And did our mothers invent loneliness

And did our mothers invent loneliness,
our did it become our mothers.
That all too familiar
lemon scented laundry basket
and cheap lipstick left unopened,
a body that bends like
small
origami,
lips that hum in soft, c minor chords,
the last note lingers,
until he spills his liquor into another women's lips
near an unlit flame,
above the same sky.

Silence

You smile at the collection of words that fall off my tongue like poetry

and you tell me that my mind, conquering words around its grip, 

is the night before a revolution. 

You would not understand. 

I think this mind 

not of the beam that kindles among the fogs of despair 

but of the restless breath of desired self-destruction 

lingering among the choke of muskets and leftover rot. 

You cannot see this thick skyline I've built 

from my own trembling hands 

out of guilt and wretched conflicts.

These damn warriors in my mind knows no merciful surrender

They screech

with different pitches of panic, 

in ways you would not understand. 

It is always gunshot loud. 

And I must bleed out these tormented voices in my head into poetry, 

into words that glimmer pretty on paper. 

It is not my feeble mind that conquers these words. 

It is these words that grip itself around prisoner shackles 

and sets this mind
free. 

Just for a few moments.
But enough to hear the soft, sweet serenity of nothingness—

the simple stalemate embraced by the absence of

thoughts ringing in lost directions. 

You must understand

I write poetry to focus in on a haven of small words. 

I pick the right one out, carefully, one at a time. 

This is my distraction — my medicine of quiet salvation, 

my fleeting tastes of silence. 

Warmth for ice pack burned hands

It is summer outside this gate.
But warmth cannot trick its way through the window creeks,
This house is too smart.
And my hands tremble with ice pack burns,
as the smoke dances, stretches its way outwards,
like a tumor, like
matter too massive to be contained.
In this house, smoke is god.
Which is to say, in this house, you are god.
You breathed out the smoke,
with fists that spoke with hot anger.
Who would have known,
that hands can speak, can raise a house from the ground up.
But I did not know
another language.
Except that of tongues that burn like iron metal,
and that of tongues that bit themselves into silence.
Yours was the iron, and mine, the mute.
This house is too small.
So the smoke hurls itself into my stomach and across my throat cage,
And I, fragile and flammable,
kneel helplessly, bend my way into the corners of the leftover space.
And I grow smaller, even when my legs stretch wider,
they can walk faster now.
So I start walking, far from the smoke.
But the music brings me back.
Sometimes, you play music so beautiful that I can no longer see the smoke,
with soft, symphonic chords that ring like church bells,
and quench the fire like holy water,
And teaches me warmth in sound,
in a misguided sense,
but even the curtains begin to waltz,
And I cannot hear the warning pitches,
the dark measure of tragedy that
sinks itself into this gift of a melody.
So I stop running, and I walk into the music
that blinds me from seeing the smoke,
it chokes my body against the cuffed chimney.
But the composed repetition of melodies I've carved into my head,
ring loudly, tune out what I cannot yet accept.
So I tell myself,
that you are the music and not the smoke,
that the music and the smoke do not belong to the same house.
You are a good man.
You are a good man.
But my legs cannot stretch any wider
to fold themselves into this cramped space
and still fit.
So I must run now.
Until I can finally feel warmth
from my beaten but beating breathe
against the metal steeling wheel
upon these cold, ice burned hands.

This damn poetry

This damn poetry brings

lonely into my company
is the bed for my restlessly alive eyes.
This flawed perfection, this artistic genius
This damn poetry
is the lullaby sang the night before a revolution
is the leftover minds of soldiers after a clean death
is the best arithmetic proof of God.

These hands

These hands don't know no, body,
Hands that tremble without guidance,
transforms symphonies into clutter
into fingers that curve around unsteady bones
huddling in comfort against this foreign breath,
This body don't know no hands,
Body, an instrument carved from the splinters of tree tops,
these hands cut down the bark,
watch as its's heavy crowned pride
crumbles into leftover autumn,
these hands reach far,
stretch against the octave keys
try to make music out of the echoes of silence,
but these hands shake like winter's wind.
And even in the pulse of revolutions,
These hands crack like loose twigs
against
this hollow body.

Miscellaneous lines that never made a poem

1. Can we damn the wind that does not bend
its body over
the casket,
with blood that spills like
flesh, fresh
rose
petals
simply
sinking
into
dirt
into
dimensions of atoms,
out of everything.

comes it —
nothing.

2. She says God plays our pulse on his iphone7,
What brilliance, what absurdity~
that technology,
man without limits in his creations,
can transcend even the divine,
but cannot climb out of the cold,
rusted, dirt.

girl is glory

Facts: 5,000 honor killings of women occur each year in the world. Honor killing is the murder of women who “dishonor the family” through refusal of arranged marriage, unapproved relationships, experiencing rape, dressing inappropriately, or renouncing faith, by family members. Further crimes against women that occur include acid throwing, breast ironing, and bride burning.

Girl grows up in a house fire,

Bears survival in octaves of fear between her laughter

In gaps of emptiness between her clenched teeth

Who was girl then who did not know grief

Who was girl then when grief did not form the knuckles in her fists,

Was not bone to her being,

Girl grows up in a house fire,

Father tells girl— girl is a bird,

girl be pretty, be the first blossom blooming after winter's cold.

girl be soft, be the leaf that falls after the wind pushes it over, does not stand back up.

girl be quiet, silence your song, the holden Caulfield in your speech, with your teeth, bite tongue and wipe tears before the blood dries,

Girl is shipment, her satin skin wrapped into a delivery for gain

Father seals stamp that gives her away.

So girl spill her cries poetically

And Man dig nails into the crimson of girl's throat,  

Turns girl’s eyes into swollen gardens of violet,

Barks at girl as if girl is animal.

Man butcher ridges of petals of girl's blossom,  

Spread girl open into a paper angel.

Man give girl death without a casket

Girl prays to become an ocean, big enough to consume her body.

girl body, crumbles like a palace of cards,

Man calls girl whore.

Man calls girl wife.

Girl runs, girl tries to fly away.

Girl has no wings.

Father calls girl shame, heretic of the family's name.

Bang—

A rose garden blooms in the center of girl shirt.

Father drown girl body in gasoline and kerosene

Girl's body becomes fire.

Becomes the ashes of those who have burned in injustice

Becomes a Joan of arc without a name,

Girl has and always is burning.

Man has and always is calling girl weak.

Girl is not weak.

Girl be given names when girl holds up half of the sky.

Meaning girl holds up the world so that it does not crumble,

Girl will not crumble.

Girl is the creation of Eve next to Adam before God could say "I am finally satisfied with life."

Girl is divine.

Girl is burning,
but Moses saw God in fire.
Exocus 3: "There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire"
Girl is fire. Girl is every bit of God.

Girl is ash pouring itself back into a broken body everyday, girl is strength.

She is laughing because she is walking out of the funeral man gives her when man wants to show girl death.

Girl is laughter. Girl is loud. Girl is song that cannot be silenced. Girl is sung.

Girl brings life into world. Gives springtime color vibrant and alive after the darkness of winter.

Which is to say girl is revival.

Which is to say Girl is resurrection.

Which is to say girl is ripples of ocean water bathing mankind, cleansing the sin and grief man inflicts on girl,

giving life to a kingdom of equality where girl is worshipped.

Girl be worshipped.