Abstract

Lying on my back I saw you floating,
just above my head.

Wondered what you were doing up there
as I searched up for my peace of mind...

(I wish I wasn't so terrible at choosing bedfellows.)

Looking up instead of looking forward,

always doing that

always daydream-perfect

always reality-wrong 

always never enough

The Way We Left It...

Gratitude should be as real as God
and sincere as sin,
revisited as often as each morning's first conscious breath,
when our brains are trying to reorganize life

and put the world back the way we left it before we slept.

Recalled at the most irrelevant times,
especially when we really mean it,
and realize all gratitude

is pulled from the same pot,
sincere or not,
and in its place goes the sentiment.

Poison or prescription becomes the question...
Did it injure or heal,
and who will have to drink it down after you?

And being that this world is incredibly small,
our times to sip from the pot will come often.

Russian roulette with karma
hoping for a CLICK or a blank or a gun jam

You always get the bullet though,
That's what they mean when they say you reap what you sow.
Was the "thank you" to appreciate or obligate?

Did you take because you need or because you could?
And did the supplication you assumed was from above really amount to any good?

Most people miss that part,
That even to receive you must have a clean heart.
And we wonder why the world only makes sense when we're indebted and owe,
We leave it that way - we take our gifts to go!

Daily Devotional

When Jesus calls me,
He'll use His cell
to call my house phone
(Yeah, I still have one...)
and the number will look vaguely familiar,
(like it belongs to someone who almost loved me, but stopped calling before he knew for sure)
and my mind will race to recall the disappointment,
so I won't be thinking straight, and I'll answer the phone like,
"hell-uh"
and He'll be like,
"Yes, ma'am. Just calling to see whether you have a church home..."
and because the red type in the Bible doesn't include audio,

I won't recognize his voice,

and I'll laugh

and hang up.

I'll be running late for something,
rush out my house, and he'll be sitting on the steps of my building

beneath the "NO LOITERING" sign,
With a hoodie on,
back to me,
head hanging low like a corner dope head.

And I'll give him a disarming, "Good Morning,"
as I always do when people rest on my steps,
and He'll look up and be gorgeous,
kinda like every race in the world -
the most attractive characteristics of each
in a configuration only God could make.

His eyes of fire will stare for a minute before he says,
"You have a blessed day,"
and I'll say,

"You make good choices too!"
and He'll overexaggerate a laugh before asking for my number.

I'll ignore the request.

Then somehow He'll cut me off on 295 with his sportscar
(that must be overcompensating for something else),
and I'll sit on my horn and call him an "m-fer" with every adjective I know in front of it,
throw my middle finger at Him with the ease of a deuce chuck,
and He'll wave back in His rearview like Miss America.

When Jesus calls me,

He'll yell up my block in the hood,

give ethnic handshakes and call everybody "Son"

(ironically).

He'll be the man who holds the door open for me at the bank,

the man who undresses me with his eyes

before he notices me noticing and corrects himself.

He'll get my attention and hold it,

pay me a compliment and mean it.

I'll hear Him,

while everyone else sounds like noise.

My response will be music to His ears,

and He'll give the same enduring faith he expects...

When Jesus calls...he'll dial direct.

11

...months since I've seen you

took confident selfies 

felt truly sexy

11

...months since I've thought about a future with someone

thought God heard me

felt butterflies thinking about a conversation

11

...months since sex

(enough said)

11 

...hours since you texted me to say,

"It really was good seeing you again!"

11

...minutes since I finally texted you back,

"You too..."

(Direct quote)

11

...seconds since I thought about texting you what I really felt,

but 11 seconds after I did that, it wouldn't matter at all,

I'd agonize about my decision the following 11 minutes,

check my phone every hour for the next 11 hours to see if you'd respond,

spend 11 days in a funk because you didn't respond and I felt stupid,

and I promised myself I wouldn't spend another 11 months in a text standoff with you,

So...

I'll spend the next 11 minutes finishing this poem,

the next 11 days forgetting the way you looked 11 days ago

(when I last saw you)

so the next 11 months I can live without wonder.

God's Body

Heard somewhere that God has no hands but our hands,
help from heaven through work on earth,
The creator moving through the created for purpose

in the visible world.

 

Dope idea that the one who started this whole thing

still gives enough damns to put people in place

to keep order.

Hands of the divine no more than a step away

from our domiciles.

 

...so go ahead and give me the key...
who's to say that God ain't working through me,

that everything you need ain't in these hands

God made want you,

and with them, help elevate your body

the way ones before failed to do

because they weren't God-sent
or God-meant or God-found or God-logic,
looked to them when your skin was hungry
palms were sweaty, and
you felt full of temptation,
then full of them,
then full of sin

running over the rim
'til you begged for repentance from the same
demons that made you feel unworthy in the first place.

Your body isn't an opportunity for release,
it's relief from the mortal world,
elixir in a coke bottle,
ready to be popped...
and I'm no tree in the middle of the garden.

You weren't warned to stay away from me,
no still, small voice proclaiming my poison,
not life everlasting, but I am life,
the transference and continuation of energy,
charged and ready to receive you while you walk in the valley
sampling fruit for sustenance...

You should try me.

Find the angel within
that grew from the mess you made
trying to avoid sin.
put faith in the force
that brought us together.
God don't make mistakes,
and God made me,
and God made you,
so God made "we."

Walk away from the shadow of the garden with me,
that's not us anymore,
we are limbs from the same body...

we prove He works in mysterious ways.

 

The Soundtrack

We met to be a memory

we won't share over photo albums and international coffee...

meant to be a maybe, 

a long shot,

bad timing...

I was supposed to be collateral damage in your battle with you,

And you, slain by friendly fire in mine.

Perps and victims - 

a perfect pair.

We were supposed to undo each other's shoes 

and ask the other to stay awhile

...then put on our own shoes to run across each other's minds without rest...

We were meant to be a mess!

Complicated, not complex,

too simple to be sane.

Drunk off the thought of the start,

dangerously in extreme like,

infatuated with the fight of our wills against our fears,

holding hands to face the same monsters we met when we held hands.

Needing things the other just happens to have,

we see and intentionally don't ask.

Cause the two of us are only good for one thing,

giving each other a new song to sing,

everyday,

three minutes and thirty-eight seconds on replay.

The newest song from the newest artist on repeat

so we could get sick of the tempo and end up on delete,

Pack our beats and lyrics and walk out the door

saying to ourselves, "They don't make good music like that anymore!"

...(pronounced, "Complicated...")

She'll be sitting somewhere with him,
and she'll say,

 

"Honey, I remember
I was seeing this girl...
well...she was a woman, really...
Anyway, she was so extra!
We went out one time..."

 

Her voice will trail off somewhere,
and she'll feel the relief in the release.

 

He'll feel lucky to have found her after her experimental phase,
when drugs and drink and women were staples of her youth,
and she lived without a care for anything but her needs and memories like these she could bring up just for fun.

 

There's always life after the "living-to-the-fullest" life.

 

I hope to be the human jukebox with the oldies on repeat...

and not the over sung tune, for nostalgia's sake.