True Colors

You once told me that you dont think in words,
you think in colors.
The concept was so alien to me,
I stopped talking for almost a full minute.
But now I am feeling in colors,
Like when I feel
Orange
Orange like leaves at the end of September
Orange like a fire down to its embers
Orange is what I'm feeling when your words get tender
Orange and nervous and excited and jumpy and scared
Orange like every caution sign that I blew past running towards you
Orange like the color of the sun rising behind me when I visit you
Orange is when my hands are sweaty and my heart is racing
Orange is when I'm excited to see you but have no idea what to say
Orange is behind every nervous twitch when I hold you, underneath every message I send you
Orange is the sound of ringing when I wait for you to pick up
Orange was on my lips the first time we kissed
Orange was in my boots telling me to run after you the last time we said good bye

Or when I feel blue
Not sad,
unlike every crappy country song,
When I've got the blues there is nothing to cry about.
For me blue is the color of your eyes,
And open skies,
And possibilities.
Blue is every reason to see you
Blue is everything that could go right
Blue when it comes to you is always bright
When I'm with you and I feel blue I feel so light
That I could drift into air
That there isn't anything we couldn't do
There is nowhere we couldn't go
There's not a word that could stop our flow
When I'm with you I get so high of forget about the low
When I'm with you the edges of the world seem to glow
Daring me to visit them and to bring you along,

You can also make me green
Not with jealously or envy but with life
The green you grow in me is like the grass the second week in July
That green is thick and strong
That green is always long,
No matter when you mow it,
And wouldn't you know it,
You make me green like summer in the middle of winter
I am a palm tree standing next to pines in December
Swearing by my scarf and mittens
Like dress code is all that is between me and survival
You make me green like a cactus in the desert
I am alive where I have no reason to be
You are oasis and jungle
You are unrepentant existence in the face of oblivion,
You plant seeds that cannot help but grow
You are a flower that flourishes in snow
You are vitality and impulsivity
When I'm with you Im all reflex and instinct
Far too busy living to waste time thinking

Our red is damned hilarious.
Our red is the same shade as our faces in the middle of laughter
Our red is sarcastic and suffers no fools
Our red is highly unconcerned with rules
Our red fills awkward silences
Our red is waiting in the wings for easy smiles
When we cry, red is there
Red waits just below the surface
Our red has poor timing at the best of times
Our red is more contagious than the common cold
Our red forgets to look outside and see that it is time for sleeping
Our red never  really sleeps
Our red sometimes moves faster than the rest of us
Leaving our mouths before we have a chance to check it
Our red speaks a language that not everyone can comprehend
Sometimes our red is secret
Sometimes our red sits at the bottom of mugs of wine
Usually our red is loud
I really like our red.

When we work, I feel purple

Purple like a bruise that's sore enough to remind me what I work for

Purple like a house in Hartford 

Purple like hurts that don't fade quickly

Purple that breeds empathy 

This shade of purple dreams of being Walker's lavender

This kind of purple is always inspired

This kind of purple will not burn out 

This kind of purple is royal,

A royal pain in the ass

of any administrator, law maker or anyone

Who thinks that justice is blind,

She is not,

Justice sees our world and weeps purple tears

And sometimes so do we.

Most often you make me feel yellow,

Yellow like the sun at high noon

Yellow like a toddlers balloon 

Yellow like a day that is coming soon.

When I'm with you,

Yellow magic markers retain their hue

Dandelions ask me to save my breath because you are a wish come true

When we come up with new ideas your yellow shines through 

You bring smiles enough for sharing

The thing you do better than everyone else is caring

And you may have to excuse me for staring

But you're bright and you've caught my eye, my ear and my heart 

And before we start

To get carried away with this part

Let me remind you 

That yellow can be brighter

That yellow can be a fighter 

That yellow is lighter

Than air

And when I'm with you I'm filled with enough yellow I could fly 

Since I met you,

I have dreamed in brighter color, 

And sometimes I start to wonder,

If I will ever understand the tie dyed kaleidoscope of colors that is you. 

You burn with fires all across the spectrum,

You smile with a rainbows brilliance,

You are orange blue green red purple yellow and more

I know I will never understand you. 

But, I have watched your colors bleed into me,

And I am better for it.

(poets note: had this one sitting in the draft folder, seems a shame to leave it unpublished, even if the initial muse has moved on)

An Old Flame in the Night

In the morning it is often winter,
though sometimes it is indeed still summer.
In the later nights as the moon climbs into the sky
to peer down at fools searching for stars,
I wonder if that means she is watching me.

So I threw a snowball at the moon,
but I threw it softly and it shattered on the ground.

Then I sent a smoke signal,
but she didn't catch the drift

So then I carried a bag with literally all of my feelings for her to her house
and there were better looking dudes than me,
and I assumed meant my dumb ass had been tricked



I returned to my hole to hide from the world,
One woman broke my heart,
Who would be interested in the shattered remains?

I forget that some women spend their whole lives cleaning up the messes of stupid young men.
I forget that often, they watch little boys age into morons,
and die old and alone with no one to argue with.



Hiding from the world will not cover up my own stupidity and shame
Shame rides my back like it has a saddle on it,
meaning I can only ever be looking down
and I'd love to be looking up for a change of pace.

I'd love a sun in the middle of the night.
But I guess that would just be a second moon.
My voice cracks, but my breath can carry a tune,

A not quite prayer, to a not quite goddess.
a dandelion in the wind, her daddy's wistful whistlin'

A mother's prayer with a wish within.


A flower so beautiful it haunted my dreams for a decade,
made me steal from gardens hoping to know the scent of spice and sugar
so I could have the words to tell her.
"Please, could I drink from your cup?
My throat is parched."

Going for Broke

My depression tastes like honey wine gone sour

My anxiety manifests and tells my hopes bonsoir

Do I yearn for a sunrise or is that just misogynoir?

Do I expect a surprise or is letting that go the real prize?

Am I one of the real guys? does she realize? Did I idealize?

I mean that a fair deal right? My shame for your eyes,

your lies for my mind, I swear to God I tried.

No one gonna see me cry, not again at least. 

I'm the dumbest fuck in the east

Leave myself for the last time so maybe I'll find peace

That's all I can do to tame the belly of my beast.

Compost, Carver and Charlottesville

They say that composting, the alchemy of turning dead plants to rich soil, came to America at Montecello.
They say that Thomas Jefferson was one of the first people in the country to use compost,
but let's be real, not once in that mans life did he personally dig into a pile of rotten vegetables to nurture the earth.
Thomas Jefferson had slaves to do it for him.
And so it would be more accurate to say that the men and women who were stolen from their homes and brought here against their will introduced compost to America.

So it makes sense that Dr. George Washington-Carver,
A man who was born into slavery,
Would be the true king of compost. 
Dr. Carver traveled across the country using plant cadavers to resurrect soil,
where cotton had left only dust.
The art of taking the old and the rotten and burying it so that new life can grow is one that I wish to grow more proficient in,
beginning with bringing every confederate statue steeped in the wrong side of history to the ground.

These rotten reminders that at one time men murdered men for the right to own people would surely decompose quickly and provide a dazzling array nutrients to any plants that managed to grow underneath the feet to those of us dancing on their shallow graves.

Then, we would move on to the non-confederate statues and memorials because believe it or not,
our history is filled with leaders who owned slaves,
denied humans the freedom about which they wrote so eloquently,
Washington, Jefferson, and others,
Men who we have deified and deemed beyond reproach will be approached and then encroached and eventually they too will lie underneath earth packed tight by dancing,

But we wont be done there.
Because even then when every symbol of hatred has been pulled from its pedestal,
We will look out upon an American landscape reduced to dust by racism,
and on that day we will remember the peanut growing scientist,
 we will follow in his footsteps through fallow lands,
and with the work of many hands,
maybe we will make America great for the very first time.

The Angled Mirror

 Every time I look at my reflection, 

I can swear the mirror's lying.

Sometimes it is the glass bent, 

making a funhouse of my smile,

Sometimes it is the way the mirror hangs,

tilted forward, so that when I look at it,

my reflection glowers down in disapproval.

On occasion the mirror is angled such,

that my reflection looks up to me.

I imagine this is how a child might see me, 

formidable, strong and tall.

If only I could see myself with my child's eyes,

If only I could see at all.

Talking

I just wanted you to know
That if ever you want to talk to me about your problems,
I'm here in whatever capacity you'd like

See my ma told me that the issue with men,
Is that we always want to fix things,
So I try not to focus on that,
Unless that's what you're looking for,
In which case I will be a rusted tool box,
And a a handful of hammered thumbs.
I will be blue prints and best laid plans,
I will be all the ambition of black coffee and early mornings,
I will be well worn work gloves, and muddy boots
I will be winters on the roof and summers in the yard
damnit I will show you that I can work hard,
As we work on repairing something.

But on the days where solutions aren't the goal,
When feelings simply need to be given a voice
Well I'm good there too.
I will be a night sky to yell into,
I will be trees waving in the wind of your voice
I will be cave where dark things that need no names can be left
I will be a well without bottom for secrets to be dropped into
I will be a back pocket that holds stuff,
Just so that your hands can clench into fists
And then open like flowers
I will be all ears and closed lips,
because you're feelings matter,
and I want to hear about them


And in those moments when you breathe hot anger
In those moments, with all of your words smoking,
When you have a mouthful of matchstick madness,
I will not be water.
I am a piss poor fire extinguisher,
When you spit sparks,
I will be gasoline and dynamite
I will be tinder and kindling
I will be a wind that whips up flames
In the face of our anger,
Problems will paint themselves in ashes
and call themselves solved.
ain't nobody trying to be in the way,
when our tempers get to flaring
when our eyes get to glaring
when our hands get to tearing
when our souls get to baring
because nobody wants to be burnt by that heat.


And on rare occasion,
When I think you're in the wrong,
I will call you on it.
I will go to the mat on behalf
of every idealistic bone in your body,
because sometimes people like us,
let our mouths run,
and sometimes passion
is just a little bit faster than compassion,
but you're usually good at that
So on the even more rare occasion,
When I am wrong,
I know you will show me how
And why
And maybe bring it up all the time
And that's fine
Because as long as we are talking,
I know that we are building something better,
as long as we are talking,
we can wear our hearts on our sleeves
we can whisper like the rustle of orange leaves
we can laugh like the kid who believes
in all the good things the world hasnt taken away yet.

To all the people I tried to love before learning to love myself.

 First of all, sorry, I'm clumsy at the best of times

and unbalanceed, more often than not

I may have fallen for you, fallen towards you

fallen on you, or even fallen in front of you

I fall down often, and land hard. 

Eventually, I stopped getting back up.

I was content to sit and lean against the legs of my betters,

for who could fall for that which has already stumbled tumbled and become broken?

Certainly not me. 

But there are places on the ground here,

 as soft as chamomile and warm with the light of an absent sun

I yearn for the early days of love, where I felt more loved than hurt

I yearn for a time when I was ready to swim with strangers and come up

gasping for air and finding none amidst my own laughter.