted to dope. So she died at 22, what a tragedy…and left me here to carry the burden of the world. How could she abandon me?

Lifeless

First to go are the clothes
Exposing rough skin
Dry and swollen
Bruised and calloused
Cracking
Dried blood on the surface
Avoided

Skin peels back to rotting flesh
Lifeless
There’s no blood in this body
Cold
Damp
Open

Cut through flesh
Find heart
Not beating
Not dreaming
Not believing
Lifeless
Lungs breathless
No air
No deliverance
Collapsed
Eyes
Dilated
Still searching
Still desiring
Still hopeful
Still

Pick through the rubble
Find hollow bones
Fragile
Forgotten
Weak
Broken

Autopsy report reads…
Reason for death: LOVELESS. No further information is available....