Tag: poem

So She Sang Poetry

Poetry was the cry of a caged bird
Inside, imprisoned by walls, she built herself
Her chest heavy with questions she did not have the guts to ask
felt her voice was too secret
her mission too silent
her purpose too underground railroad
and ain’t nobody wanna be free.
So she sang poetry
and the walls melted like liquid honey.
It was startling how her voice vibrated the air
and she saw her skeletons, ugly and raw
a graveyard of insecurities locked inside the cages of her mind
She was not dead, but something else was
she saw the struggles of her voice
the agony of a quiet storm in a world full of noise
Her mind was a Civil War, and she wasn’t sure who would win,
the enslaved or the free
So she sang poetry
and the shackles melted like liquid honey.
There was strength in her lungs
she could not tame the lyric
there was no trapping the gift
no caging the courage
no binding the song.
There was freedom in her fingers
and a revolution in her pen.
Paper was a bloodbath of truth
and writing a sanctuary
Fear didn’t live here,
only wings that lifted her above the ground
a canvas of silver linings across the sky
a colorful reminder that her struggles were stepping stones
to freedom
that her flaws were flawless
and her mistakes, miracles in disguise
these were her confessions
a resurrection written in ink.

Poetry was the cry of a caged bird
who learned to sing poetry
until the bars melted away
like liquid honey.

YouTube: New Poem Added! Listen to “Cheap” #Poetry #SpokenWord

This started out as something I wrote for myself. It wasn’t necessarily a poem. But I decided to turn it into something for you as well. I rewrote it in third person instead of first person. Do not be cheap with yourself. Know your worth. Know your value. Be you. Love you.

When Hearts Break

moleskin-notebook-and-coffee-writing

Deafening silence

and the torture

Of stillness

The quiet awe

Of when hearts break

Shattering glass

With no sound

Just pieces of thought matter

And stains of emotions

Smeared

No one will look up

Because pain has no sound

No warning

Except to pen a tear

The silent scribble

Of the scribe

When hearts break

In crowded rooms

No Punctuation

Dear Love,

your voice is the sound of pages

I’ve been waiting to read my entire life

like run on sentences

in a book too perfect to end

tell me

how do you shackle power to punctuation

If I could

I would end this poem with a period

or place a comma in the places I need

to catch my breath

but you

will only rush to the tips of my fingers

you see love

will only leak

from the pores in my skin

like the sounds of many waters

flooding its way from Noah’s Ark

you shelter me

like an infant

carefully encased in its mother’s womb

before language existed

before there was ever a need of capital letters

dear captain

you chose us

before there was a thing called history

sucking at its mother’s breast

we are nurtured by the past

to understand the future

Dear Love,

you are the answer to every question

and the sound of your mercy

is the only thing worth setting my alarm clock to

so I’ve chosen to reverence you this way

with outstretched pieces of paper

and ink pens

and a medley of words

all purposed to form the letters of your name

all destined to sing your praise

with no punctuation

no commas

or periods

or apostrophes

just run on sentences

limitless

like sign language I don’t remember learning in Public School

and while my tongue clings to the roof of my mouth

while my heart waits

I’ll write you poems

in the form of prayers

on the palms of my hands

and I’ll leave them running

like fountains of compassion

overflowing the levees of thought

I’ll leave them open

unedited

unrevised

and grammatically incorrect

so you’ll read me

like you always do

and never forget what my heart looks like

with no punctuation

because all the world has ever needed

was love.

Wait for Me

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Would you let me ribbon tie my waiting into your lap?
Take me dripping in mistakes like I got flaws for fragrance
Can you wait for me to get it right?
This belly
filled to the brim with passion
like I got fire clenched in my fists and a furnace in my throat
As if you’d just emerged from the safety of your mother’s womb
would you wait for me
to breathe life into your lungs
to breathe logic into your conscience?
Let kindness touch you gentle,
soft like pillow talk
or whispering prayers in a bowl of incense
Touch me endurance
and I’ll dip my hands into purpose
and feed you hope through a straw
So let the storms begin
let the winds blow
and the nations rage
let the heavens chop off pieces of ice for our tribulation
let hailstones come bungee jumping from the sky to put dents in our joy
and I promise you
if you wait for me
I’ll command my words to stitch you a smile
and in time
we will simmer tragedy
into the polished pillars
of diamonds in the ruff.

Wait for me.

Erased

I dreamed in my mind

that the Earth seemed to never move

and the ships that sailed on it were slow and quite

they never sounded their horns

or went “Chu! Chu!”

the wind never blew

the stars never popped out of the sky

like silk sheets

and the thunder

never growled its teeth

the fish sat silent

still

alone

even they refused to move

just waited

until the land came home

all of it

everything was gone

the people were like zombies in every town

they went about their daily routines

but from sun up

to sun down

no one

made a sound

it was deception they decided to take it

either that or I’m lost in the matrix

surrounded by people that when they opened their mouths

it seemed they faked it

they would walk right through me

and then walk into the streets

as if with their eyes they could not see

I dreamed the worst dream

no more sun beaming down

no more dirt covering this hallow ground

instead I feel as though I am among graves

people who walk around as if with no brains

but as I stop

and I’m staring a dead man in his face

I realize that these people

have been spiritually

erased.

The Unknown Woman

cf9399bf13f01976b0582ca7d041cfbb

Wisdom is an unknown woman

her identity absent for too long now

a distorted image of degrees and formulas

neatly wrapped into the deceptive image

of professors and graduates of universities

with egos that stand taller than the academic buildings

from which they’ve misplaced their minds

creativity hung

twisted

in the silent hallways of repeated ignorance

wisdom is an unknown woman

hastening to make herself known to those who seek her

a radiant beauty of lawful lips she descends

into the beautiful body of instruction

only the most sincere men are courageous enough to approach her

and only the strong can be heard by her

for she whispers soft delicacies

into ears that wish her breath to brush upon their cheeks

but she is abandoned by men who do not delight in her structures

who believe her throne is a worthless scepter

that she wears like a burden

too foolish to know that there is nothing

that she cannot carry

But fools do not speak the language of wisdom

cannot hear the prayers coming from her tongues

the songs pouring forth from her words

wisdom is an unknown woman

to the man

to the woman

to the person

who values the knowledge of custom papers

with expensive ink,

this they chose over her

they cannot see that gold is but a little sand in her sight

and that silver is like clay before her

because her radiance never ceases

and in her hands is unaccounted

wealth