Inked Tongue

  Swing from the hanging star oh child  Lose all the memories of the wild thorns that conspired to embrace your dreams Dreams about castles and conquering kingdoms Kingdoms and fortes that might stand against your rulings Give a loud cry to send a signal to your future self To remind him to guard his heart and tame his tongue To remind him about the scar on his left palm The scar from an attempt to uproot a wild and toxic plant that was sown by a father figure But a word is enough for the wise But certainly not enough for the curious So Child you must come to terms that on your quest for glory, more scars shall appear on your hands A lot of sowing A lot of uprooting A lot of tilling A lot of cutting of trees that you might have nurtured over the years Trees that were planted even by your ancestors  Or parents, or childhood friends and foes TREES Deep within the core of your heart’s crust their roots might have travelled So you take extreme measures to uproot them A fresh ...

  At the eleventh hour, they stormed into the ballroom In all shades of fashion, they painted our lusting eyes Sweet smelling ethanol did their lethal bodies give And their aura shook our heads Making it impossible to say yes to our cultivated discipline Pretty Tornadoes, inverted by the shape of their English ball dresses They wrecked our confidence But we chose to still ask them for a dance The festive spirit was with us  They agreed And dance did we To the melody of the reckless music, we danced On the tip of our libido, we danced At the expense of our beating hearts, we danced Wine after wine me and my brothers drank Just to boost our confidence to feel the warmth of their thighs But they blocked off all our agenda with graceful tactics And with sweet laughter Sweet enough to cause the other men in the room to desert their wives in a bid to dance with natural disasters Confidence became a precious commodity And cups of wine became the legal tender Graceful men lost their c...

  Closed eyes Hot coals underneath my feet I stand corrected And with a mind roaming wild in the dark I stand stripped  Stripped by my own opinions Opinions coined from an undying quest to be free  What price do I have to pay to hold a conversation with my higher self To bath in the river of tranquility What shouldn’t I be? I gaze on a sacred painting of a future where everyone understands their purpose Such a painting does not exist Every man is here to make another man’s story narratable So I cling to a symbol of peace, a symbol of love or unforgivable sacrifice To remind myself that I am a portal to many A door to a stranger’s paradise Or sometimes a rope in a tug of war A rope in a tug of war? As holy as the morning dew can be My heart yearns to be Yet at the end of the struggle between light and darkness I stay lying exhausted on the soiled grass Let the morning dew do to me what it does to the petals of the purple hibiscus Maybe then I shall consider being an instru...

  There is this bench I love sit on outside of my house I sit to ponder on the small things of life Like the chirping birds on the tree, the whistling sound of the wind, the water that romances our ankles at the beach I think of great things as well But not before I must have romanticized my persona and given strong appraisal to the main character that dwells inside of me That idea that makes you give a nasty smirk at yourself in the mirror The forever tempting mindset that there is nothing you cannot own or achieve That your heels will not be bruised if you jumped down from the Eiffel tower Does this touchy subject make you feel like a villain? Oh stop it Villains are the characters that ended up not proving themselves If the movie of life speaks loudly of you and gives you a fine grand ending, then you get your flowers Or does this perhaps make you feel like a fraudster? Easy Just be a very good one and pray never to ever get caught But how fiercely ...

  I checked my phone once again for her reply to my last text “I’m almost at your place” it read My heart swung into excitement as crazy scenarios began to play in my head It was the first time inviting her over to my place since our first date And to be honest I didn’t think I would be this anxious Felt like I was hosting the queen of a bee hive Or maybe she is Because I could swear her lips were coated with honey from the kiss we shared on our date night My phone buzzed and her text popped up “Hey, I guess I’m outside your gate” I looked around to be sure my room was perfect to usher in a ravishing angel capable of causing arrhythmia And yes, it was So I headed straight out to welcome her There she was inside the Toyota corolla cab that brought her She gave a sweet sheepish smile as soon as she saw me and of course I returned it in a heartbeat She stepped out of the cab and gave me a warm hug “You smell nice” I said with my eyes skating across her ...

For the World Breast Cancer awareness month: FLIPPED SCRIPTS With every new day comes a new experience And with the rising of the sun comes a reminder that our lives are books being flipped page after page by our consciousness Today a new chapter begins with the awareness that even after planning how you would spend the rest of your life, the scripts could be flipped on you at any time. My neighbor, Yvonne is a social bird and a sweetheart at her core She dresses in radiant colors and walks in swanky gait Everyone in the neighborhood loved her, I admired her She was not the prettiest or wealthiest but her aura sets her apart One day, she approached me and asked “Boy, can you dance in the rain even when your tears are enough to baptize you”? I laughed and replied “I think heavens’ tears will make ours feel accepted” The next day I noticed the radiance of Yvonne went sour She waved at me as we made eye contact but her smile felt oddly foreign  I approached her and she said “Boy, befo...

  Long gone before the story unfolds. the long walk in the boulevard causes a warm soreness in my throat. To imagine that you are allowed to stack the cookies but can’t have a taste. You wake up from a deep sleep to realize the world has been deconstructed right from the edge of your bed. now you hold little respect for things you once held sacred. In this very moment, i weep for a lack of interpretation of my body language. Do eyes that witness magic tell the lips where to go in search of an exclamation? And how deep are you willing to swim to retrieve a lost emotion? I have made a mistake- I have allowed an earthworm make salt for the seasoning of my food.

 I’m this close to flipping over the table i have chosen to dine on. A bird that fled from me has been forsaken by the sky, now it seeks succor from my hands. I gave a little too much of my grains to it today. I felt hurt that I still cared. that its dark pretty eyes could still stir the waters of my heart. In many ways than one, I realized long ago that I meant nothing to it. that i was just an idea to peck at.  I’m this close to yielding back to the sweet air its  feather flaps make.  but i have resolved not to. I love this comfort in my skin that tells me it’s alright to leave the old page and read the next. I’m eating good and opening up my soul to heaven’s rain.