Ikaah

Never

It’s always when they whisper

You’ll be fine

That I start to panic

And when they say it’ll get better

That I wanna die.

When the music turns triumphant

A chill sets into my bones

And I look up toward

The shoe-dispenser above my head

Waiting for the next storm.

Nothing scares me more than

Maybe I’ll be all right,

Maybe I almost already am.

Nothing terrifies more than hope,

And never have I ever been so afraid.

How many time will my bones

Fail to crumble,

My eyes fail to cement shut,

My heart fail to cease,

Before I believe in them?

How many times will I survive

Before I’m ready

To try living?

Nothing scares me more than

Maybe I’ll be all right,

Maybe I almost already am.

Nothing terrifies more than hope,

And never have I ever been so afraid.

Never have I been more afraid,

Or rageful, because finally I am alive.

***

It's Time

Wading through the decades now,

Nearing twenty-three

And thinking of how

I’ve set myself free

And come to decry

The chains of acquiescence

Which had kept my wings from sky

Through my adolescence.

My double standards too thick

To reflect back the truth,

Self-love deficient and made anaemic

My grave nearly found me in my youth,

But somewhere embers stirred

And the wind whispered life;

The smoke rose and metamorphosed to a bird,

Molting away years past of angered strife.

I believe I’ve come far enough

That I can turn my understanding

Toward myself and rebuff

Society’s cruel demanding

I fit in and be sublime.

After all my talk,

Just maybe it’s time

I listen, and just start to walk.

***

Homemade

To construct a house is a simple feat

But to build a home is a complexity

To start or complete.

It’s more than the right city,

More than a roof and walls,

Beyond a lovely place

It rises and falls

To exist outside time and space.

It resides in shared smiles,

In coffee cups in the sink,

A love that stretches for miles,

Souls in comfortable sync

Night after day after night.

Nothing lasts forever,

So you must carry that bright

Star in your heart and never

Let go of those who mean home.

No matter where you go

Or how far you roam,

You must always know

That home lives in your soul

And cannot ever be taken

Away to make you less whole.

Here, we are not forsaken.

***

Lights

The lights strobe

Yellow, green and blue;

The bruises bloom,

Yellow, green and blue.

Wrapped up in a silk robe,

Sit and wait for my name

To be called from the back room.

Garnering acclaim

In the form of dollar bills

And losing all shame

As you’re beset by chills.

I am bathed in the limelight

Measured in intense interest

From faceless men

Whom you tell you’re blessed

As you’re placed in the bullpen.

So once more I shakily stand,

Take my bow in the form

Of hundred dollar bills;

I have become a brand.

***

Christine

Smoke curls into the air,

Issuing from nothing.

My hand extends,

But there’s nought to meet it

Anymore.

I see your eyes in my sleep,

I hear your voice in mine.

Your possessions litter my home with memories,

But there is a void where you once sat.

If pain is how we know we’re alive,

I have never burned with more brilliant life.

A home faded in an instant,

Sucked away into the abyss

Of could be’s and should’ve beens.

I can feel you on me,

Cool metal on my neck,

A rosary dipping below my armor

To lay by my heart.

And therein you dwell.

Burn safely,

My fiery angel.

I love you anyway.

***

blhues

Your eyes are azulene ice &

Your tears are glaciers;

My blood is sapphiric fire

But my marrow, ash.

Irises are indigo

And irises are eyes,

Horizon carries ammo

& horizons end the skies.

When the sun is gone

And done gloating,

Glowing fog I don

And get to floating.

Empyrean-born,

Raindrops fall too

Deep onto the ocean-borne,

But today freedom grew.

***

I Know

I fear not the dark.

Not because I am told a higher power treads in my step,

But because I know I am with myself.

I know what the dark holds.

I know these shadows;

I have made companions on this long road of my demons.

There are no more strangers traveling this Hell of mine--

Hear me,

I know you all.

I know myself.

I have walked all my unseen places

And have been intimate with all my fears,

And I have done so alone.

I have been no passenger

And I have had no compatriot

But myself.

You have not seen me.

I have seen me.

My sparks of light are the stars,

The lanterns upon my footpath

My own damned persistence of stubborn will.

Nothing that doesn’t see my lowest cracks

Could ever hope to fill or soothe them.

No one but me pulled this wretch up

Those deadly crags of decades past,

And no one but me could ever do so again.

I know my monstrous corners;

Therein my friends reside.

I am my own.

And I walk alone.