The Poetry Marathon

Warrior

She is everything.
They seek her blood to drink and mix with their own,
Not knowing that her blood will poison their hearts, livers, lungs.
Not knowing that revolution eats through stomach lining.
Acid on a quest for liberation
Will leak from bowels,
Burn through skin,
Dissolve any resistance,
Before she would ever allow her secrets to become one
With their weakness.

They desire her.

She is everything.
They wish to consume her sweat, her tears.
Even her feces has more power than the strength of their bones.
Defecation will produce more life than their hopes and dreams.
Her spit is magic to them
But it will burn their corneas
Before she would ever think to share one wisp of her legacy
With their evil.

They worship her.

She is everything.
Her hair, two strands stronger than the muscles in their legs.
Her locs will break chains and bind lies
Simultaneously.
They are worthless in her eyes
And no pity touches her heart
As she severs their spines.
They deserve no mercy and die
Without absolution.

They fear her.

She is everything they wish they could be.
She is everything they have ever dreamed.
She is everything they would kill to have.

But she will destroy them. And she will be free.

Whose tears?

I think the ghost has been crying.

My house is full of sadness.

Like walking along the bottom of an anguished ocean.
Grief making the water cold. Dead but undulating pain.
Sonic waves echoing the wailing. Hollow sound filling each room.
Shaking my lungs.

I can still breathe because
Spirit tears are not wet to the flesh though they are drenching my soul.
Real tears (my tears) answer the howling specter as I experience its sorrow,
Taking over my home.

I am in danger.
My air supply being cut off by my own foolishness—
Commiserating with the ghost that’s going to kill me
If I let it.
Scared of drowning on my tears, real and wet,
As they’re flowing through my mouth and down my throat.
Now gagging on water. Salt or spirit?

I don’t know whose tears I speak of at the moment.
I don’t know the worst thing that is happening.
The phantoms’ pain or the pain of being quarantined with the phantom.

I am desperate to stay alive.
The ghost is something . . . more than desperate.

One of us probably won’t make it out alive.
But the ghost is dead already.

I will not love the dead

I can almost feel
The anticipation of every loc
Between my thighs
Framing both sides of my face from above
Rippling over my arm in sleep
Running through my fingers

I have not wanted like this

I can almost see
The thought of every finger
Knowing me
From head top to feet bottom
Deep inside of wet and warm
Curving with my back into hips and thighs

I have not waited like this

I can almost taste
The desire of every kiss
Parting my lips (and my lips)
Tasting my tongue
Loving my forehead
Etching your name

I have not wondered like this

I cannot want I cannot wait I cannot wonder
Anymore
I will not love your ghost
Anymore

Lava is

Boiling in my spirit under my skin
I am hot to the touch
Fissures burst from me sporadically
Steam rising off of me at all times

I do not know when I will erupt

One more wrong word
One last questioning of my feelings
One new attempt to invalidate

Lava everywhere killing everything in its path

The relief to let it flow freely
The remorse burned away
It is brutalizing on the inside
It destroys anything on the outside

But it crusts over
Slowly
It takes a long time to cool

Now there is ash
Over everything
Lungs pulling deeply
No fresh air

Never-ending threat
Will I die because now I cannot breathe

How long until something new
Grows from this magma
It will
But how long

I don’t know how to write love poems (anymore)

I wanted new love to become my muse
The way she became part of my healing

Balm
Warm
Safer than I knew before

But my last muse took something quintessential

Her duality was tricky
Simply cure for her own poison

She gave me back my words
By reaching down my throat
Intubating me to breathe poetry again

But the barbs embedded in the process
Ripped through heart muscle when she snatched her arm back
Scratching me raw as she withdrew her love
Maiming my tongue leaving bloody streaks

Yes
I can still breathe

But how can I ever speak poetry in love again
The wounds still twinge

Let me explain why the ghost sleeps in my bed while I sleep in a chair.

It’s selfish.
I let it.
I don’t want to fight with a fucking ghost.
Ghosts are scary.
This one is only friendly when the mood strikes.
Most of the time it laughs from my bed while I squirm in my chair.
It pays the bills.
It resents me.
It mocks my depression.
(It doesn’t know it died from depression.)
It feels superior for straightening up but it doesn’t actually clean shit.
It’s lonely.
Ghosts are sad.
It’s scary.
It screams when it gets too angry.
It is angry at itself.
It doesn’t know it is dead.
(Deep down inside, it suspects it is not alive.)
It says things it can never take back.
It regrets everything too late.
It gives up too soon.
It let me go.
It won’t leave.
(It’s my responsibility to tell it that it’s dead.)
It forgets that it loves me.
It hates that it loved me.
It let me have the chair.
It took over my bed.
I let it.
I’m selfish.

I love her.

Her skin is brown.
It does not taste like chocolate
But like what a mix of sunlight and moonbeams would be if sprinkled with streetlights from our walk home.
More like umami. Too savory to be sweet. But there is salt and honey there if I suck long enough.
(Sour in the right way. Intoxicating bitters.)

Her body is my favorite thing. She is soft.
Her hair. Her skin. She feels like fingers on my neck before the nails scratch my scalp that is always itching.

Her love is the only thing that love could be. Necessary.
Life in a look, in a graze. She loves me as if I am the only thing that is necessary. She loves my me because it is necessary.

Her heat is like steam. Or lava. Or sunshine. Or tea steeping in anticipation of my lips.
Tongue burned every time, leaving a memory of that taste for the rest of the day. Maybe even tomorrow.
Maybe making it worse if I taste again later. Worth the numb and tingle.

She is the dream I forget when I wake.
An impression I cannot clasp on to because she is not there when I open my eyes.

Resurrection

Lazarus
Phoenix
Hope
Life

Resurrection is

Miracle
Fantasy
Desperation
Disbelief

Resurrection is

Revival
Rebirth
Resurgence
Reincarnation

Resurrection is not promised.
Everything is not meant to come back again.

Youniverse

Take your time.
Take all time because the Universe belongs to you.

You wield it so.
It is yours because you willed it so.

Space is jelly.
It can collapse on itself and form anew. Liquid does not bend, it swallows.

Stars crunch.
They should only be eaten in dire emergencies because they deserve to live as well.

Black is not empty.
There is not and has never been a void here.

Sun fire is hotter than hell.
It is only the center of this universe not Yours. You become the light they’ve never seen.

Do not be afraid.
They fear what they don’t understand. Fear and awe are synonymous.

Saying that the ghost is dead is
Unnecessary redundancy serves no purpose unless
There is a deeper death for a ghost in
A state more than hollow, a soundless crypt becomes
The scariest and coldest and darkest moment swallows
Everything is more repulsive and more putrid and more . . . more while

The ghost is dying.

What if more . . . is a fecund death that is
An oxymoron is only true if
Death can grow into a newer, more horrible thing to
Witness the ghost become a monster who
Could it consume something that the ghost is scared to touch
Its own heart is spoiled until it is ready to eat it
Became cannibal of
Afterlife itself is a horror while

The ghost is dying.

I did not come to kill a monster but
A monster was waiting for me to enter
Into this darkness, my home is lost for
Ever will I mourn the ghost that might have
Loved is past tense in
This tomb is my home while

The ghost is dying.