Verbatim

Should Love taste of quenched quill? Soggy inkwell solace Insatiable parchment Drunk off petty quid pro quos, Cancerous courtships In valiant familial coup Shall we transcend the bullshit martyrdom? Heaven's sake, Should the earth quake at Unaccompanied feet Bare and grounded, Filthy in mother's dirt Soiled dresses, Black bottomed britches Familiar in fancily disrobed Disobedience She is told She comes from "breeding" Never forget that No man could ever be worthy Should he not have A home, a car, financial security... Far too robust to request Reciprocated interest, trust, Emotional vulnerability I am a poet, Therefore my heart has long since been courted A mere whisper, A flutter of blank pages Black stains upon a calloused right ring finger I have loved and lost myself Amidst the fog of many midnight hours Stretched across the length of lovers' necks Delicately adorned in soft raven tresses Tracing collarbones to a garden of goosebumps and forbidden rendezvous S

To all of the mothers who wonder  If they should be more strict or fun or  If they’re raising a kind enough daughter or son I’m here to tell you, You’re doing just fine.  — Fuck society and what’s wrong or right  For 8-9 months we held them inside  we know them better than anyone else,  That’s why..  you have to give yourself more credit.   — Even on those days where you feel like breaking down  When your mind is Full of questions and your heart is full of doubt  You yelled at them out of frustration and now you can’t sleep without  Wanting to cry.  I know mama.  It’s hard  Working all day and coming home to another job  Homework and cooking and bath time  Good god! Does it end?  And after the meltdowns they finally fall asleep, and you almost feel guilty for that sigh of relief  Because you finally get a moment to sit down and breathe.  We all have the same 24 hours my ass  Aka a mom when’s the last time she didn’t come last  Ask a mom the last time someone cooked her a meal  Helped h

Break bread with me  Do you wanna break bread with me?   While we talk about the good and the bad endlessly  Timidly I search for the vocabulary to explain my loneliness feeling the emptiness in my chest cavity Adventures with friends fill it the best, Running till the end with them so I could never rest, talk about it all till I have no breath For when I do depressed death can’t catch up and remind me of my inadequacies.  I want those table top conversations over roasted marshmallows with a couple Dutch fellows Worry? I think not problems seem to only come with deeper thought when we work through it I’ll never lose it though  The memories that incredibly weaves the tapestry in the grand design of my mind. trying to explain this feeling feels easier writing rhymes and these conversations appear to be like poetry I’ve been gracefully tiptoeing on the edge of falling apart but thanks to our art I remember to breathe at the park after dark to bring me back from the edge.  My craving for

When I look in the mirror I see everything but beautiful  I stare at myself and wonder who this stranger is in front of me.  I no longer recognize myself anymore Stressed stands of my hair tango in the porcelain sink  Luggage under my eyes from lack of pillow and blanket intimacy  Curves once flaunted, hidden under baggy T-shirt’s  Pale gray skin from lack of sunlight  Bright green eyes are now shattered store windows.  Heart cold and barren, mimicking the shelves during a pandemic.  I allowed others to riot inside of my soul and overthrow my mind.  I am lost and broken but my friends see me and think I’m fine.  They see me smile through painted lips, feel the warmth from my embrace, eyes full of cheer they don’t realize that the girl they love no longer lives here.  She’s out there somewhere, wandering aimlessly, waiting to be found.  Maybe one day I’ll find her but first I have to get my feet to hit the ground.

You are beautiful. You remind me of someone I cared for deeply but only in a dream. Someone who would sing to me when the stars were in perfect alignment. Someone who would write poetry in my skin. Someone who'd dance circles in my eyes. But death stole thy dream in the morning sun when the clouds were full and bright. memento mori. It follows us making sure we're safe. It is a friend that none hope to meet but we all end up at the same picnic. Their eyes were those of the ocean, strong, vast and deep and your eyes are that of the ground, deep, full of life and wild. But I have never been to the beach, perhaps this ocean is but a dream and nothing more. Yet here I stand on the earth, both feet to the ground so that I can dance and spin and leap. For maybe it is not the waters that I wish to wade in but the grass I long to love in

FUCK! Now shit didn’t that feel good? Is it profanity or vanity? Because sometimes being a lady is profane… But men are the ones who lay the claim of a women’s veins. If I bleed too hard, become too loud, and don’t appear too dainty, I impose those who don’t know, what it’s like to be alone. Someone who is lost in the balance. As mad as the Hatter and as curious as Alice. I often question, will the pain ever go way, The headache that washes over the ocean in my mind. And for fucks sake, I’m angry! Or sad maybe… pissed? Or off my shit. I bite my tongue when I wish to bite my thumb at you sir. Or you my lady. How I wish to pick a fight, Even though I don’t want to see the sight, Of myself in that light. My heart races, because I know that 9 times out of 10 the cases of, Skins, flesh wounds, and beatings are quieter,  than the love of, Big tits and phat asses. Oh how I wish to be a trophy, classy a bit sassy and over all a yeah KNOWN! But no. I REEK, No not my smell gentle lads and

She don't like me for my heart. She don't like me for my mind. She just likes me for mi carne that she uses every time she wants… And I can't say nooo My pants drop... whenever she say sooooo I don't like being used, unless it's this chica using me… amigos say that she should stop abusing me But I say, baby don't go…. ...bbbbaby gimme some mo'... Yo quiero mas but you say no, y baby yo comprendo  Oh oh  I don't like that you only call me when you need sex  but I still need you to call me when you want that next. We don't spend no holidays, just the late nights. And I only take you to my bedroom for date nights. Es possiblé that I am just a piece of meat. Gave you the whole thing, but you just want a piece of me. In the future? It's whole enchilada Instead of a whole lot of nada  I'm your papi, not your Father.

So it’s finally Christmas time. Xmas time if you’re nasty. The time of year where we all come together, put aside our differences, exchange gifts and enjoy each other’s’ company. Yeah we’re not doing that this year. Look let’s be real here. Even at the best of times Christmas is a simmering powder keg of rage and misery. We all travel on shitty red eye flight to go half way across the country to hang out with relatives we never talk to, sing crappy songs about reindeer, and go into poverty buying gifts for old ass grandparents who despite having lived through about twenty different social equality movements still keep calling the neighbors down the street “the blacks.” And why do we keep doing this year after year? Isn’t this a religious holiday? Hell, I’m sure half this country ditched Christianity and switched to Norse religion when Marvel cast Tom Hiddleston and his devilish sexy charm as Loki. But for some reason we still have to get together every December to celebrate when

It felt like kismet The first time our lips met Electric currents Like lightning igniting velvet Souls touch through the poetry of silent hands Fingertip sonnets along my arms and back Whispering reverent volumes upon sacred lands Celestial bodies fluent in atlas clouds No strangers to the storm Still addicted to the sounds Of flow Of warmth giving glow Salted earth thawing beneath layers of snow You taste of springtime And happiness I've never known Flowers unfold to the moisture of our breath Blossoms begin to undress 'Til nectar tongue and quaking stem Are all that's left Escape from winter's bite Into a collection of stolen summer nights How heat rises like the gleam of distant desert lights Bodies glistening in unknown constellations Stars aligned in hearts like ours unmoved Prove that even the hands of fate can discover new sensations

Every dawn brings hope of enlightenment New lessons upon old faces Thankfully becoming less of who I was and more of who I've always been Present Presence A gift by any other name No longer finding Love enfolded in the creases of old poems Notebooks I never finished before being tantalized by cute covers at discounted prices How Love scribbles upon the hearts of ripped out pages incomplete prose withered at the frays Burning away all but choice phrases of tumultuous days and the wisdom they left behind Love tries to hang on in hackneyed quotations Washed in the glare of sunrise reveries Sometimes I catch myself lingering in the twilight between darkness and daybreak Desperately trying to hold onto last night as she fades with the starlight Sun graces pores with the outpour from every fingertip spire Cascading across all which once took refuge in the moon shade Painting poetry in her gilded pen Love was never meant to be kept Paperless romance of God's creations The only Love we

Even though we've won Work has only just begun Say it with your chest Scream it from mountains Finally our time has come To make real changes Disintegrating The sinews of history Built upon our bones Let them chew their glass facades; faded injustice Lives in stark shadows Illumination Of this ill nation is due Grab your sunglasses Eyes on the pulpit Hands ready the guillotine Ears listen for Truth Become undeafened To crimes against our people Masked as protection We the People are Awake, tired, empowered, and Done with the bullshit

Just stop Stop following my social media Stop tapping thru my story quickly to know what I've got going on, but not enough to invest fully into caring Stop liking the same poetry I like on our IG feeds Stop looking like that Stop archiving Stop disappearing Stop reappearing Stop being in my head Stop making me cry Stop Stop STOP

Some days I find myself barely hanging on by the fingertips With nightly prayers thumbing softly through fleeting thoughts of never waking up Sometimes I beg for a massacre between someone's lips To slit my throat with soggy truths That none of us make it out of here alive anyway And maybe I'd be a little less lonely on the other side Where promises are never broken, Plans are always kept, Where I wouldn't have to worry about another pathetic night left unslept Waking up an unkempt reminder That time knows only how to wither and decay How matters of my heart's affections Know only how to lessen and stray Another one of life's lessons, they say Favored student With straight As Even amidst every L I've caught Cover to cover You could call me self taught Distraught beneath a calm surface You smile when you're happy, While I smile with purpose

Dear emotionally unavailable cis man, Please stop pursuing women just because you think you can Please look the other way when that Queen walks by Head held high Lead by her Highers with every step She needn't any hires to apply to some relationship To make her get distracted and forget The real reason she's been Heaven sent Please do not cast her your devious eyes Nor your white lies about all the things you'd like to share with her in this life Please do not inquire her Instagram handle Via mindless movements of your hyper-masculine mandible That you may instigate Some sullied attempts to relate To the beauty of her life's purpose She is as stunning as she is resilient Survivor of her emotional duress Insecurities transmuted, still exist Beneath the surface to some extent Still, She is a killer in those stiletto pumps She's got no time for you or any chump To come a-knocking anytime they're craving a midnight hump Casual sex is a dime a dozen So go find some p

Part I Fear of sickness in the lungs creates illness of the eyes,  ears, and tongue. Widespread pandemic of lies and exaggerations infiltrates your mind with punchy headlines and propoganda. Take a gander at the real sickness among us. Protests for peace[M+J] still have yet to see justice as the bodies continue piling, now they're hanging from trees [M+J] like it's 1943. Public executions disguised as suicide.[M+J] Suicide disguised as years of depression, discounting expiration due to this global oppression. Mass media control -bell ringers yelling disproportionate[C+D] death tolls.[A] Quasimodo to the people with their twisted facade indebted public servants to their elitest gods, barking loyal lap dogs[C+D] "Only a mask can protect you and others," "don't forget gloves," "sanitize all you see," kill every germ, even the ones that protect us. You see  There's always gonna be some "bad apples" so you might as well be sure. Kill e

Darko wields the blade of her ballpoint with finesse. An innovative mystic wordsmith who cuts into deep emotional truths with raw grit, challenging social norms with spiritual insight through her creative expression. Darko illustrates the unseen beauty and hope discovered in shadow work through various realms of eloquent composition.

This is not a poem, Rather a whisper Of forever. Fire fevered in my bones Caught hidden in a glance As our stars dance in Revolution Time escapes me Escaping reality Reflecting everything Like silver and glass How the spaces pass Through us as one Sacred vessel -Spirit flask Moon shining From Sun, with Light borrowed Though she never asked (Forgiveness given Far more often than permission) Refraction working the same Within the illusion Psychedelic excursion In between blinks It's not what you think, It's how you feel "Real" is in the perception Twisted scripts trip the flip book movie reel End scene Expand the screen Another tight rope stroll Suspended in a daydream

Angelic guidance To twenty two Find ourselves drawn to Tribe and commune The tree of our fruit Path ignited Crown to root Clarity in where we come from Where we're headed too The cards speak truth Four suits Journey to World from Fool Stories told from the ancient forces inside you Storm head's Been feeling heavy With torrential pour Brainstorming lately feels like the mental norm When you're caught up in space Between the ears It can become hard to hear The ship struggles to let you steer Deafening tempest Her chaos Sweeps you away from the pier Twenty two The balance which exists is you One beaming eye Searches from that house of Light Calls you to the shore Calls you home We are never too lost, as we roam Spirit holds us close Reminds us That both sunshine and rain Are needed For anything to grow

Infinite Love becomes us I promise to find you again and again until the end of existence Arthur Reese by any other name my Love my Sun I will hold you as the sky holds the stars for eternity. ~Mama

Let them christen us crazy. Insanity is easily the closest I've ever been to freedom. Let them fear what they cannot control. Let them hear our cries of midnight howl as they cower from the confines of comfort. There is no home for Wild there. I am my Mother's child; dirt beneath my fingernails, flowers in my hair. To the salt of her embrace, I return her prodigal daughter.

Some days I am fluent in slow fade How a candle travels Deeply through the wax Before realizing Her own demise Some nights I am fluent in cries To an empathetic moon Lamenting The part of herself Which is missing

Fingertips graze against me like stray bullets I wish I knew the comforts of Safe love The way I know my scars Like old friends warning me of my patterns They itch sometimes beneath the surface As if they never really healed right Though my body did it's best To align the skin graph Recreate the shell of flesh I was before I let these words cut into me Like a Thanksgiving turkey Carving away my insides Replacing them with delicious surrogates And a cornucopia of well intentions Almost as fake as the sweet glaze smiles we pasted onto our faces For every holiday photo Happiness feels treacherous to me Love feels like a shot in the foot Perhaps that's why every time I step into it I keep one at the doorway Ready for my grand escape As if to say I always knew it wouldn't work out anyway I always had a feeling Because when something seems Too good to be true It usually is And I'm not the kind of person To not take the risk Even if I know it runs a high chance of turning to r

I know more about lessons than I do about love. I could be a professor at Heartbreak University with a double major in Red Flags and Toxic Behaviors minor in Self Care and Healthy Boundaries. No matter the degree of separation between my words and actions still I find myself applying for yet another semester. There is something in the summer air that leaves me feeling ambitious to pick up a new course curriculum in your private study. Give me some credit I know I can be a bit extra, but I've heard I make a great homework buddy even with my history of making homes out of pieces of work. I've graduated top of my class and I'm not looking for another project. You could say I'm in the market for a reliable a lab partner well-versed in chemistry and safety precautions, unafraid to stray from the syllabus for the purpose of Higher learning. Interning with Intuition and Observation has given me the kind of work experience that looks damn good on a resume. So don't play you

Lately You've been putting that Rebel tongue To good use Lighting matchstick bars Sparking bold ideas Onto quiet lips Still, you manage to fill My chalice to brim Every morning Replacing my need For that cup of joe With a need for your Grand rising prose -Soul medicine My daily dose Has grown addicting Coursing electricity To the farthest reaches Of my extremities You set my body on fire The way destruction Can birth new life From fertile soil Hands no strangers To the toil of tending An impossible garden Prone to self sabotage You ancestors have taught How to weather Inclement conditions With resilience and nurture Don't mistake chem trails For my cloudy sighs Forcing summer streams From dry eyes I have never experienced A drought of emotion Rather cracked all my dams I've given up Holding back this ocean And there you are With open sails and compass Navigating freckled starlight To the refuge of my Cave of wonders Words have a tendency Flowing fluently From you In tolling

I have this super power To wipe away my tears With wide ruled paper And every drop That mixes with the ink Stirs clouds into my Already hazy thoughts, I think I need a coffee Caffeine Is the only drug I've been Fiending for I've been trying to wake up For a minute now Just to find myself Conscious in a world of endless Snoozing My head is pounding Pressure blinding I'm going Cyclops The next time I open these things Lazer beam shots Through the next Discus spinning In contradiction to this Already crazy story We're two Freudian slips away From functioning Anarchy Mutant Uprising Disrupting conditioned fear For now we know We are the Revolution we've been waiting for We are the vaccine to our sick society Power to the People Black lives not only matter They are an orchestra of a culture Screaming to be heard Deserving of Love And reparations -Civil Movement's Donations Contributing to "ActBlue" Who?? I don't know who to Give my two cents to Or who t

What a strange time to be alive, To be rising in Love.. There, I said it. Protected By the sanctity of our prose How they carry these words Tenderly tucked away Into the petals of blossoming romance I disclosed My struggle With the tug of war Inside me Where traumas and past conditioning Have told me This is not allowed to happen That someone's pretending About something Everything Settling For the idea of us I don't ever want to punish You for these scars Nor myself for healing still You make settling sound kinda nice Not to insinuate anything less Than everything I've ever wanted But the thought that I could plant roots In you Make a home out of the space Between your heart and your rib cage So the next time someone tries to take a shot at you I could take that bullet Into my soil The same way Cupid shot me down -bang bang And blossom into that empty clip Like flowers bandaging open wounds I used to fear the tether of the term "Relationship" Until I realized tha

Black out Boy Blue Black and blue When they leave you Vessels bruised Broken black skin Melanin stained red Across cracked obsidian Across hot asphalt Face down Sizzle in the street Stand down Pressure high Amidst the summer heat Hands up Don't shoot They aim to squeeze the juice From every berry Pulped and buried At least six feet deep Little Black Kings Granted no luxury Of innocence  Keepsake memories As soon as they hit puberty When suddenly A twelve-year-old Can appear sixteen To any badged Klansmen With their glock nineteens Have these boys wishing on candles For Benjamin Buttons disease Black out Crooked smiles Crawling wide across Porcelain skin Red hats Atop craniums Still pulsing red within Gushing with Privilege, Self righteous knowledge, Lack of compassion, And skewed perception of history "Decades?" I think you mean centuries Slave ships carried Over every ocean and sea Nappy heads without An inkling of their ancestry Still met with audacity White folk speaki

11:11 I wish you were here And you are.. Feeling the warmth of this fire Admiring this moon As soon as they break out the shakers Spirit moves us Following in the sway of my hips We come alive to your heartbeat melodies Body pressed against mine Gazes intertwined As we tantalize the skies With our atmosphere How blessed to be here In this reality with you No distance dare challenge Our samba of stolen moments We are relentless We are Revolution They will hear our shrieks Howling praises to the Night Like an overdue acquisition As we cast fires Wilder than our heart's affections In unison Man and Woman We breathe A sigh of relief into poetry For every black and brown baby Let our art be birthed of Messiah A curse of consonants for any Colonizer Dare he not be the wiser Know better Than to tempt the tongue Of these love letters Turned molasses Seeping into consciousness To awaken the masses If you are the voice of Truth Then let me be your megaphone Amplified proof

Frustrations swell behind my smile I don't feel like myself today.. No, I'm not Black, But I am at war Within my own body I cannot hide the hurt in my face The twist in my gut Every time someone tries to say Anything to defend these fucking pigs Fuck I really can't even hide it I've tried to stay positive But truthfully, I'm fucking pissed And right now I don't even give a fuck about a rhyme scheme Or the fact that every other line screams obscenity Because these are the days of riots And people being murdered in the streets At the hands of racistass police STILL! You think we are gonna go quietly!? Back to back in two fucking weeks You don't even give us a chance to breathe In between these Goddamn tragedies Black people have been dying like this for ages Only now we all got cell phones And the cops got cameras that don't do shit But make us watch our brothers and sisters Being killed more closely Listening to the curdle of their screams From a place wh

Last night I caught myself spelling out your name in the stars Like I could connect the dots To your beauty marks -find our history in these constellations I can hear the stillness of Earth Reverently laced into your love languages As if your heartbeat were the drum beneath her crust Thrust deep into the mantle Of what could make her tremble and spin How you leave me feeling dizzy, Call it a daze But there's no confusion The communion which is taking place How songs we've never heard together Remind me of nights I'd spent learning The curve of your face The softness of your lips against mine Like a glow of light Or the soothing buzz of neon I feel your warmth by my side As if we've done this over a hundred times You called our alignment Divine And I'm inclined to agree You see, I spent so much of this life feeling unworthy Creating fear Out of mystery And the daunting pursuit of freedom It was neve

Damn, I can't believe this I'm not one to often get caught up speechless but damn.. You've been acquainting me with all kinds of sensations through these fleeting conversations giving me daydreams of stolen in-betweens not just food for fantasy truthfully, I've been manifesting this kind of Divine Masculinity in a world cluttered with fakes and fuckboys, this energy is quite new to me Intoxicatingly electric awakening my nerves with questions if we might be anciently connected -the way you dissect me with one fell swoop of your simile like a guillotine 'til I'm wanting to stretch out these stanzas beyond infinity I see you, King encaptured by a vernacular so refreshing I find myself wishing I could comprehend the feeling of your pen across my skin tracing me line by line like a masterpiece of your poetry until I'm gushing to you like a schoolgirl with an untold secret Limericks which transcend the confines of context- writers anxious to get the sheets wet wi

Do you ever just look at your child and think, "What if I had swallowed you?” You can't say the idea hasn't crossed your brain at least once Not that motherhood is not a joy, and a blessing, one of the greatest of life's lessons Just every now and again when your patience is running thin, and your kid is being a teeny bit of a little shit The tiny filaments of that lightbulb in your attic spark alight with memories and reveries of the possibility of that other life You know fifteen years of twerking don't just disappear over night no matter how you try to hide behind your post-preggo fitness photos and #momlife You know there's still that part of you inside who knows exactly what to do with that extra jiggle in your thighs Oh yeah, you know I'd been waiting to grow into these hips, wideset as if to imitate the vastness of my mindset Every lover lost to endless sunsets caught up in thoughts of me, Pondering the ways they wanna lay me out like a Sunday picnic

She is a handful of scribbled pages in the back of a borrowed book Ruffled and frayed the places she tore herself away Dramas of her haunting narrative nothing more than sepia-stained memoirs, crumbled petals her mother's flora, old photographs of smiles long forgotten She is no stranger to the stale smell of yesterday, nor the dimples of fresh parchment underneath parched fingertips

It's the kind of night that makes you wanna run away with the Moon.. let her fill your ears with her secrets, as you're coming up D.I. and you find yourself chasing after just a glimpse of her smile. A park to share between the two of you and you can woo her with your middle-of-the-night meanderings. She giggles at your prose and beckons for your musings 'til morning. Like you could simply reach up and run the backs of your fingers across her cheek, tuck a tuft of clouds behind her ear, just to gently pull her gaze up to yours by her chin and tell her, "you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Flower Moon

You say dirt will make me unclean Infect my lungs until they harden my last inhale You tell me to scrub, disinfect, and bleach Kill everything on the surface of my cold and vulnerable dermis Kill everything! Just to resolve the infestation of thought The paranoia of this quarantine Because we are such pitifully fragile beings, right? One wrong move, one wrong breeze You'll be acquainted with the plight of your own mortality I just can't seem to keep myself clean I cleanse away germs and bacteria and virus and all those evil little things that I cannot see Still I cannot clean up the gutter of my consciousness The manhole of my mind The sewage of my stirring thoughts You tell me I'm dirty Still I dig my toes into unearthen soil Just to feel one with the worms again Returning me whence I came Apparently To the bowels of the bacteria filled hell which created me From dust to dust My unclean self must Trust in the process Of this chaos.

I just wanna make potions and fuck. - JAM

I feel like we should still talk about people in present tense when they die.

I hate you the most when I really need you And you're there like you've always been Like you're still my best friend and we can face anything together Like I never left, Like you never let me.. Like we didn't have to let the story end And maybe there was still a chance for happily ever after Something about the softness in your eyes Or the secret in your smile Suddenly you didn't seem so evil I wept, and you held me closely Lips whispering in my ear, "You'll always be family" Heart screaming, "I'll always love you" Some things really don't ever change Because you've always loved me most when I needed to be saved I only crave you like my last cigarette When I see you making someone else happy Giving them that fix you used to give me, Or when I smell you and momentarily I am tempted by the familiarity My fingerstips itching to paint you in my past regrets I hate you most when I see you growing into the man I always wished you had be

Four walls and a ceiling Start feeling more like home now In this skin which has felt foreign to me for months I tried to hide behind an upturned chin, faded eyes, and a smiling mouth Truthfully 2020 has not been how I envisioned Stagnation across the nation Started locally imprisoned Right here, between these two ears Open only to excuses, and projections Disguised as manifestations I've learned it's easy To run away from accountability When everything you do seems to yield the smallest bit of productivity Because we stay chasing after checks, The most exhausting minimum Too tired to fully invest into our own vision, Or too scared To put forth our best effort just to still end up nowhere Some say success is determined by perspective It's hard to deny when your Spotify gets less than a thousand listens Then what was it all for? Bragging rights, clout? Like a little league trophy you only pull out When there's company over and you're feeling nostalgic Remember when w

You touch me in colors unseen by the naked eye As I lay naked upon your thighs Goosebumps trailed across me like the northern lights You allow each fingertip to trace me Delicately Poetry in Braille The way you read me intimately Memorizing every curve and corner Unlocking every hidden door In puzzles and labyrinths I've let no one else explore Trails of your kisses tiptoe down my neck Where our sweat collects From every ripple which connects Between us in stars and flecks Lucid constellations Rapid inhalations Our bodies expand and contract Upon every subtle contact of flesh I gasp for this crescendo to climax Tasted only between panting breaths Between two folded legs Wrapped around you in prayer Fingers laced into my thighs I inhale and sigh Don't stop, right there I grab tightly to tufts of hair Steering you to where I know you're gonna get that shit Half your face is drenched wet As you lick up every drop like the last supper So stubborn You don't stop til I jump b

* Discovering Darko * 01 Moonlight Fae✅ 02 Honeysuckle✅ 03 20-Something Still✅ 04 Shrinking✅ 05 Song for the Ages✅ * Lessons in Love * 06 Perennial✅ 07 What I Really Really Want✅ 08 Red Flags✅ 09 Fuck You✅ 10 Reflected✅ 11 Diamond Cut✅ * Grown & Grounded * 12 Daddy Issues✅ 13 Arthur Reese✅ * Bonus Triptych: To the Scene * 14 Restin' Piece 15 Used 16 React

Tell me what's your worth Is it weighed out in the contents of your purse Every magnetized strip Or computer chip Wave pay Cash tips Linked to this intricate Web of consciousness Keeping tabs on us Through bank statements And the payroll we collect Measured down to the nanosec Of hours spent Dedicated to the man who signs your check Just to see that number next To your name climb the slightest bit

Now I find myself quarantined, confined Truth is, I've been a prisoner in my mind for years In the corners of my consciousness are small padded rooms Where I allow myself to be consumed by my fears In the voices of others I claim to be my own Thirty years I've aged, but so few of them I've grown Feeding into fears of disapproval and failure Entertaining distractions and delusions of grandeur Still I've continued to punish myself For these lowercase l's Instead of addressing my creation of this hell In the form of denied truth Fear Fear Fear Stop. Do not let this fear become you Paralytic: Do not halt your feet from forward-moving progress Parasitic: Self-invest your precious energy before it can be drained by someone else Copacetic: Accept the grand design, relinquish your need for control Poetic: See thru the scope that allows the beauty of life to unfold I'm not accustomed to the quiet Her silence whispers secrets in the night Pull the covers from me slowly Ex

I could sit alone with that one in an empty room filled with nothing but our moonlight covered conversations.

Love teaches how to kiss with patience How to speak in silence How to see through walls And how to burn them down too

Thank you for your honesty Honestly, I'm sorry That you think so little of the survival rate of our potential I'm not trying to project your mental I'm simply caught up in the sentimental When it seems you're more haunted by the sentiment of the possible coming regret The strongest weapon in your arsenal Fear of falling You'd rather trip us before the foghorn blows Who knows what this is or even what it could be But I'd let myself melt like puddy In your hand Time and time again If I thought it would make you understand That I am more than just your favorite in-betweens Who knows we could be the best fit all around You'd rather linger on your doubts so you won't even allow Those thoughts to become a wrinkled furrow in your brow Scared of the sound When we tend to disagree You keep me on the ground, and I just want to sweep you off your feet As fleeting as the love may seem Perhaps it's what has allowed us to not lose steam Or lose the integrity Of ou

I was a message in a bottle floating off to sea Crying "Help, I'm drowning in my sorrows and I can barely breathe" You were a shipwreck across the shore Trying to put your pieces back together With a habit of finding storms Amidst clear skies and sunny weather The ocean reminded you of a time that was better So you feared to leave her side In hopes one day you could still be with her Kick off from her harbors again once the storm within you died And you could fill your sails with the memories of her salty sea air Tumble back into her currents like waves of soft brown hair Tucked coyly behind a young maiden's ear I found your splintered planks and torn sails With a storm turned simply to gray skies Melancholy tales Written to tunes sung from sad eyes My bottle had been emptied That message now ravaged by salty tides Carrying nothing but a whisper of liquor To burn away the pain inside Still, I recognized your beauty from a distance A glimmer of that storm and a taste f

He keeps a knife in his voicebox and razors at his fingertips Emblazoned navigation through mental crevices Leaving your brain dripping wet And insatiable He doesn't mind ripping through rhetoric Of the mundanely pathetic An unforgiving orator of sorts Off rhyme and flows intricate The kind of ex you don't forget No matter how many upturned glasses you leave strewn across the table He's a sinner who could even make Satan blush Revealer of those truths others often fear to touch Sometimes it can be rough Gotta pull your hair back just to let him fuck your mind up 'Til you admit it... You just can't get enough Because his kind of diction is addictive Makes you feel dirty for wanting more It's true, filthy minds love alike.. Find us pining for our vices in the bookstore Jonesing between the pages Searching for another murder at the hands of Blad3s

She holds the moon to her crown With a tongue fluent in sunshine A woman of God with nurture in her every step Her hands are soft, but weathered From the work she so tirelessly gives No asking for help or praise She is a mother to all who needs her The first to break the mould of a world not yet ready for this kind of kindness Still she poured love into their unworthy hearts Her scars run deep, though, she kisses their knives with forgiveness No, she isn't perfect But she has moved with grace in a direction those before her had never dreamed to travel No map, no signs Just the dirt under her feet, and the stardust in her eyes The warmth of her Father's love in her heart Trading a life of comfort for a life of truth, passion, And understanding Even if it meant standing underneath her children to help them reach more closely to God Her shoulders are heavy with burdens which remain unseen But her Father is there beside her Telling her "You know the way home."

Sometimes I listen to your favorite sad songs and pretend it's heartbreak. Sometimes I look at old pictures of us and pretend it was love.

My spirit will linger A few days, I'm sure Late as usual.. Even for Jesus Christ himself Just so I know they lay me to rest Upon the laurels of my legacy, And not upon the crest of my potential A room full of people, Half of whom I either fucked or let fuck me over The other half only wish they did Crying about how they wish we'd been closer Preaching about how much I'll be missed Though they always seemed to just miss me when we actually had the time To kick it when I was alive Share these open casket conversations Just to find me already dead inside One step closer to becoming a famous writer, I suppose Give them something to go home about To lose themselves in their teenage prose Aftertaste of my metaphors still lingering in their mouths I couldn't say the end was either fire nor ice Death just sorta strolled into my house Put on my clothes Wore my favorite fragrance Death had me looking nice Lips sewn shut at the gums Still they'll hear my sonnets hummed Like ch

I'm learning to be more myself And less of what has happened to me Been trying for a while Truthfully It's mostly been denial Overcompensation for pain I still can hardly understand Because when I made them smile, It made me smile And it felt good.. Never noticing I had now put my happiness into their hands instead, Anyone's hands but my own Looking down at my foreign fingers I saw clumsy and careless Instead of home I wanted to make a home out of someone else's hands.. Just as clumsy and careless as mine, I'm sure, but with bigger plans To be the uplifting hero I always needed in times I couldn't stand Myself That self I never gave a chance to truly learn.. Victim of these burns I turned away from her Unable to face the horrors of what was left behind But these scars are mine And though I will not let them define me I will take the time to finally open up my eyes and see Me. I cannot love myself if I haven't taken the time to learn myself first Lemme say th

She carries a heart as heavy as her hands Too passionately powerful to not destroy anything she tries to hold onto for too long

The ground trembles with the ancient fury of my ancestors All fire and magma Scorched earth sepulchre Cleansing these fragmented soils with a reason for us to unify for once How we have forgotten the taste of salty channels and canals coursing through our native blood We have forgotten how our Lolo's Lolos fought with blades and yo-yos for a time that we could consider ourselves free Able to enjoy the fish and fruits of our paradise in peace Raped and ravaged by our first Christian king Cleansing the "savage" from our culture Disregarding the scholars who surrendered with raised hands Weapons which spout fire across our lands Open rice paddy fields where no trench is deep enough to hide, But deep enough to be buried Christened by a man of greed with a name our people can hardly even say Well, they can mask a conquest under the Word of God Spoken by a man proclaiming that we need to be saved We knew only of chains before they even gave us a name Still we smile, proudly Pin

Teach me how to care less Fearlessly feel less Without the worry of my interest losing interest I touch myself to make sure I'm still here Because sometimes I worry about disappearing And whether I bleed or cum I am grateful for the feeling They say to pinch yourself if you think you're dreaming.. What is pain but the brain's sensory processing The Matrix still hurts, Pretty sure it could still kill you too Whether it's real or not doesn't make the damage less true If you believe in that sort of thing, Feed into those meanderings.. Even though it's not what we avid thinkers have been taught The mind can kill itself just by never letting the thinking stop If thats the case, I might be short a couple shakes From blowing off my own top Summer's around the corner And it might feel better lost Let the brain breathe Inhaled intelligence Cleansed conscience Consciousness compromised by that which makes us cautious

Honestly, this doesn't feel very situated Fixated maybe on the hope of feelings being reciprocated I'm up at 6am contemplating If this is more friendship than dating Or if I'm simply satiating That itch for codependency Hopefully waiting For these emotions to grow into something less complicating Both of us showing interest Neither one ready to attempt to invest I try not to think of what may come next Fully enjoy your presence in each of our moments I say I'm married to the grind Really I'm committed to my time And this is quite unlike me To not want to make you mine Because you occupy my mind More often than I'd like to admit I'm taking things slow to know this won't be something I'll regret If resentment is our inevitable descent I'd rather keep you as a friend instead Because this love I feel doesn't outweigh my respect In my opinion, that's a harder thing to get The grammar of our body language may get my lips wet But a tongue well-v

I am tired of being the bigger person When all I want is to shrink myself down So I can begin to grasp things from your disturbed and small perception Clamorous talk of the town How you try to make an enemy of me to anyone who will listen Repetitive noise has a way of drawing people in regardless Heartless how you contort words and situations Yet accuse others of these same manipulations Gaping hole in your chest which cannot be filled with anything but hypocrisy and your own need for validation In the dirt of your denial, Burying yourself alive Burying yourself in lies And projections of your own reflection in mine Inflated ego is an epidemic Which so many find righteous reasons to follow It's true, trust me A pill I myself have also had to swallow Honestly, I feel sorry for you That you feel so threatened by my living my truth Moving with the shifts and tilts in this tumultuous time I've grown accustomed to I know myself, through all my changes and imperfections Never denied

So what if they don't love you, they're only seeking love of self.. But if eye am I and eye am you, then love is just love if for no one else. Sweet reminded reflection, dual introspection... Putting romantic diction to use. Eyes open see truth supposedly, but what happens when the truth is we all lie awake in bed wondering where these thoughts come from and where they go when we're dead. I forget about things I've said, suddenly all I remember is the feeling... And even if the thought of love is fleeting, I remember that the importance wasn't the love itself, but being.

1. Moonlight Fae (w/ guitar) 2. Honeysuckle✔ 3. Song for the Ages✔ 4. Shrinking✔ 5. What I Really Really Want 6. Near Me (song) 7. Red Flags✔ 8. Diamond Cut 9. Fuck You✔ 10. Queen Flow (song) 11. Daddy Issues✔ 12. Arthur Reese (w/ guitar) 13. 20-Something Still✔ 14. Enter the Darko (song) 15. Spilled Ink✔ 16. Reflected✔ 17. Perennial (w/ guitar) ~~~~~ **Cut from project** Untitled (Clay Poem) Used Restin' Piece Poet

Rarely have artists been built upon stability. It is the imperfect, tumultuous nature of life which forges the best artistry. At least thats what I have learned/experienced. Art should be the solution to ease your problems or at least give you some insight as to how to grow through whatever shift you're experiencing. I really feel that to continue to try to keep your "worlds" separated is a true disservice to your growth as an artist. If you want to be serious about being the artist you know you have the potential to be, you need to let go of these rifts within yourself and fully allow your art to be reflected in every facet of your being...

Please excuse me For confusing Everything Which sounds like love For something my heart could dance to Her wounds are still barely stitched Though she hungers for love in every corner Blood pumping thick and sticky through busted seams Candy apple dreams She recovers from every bite with yet another sweet tooth