my hands

My hands are invalids.
They stink with rotten muscle,
That digests into lethargy before my eyes.

The knuckles swell with disuse,
And redden with a bruised quality
From banging my thighs
As I walk with no destination.

My hands betray me.
They submit to looking feminine
With pale fragile nails.
They’ve overthrown the calluses
That I’d beaten into them
For the sake of a higher purpose.

The fingers have grown clumsy.
They have snipped their own nerves
And the will to hold on.
They care for nothing I offer them.

My hands are my enemies
United against me in protest.
They sever me lifeless from obsession.
They rescue me.


clr

An Example from the Past

Let them hate us,
Let them ignore us,
Let them get angry,
Let them resist our insistence.

If they knew for sure
That we were wrong,
That we are unnatural,
That we didn’t deserve equality,

They would sigh at us,
They would brush us off,
And smile at their superiority,
Like you’d smile at a silly dream.

But they wouldn’t hate us,
And they wouldn’t fight us,
And they wouldn’t argue with us,
They wouldn’t be angry.

So, please, be angry.
For my rights, get angry.
Because when they get angry,
We become real.

Breathing In.

Choking on despair,
I sob for my own fate.
You assume my pain is from you,
But please don’t assume anything.
I am here, but I don’t belong here.

I had my perfect story
For a short time
A short while ago.
Yet I am here,
And home is not.

I smell the daffodils
As they peek open their first leaves
Ready to try again this spring.
I am not ready to try again.
I am empty of my own suchness
And emptied by my own thoughts.
I believed myself down this path
And so here I am.

I am the red queen,
Devoid of self-fulfillment,
Nestled so tightly in the knitting of my own dark cloak
I cannot gasp for air
And I sweat in the heat of my own breath.

My lungs are wet with heavy seeds
From which grow weeds of sorrow,
Vines of negativity,
Strangling the bloom of compassion,
The most beautiful blossom of all.

I know nothing except that I do not live here.
My life is being lived, but by whom?
I am not living here,
I have a home in somewhere that is lost
But I don’t live here.

I have no answer because there is no answer.
I have no question because no question
Can ask what I ask in my heart every moment.
I have no strength except to put down my fists
And stop fighting my reflection.
I have no courage except to wake up from this feverish dream.
I have no choice but to become a lotus
Growing from the mud that was me.



clr

Holiday

You are my Billie,

Pushing rhythms from my soul.

You are my Indiana,

Letting me fight in your scuffles.

You are my Neruda,

Cooing metaphors for me into being.

You are my Butch Cassidy,

And I would follow you anywhere.

You are my Frida,

Wretching my errs onto canvas, on display.

But you are my genie,

Enslaved by my whims.

You are my Rick,

Giving me one last chance.

You are my Ilsa,

The one I chose to let go.

You are my Billie,

Pushing rhythms from my soul.

CLR

don't worry

And then we ran,

Ran like snow drifts,

Tumbling and stumbling

Laughing at the moon!

Wait! that’s not how the story goes.

It looks like this:

You smile forgivingly and leave.
I say nothing

And leave, too.

Leave with no choice

But to come back tomorrow

And smile at you again.

It’s not like smoke, or a dream, or a metaphor.

It’s just that sometimes…sometimes,

I want to say I love you.

But I won’t do that to you.

Don’t worry.

Syeeda

Deary Gypsy Queen
is it now that I must pay for my sins?
I trusted you and I loved you
and yet you still make be who I've been.
You run around screaming for change,
but you can't see yourself any clearer.
I promised this time it would be different,
and yet I still see you in the mirror.
I should have known how this felt
because you always make me late to feel
but I can never lie to him
you lie and wreck.
you suck the nectar from all flowers
and breathe kisses sweet
but loving a man my darling
will still be your biggest feat.

SITB

Change

I don't know how we got here
But I remember the journey
your velvet hand of crimson
I never wished to be your lover
and now your ghost's smile
in the middle of winter
in the middle of june
I wonder do you ever see my face
when you look up at the moon?
But that was long ago,
and I used to cry for what I had
Now I don't even miss it,
not even a bit.

SITB

I asked him once what he'd done with her
the girl in the looking glass
the one the sandstorms thundered over
but all he told me was gibberish and said
and said, one day I'd understand
I watched her closely, trying to watch her magic
trying to pick up on her mistakes, so that they'd
never be used against man again.
And then another came along and there was my chance
I put everything into a tin box and burried it under his bed
and when everything smelled like roses
it poured fire, and that box came back to me
broken.
Before I could fix it I tried to give it to another,
so fragmented no one could grasp it
and sin just leads to more sin
and when everything was said and done I sat there with my box
but wasn't sure if it belonged to me
anymore.

SITB

Yours

You define the colors for which sunrise is so infamous.

Your curls are the helix’ of my genes,

Wrapping your way around my being.

Your eyes are the jewels I look at in windows,

Wondering if one day I’ll be lucky enough

To hold them as my own.

Those fingers, unlaced from mine,

Hold the answers to ancient mysteries,

Untying the knots of wrongdoing and regret.

Your laugh is too rare,

Unexpected on the breeze of a pastime,

Sprouting aromas of cinnamon and cut grass.

Yet, I am wary in my metaphors,

For in my description of you,

There is only a translucent reflection.

You do not belong to this world,

But instead sing to me

Of your capture of its perils,

Glossing my existence

With your surety of purpose,

And your hesitance to shine

In the spotlight of my adoration.

But I promise to light you with all the hues

I’ve gleamed from your smile,

Wow you with the melodies

I caught off your sighs,

And show you the reason

For my gapes and my stares.

Forgive me my gapes and stares,

But please listen to my testimony.

This is your poem.

CLR

Pizza

Sweetheart don't you know I'd go back to then?
A heartbeat away, a drunken kiss, warm covers.
I'd walk out the Charleston just to bring you home.
To bring me back to you, I'd re-write your broken smiles
If only it were for a while, I'd be everything you need.
To say I'm sorry is not enough, but my pockets have long been
full of sand, and my eyelids wet with your dry talk.
How can you turn Flash into The Thing?
We are irrational beings, and so are our feelings?
The Fantastic Four elements, they cannot bring us time...
I'm sorry,
I'm not finished,
I'm not broken,
I'm just a baby,
just fragile.

SITB