Old Poems

Give Me A Heart
Watching you back
Fade away I have one thought:
Give me a heart.
Give me a heart that won’t love you forever
And knows when to let you go.
Give me a heart that doesn’t
Crack
Break
Bleed
Die
Disintegrate into nothingness.
Give me a heart that
Will
Be again
Beat again
Hold again
Love again
But never have to let go, again.
Give me a heart that is okay with letting you go
Without knowing why,
With
No answers
No comfort
No goodbye
Nothing.
All I ask for is one more chance.
One more shot
One more attempt to love again.
If this doesn’t work,
Then please,
Never again
Give me a heart.

Rant
My opinions:
The skin is the body’s biggest organ;
The tongue: the biggest muscle;
The eyes: floor-to-ceiling windows to the soul;
The heart is the biggest opening to self-esteem.
My skin wraps around my body
As if hiding something.
My tongue is a giant shoelace around my life,
Tripping me at every step.
My eyes are always sad--
Reminding me of the basset at home.
My heart is incomplete and bleeding
Out of the little self-esteem in my mind.

Hear Me Roar
I am an independent woman
I go shopping on my own,
I pay my own bills--
Working three jobs at certain points,
Going to school fulltime,
And being away every weekend.
I am an independent woman
I have my own opinions
I speak my mind
And I don’t need someone else to complete me.
I complete myself.
I don’t need someone to wipe tears from from swollen cheeks.
I don’t need someone to cradle my face and
Tell me I’m beautiful at night.
I am an independent woman
I can comfort my own cracking heart
I will wipe away my own tears
And I will fill my house with objects
That give short bursts of happiness.
I don’t need children and family,
I will complete me
I am an independent woman.
I will not listen to people tell me
My life is sad and lonely.
I won’t do it.
I will decide what I want
And who I need.
I am an independent woman.
I am all I need.

Revelation
Yellow pollen on her nose
Tickles
And makes her sneeze.
A predictable response,
Yet one that for some reason
Must be announced.
Like the revelation that politicians lie,
That babies need love,
That hearts break, but mend over time,
That noses will break and eyes
Turn black and blue.
Like the revelation that corporate America is corrupt,
And all the litigation we can muster
Will never make it stop.
I want a revelation
That one person can make a difference
That one message of hope can comfort all.
A revelation that you do not have to be famous
To change the world
And make it your own.

Individuality
My mind took me for a walk the other day
Telling me of
The past
The present
And even the future.
Telling me all I had to do was break
Away from society
Highlight my differences
Minimize the similarities.
Take a chance to show the world
There is more to me than
This hair
This skin
And these teeth.
My mind wandered through
A labyrinth of options
Eliminating the ones it didn’t like
And criticizing the ones it did.

What It Means To Be Great
What is good
What is great
What is revolutionary:
Poetry is what tells a story,
Makes a difference,
Poetry screams to the world,
”Something is wrong!”
Poetry doesn’t tell the world,
”You should be this, do this, say this,
Change your ethics
According to me code,
My system,
My beliefs.”
Poetry listens to all claims
Not just claims of certainty
And of God.
It listens to other claims:
Of love,
Friendship,
And honor.
There is more that one way
To love
Befriend
And honor.
A poem screams:
”Don’t tell me your way
Is the only way!”
Don’t tell me your poem
Is the only way to write
And proclaim.
Saying that the only way to be great
Is to be new and revolutionary
Is like saying that the only clothes to buy
Are the American-Abercrombie-Gap-Buckle
Clothes that cost more than my cell phone bill--
A bill that I have to put on my credit card
Every month.
A credit card bill with an insurmountable
Minimum balance.
Making the payments requires that I
Skip to meals a day.
I live this life
Every day.
So don’t tell me
There’s only one way
To be great.

Untitled
An overturned glass exemplifies
The child’s discomfort, sadness, and agitation.
Feeling that the world never helps
Only hurts.
The glass’s contents won’t be mopped up for hours:
The parents left a day ago
And the babysitter never showed.
The phone is out of reach--
Just like Mom and Dad.
Too afraid to touch the broken glass,
The child just stares sullenly
Waiting for someone to come.

Bar on a Saturday Night
Mid rift
The musician lowers his guitar
And scans the audience
Whose breath went for a walk
Moments ago.
The musician raises one corner
Of his seductive lips
And prepares to continue,
With unplanned grace,
To take the audience to a place
Too beautiful to articulate.
Their minds leave the room
In search of their breaths,
And let their bodies be enveloped in sound.
A sound that laid their worries to rest
And blanketed them in surreal joy.