I Never Tell

i want to be your favorite pillow to sleep on// your favorite dream to wake up to// i want to learn to sing// just so I can hum how much i love you// but i want you, without games and childish antics// i’ll take your friendship over your touch// if it stood that i had to choose// but i’d take both scoops, on a fresh waffle cone// and i’d cradle you close to my lips// until our whispers were loud enough for us// and silent to the world’s nosy ears.

The feelings I have for you,

…every expression of it

…every word of it,

…even every line of its poetry…

Has been guised

in my self-appreciation.

Though this therapy has been beneficial

I just can’t help but think

That maybe I would have liked

To give some of these gifts to you.

I need the night effect.

I need the cover-over-your-head illusion.

Night gives me stillness, save for myself,

A few rustling leaves.

I don’t have to think.

I don’t have to give responses. 

Late assignments and overdue bills

Stop harrassing me for a while.

The tears finally come.

The tears finally console me.

I don’t have to hide from the world.

The world has hid from me.

And I’m fine with that. 

…she will go up in a pile of smoke.
Drifting like lit sweet cloves,
meshing in with transparency, 

she will leave behind no ashes.

We will see her but not touch her.
They will acknowledge her
without remembrance of her.

…she wants it that way:
she told me one day
—hair of curls, twisted
   mind of ideas, muted— 

she wanted no casket
to hold her to a rotting earth
and when Mother Nature
struck her ungrateful, messy kids
she would be in the Upper Room

She wants to be
—everywhere and nowhere
—dissipated in our midst .
—a dweller without intrusion.
—a participant without presence. 
—the dove her body never let her be.

he said he had a thing for queens
but i… well, i mean… wasn’t I queen enough?

even if i wore the mask of your 
favorite playtime whore
surely some of these regal words
slipped through or my radiant eyes
shone through the mascara lined pupils

i was sure you would see through it all
like i thought I was seeing through all your
asshole, bullshit, fuck them feelings syndrome
took your poetry to be your promise
or maybe, i just took myself to be your muse?

I guess the lesson is: never assume.

Can’t say if chivalry was your mask or your makings
Can’t say which of us was genuine or which one was faking

i made that u-turn before
still couldn’t get a better look
so I closed the door on that mystery
and now, i’m reconsidering truths.

… I’m pretty sure you didn’t want me.
I ain’t no teddy bear at some garage sale
Who’s begging for a new owner.

The part of me that still cared hopes you’re happy
But the side of me built with anger and jealousy
Thinks you’re a coward that is allergic to incovenient truths

You remind me that my intuition is better than
Your voice, your ambiguities, your calls, your touch
And even though I’m wounded in my quest to find
The one that will be right for me
I’m so damn excited
That you proved to be all wrong. 

I have made my heart release you.

It was reluctant,
like a toddler girl
clinging dandelions
in the threshold
of the house’s front door.

The line
between selfishness
and selflessness
Is blurred by
my distorted memory
of how hope can
blossom into reality 

I have made my heart release you
Although my mind never agreed
To this rearrangement of direction
It curses my heart for its wisdom
Sometimes gets it drunk with imagination
Send it pictures of how harmonious we are
In some unlocated desert of potential futures

My heart has begged me to cling to you
When I am weakened with the solitude
I contemplate the options, the risks
My mind and heart feel and reason
Nicking away at my attempts for clarity

Sometimes, I give in,
And follow the two of them
Through smiles and laughter
That belong to the past’s stash
they nudge me to try again.

But most of the time,
A dulled ache sharpens
Like a discovered razor under the tongue
Like a handshake morphed to a grip
Always present but formerly silenced

And I am reminded
This is a not gamble we can take
Let the mind be bitter
And the heart be disappointed
We are all can hold on to
They, both, I have to hold on to
They are my children, heart and mind
And many men come to visit,
Not yet ready to stay

So I have made my heart release you
But my mind is stubborn to forgetting
These minor battles in this house of mine
Until the next flower springs

I work til I can’t
Smile til my teeth are aching
A struggling worker

Better times with you
Are sadder to remember 
Argued days with you.