Verbatim

Familiar sensations stem from familiar temptations Love making disguised as meaningless relations My biggest secret is I don’t know how to touch without touching souls  Transferring so much more than saliva Spiritual entwined with cerebral Tongues talking like old friends from past lives through cups on cosmic strings whispering silent I love yous between the lines of your lips

You can’t contain a flame without causing wildfire Or snuffing out her wild  Suffocating the oxygen from her dance of airs Flowing through red orange auras of the untamed Her mane aglow  Spires spreading outstretched Searching for something she could touch without destroying

In some ways My stubbornness has kept me alive Helped me survive with Foggy sighs subtly dimming a daft shine of blinding light  Positivity playing as my most favored shield My heart, a sword Cutting into this world relentlessly Irreverently seeking healing through the wounds of others My sadness, a sheath to such self-inflicted cuts For people like me, it’s easy to love To see so much in others I cannot easily see in myself  Depression digs deeply at my roots Reminding me to be unapologetically selfish Withdraw my sword and remind myself that it’s okay to rest This spirit needs nourishment This mind needs respite  This heart needs comfort  This body needs 8 hours of sleep tonight

I’m not crazy, weathered at worst Like early days of earth Rubble rock birthing life from  violent destruction Fires burning molten in the underbelly of my origins Bubbling beneath cracked surfaces Where I oftentimes appear stable My heart is a volcano Bursting at the seams where new ground must form Former foundations crumbling, splitting like Pangaea  Where connections we once had feel like nothing more than distant history Evolution of man How he crawled out of water to feel sun upon his face How I would wait hundreds of thousands of years  In hopes he’d emerge from darkness to find me Staring out into space The nostalgia of quiet combustion Peering into past lives in the distance Knowing most of what I know to be beautiful is dead I am a supernova  Bursting at the seams where new life may form  Gathering masses from stray debris Gasses and gravity Nebulous love Pulling together new solar systems  in ancient designs and unwritten formulas Life is messy S...

Lemme kiss you in all the places, all the ways you never knew you could feel love   Where we can touch with just our eyes and realize We are wild creatures Begging for a howl under moons yet to understand our fullness  Let the warmth of my lips be your home Where you can let yourself unfold Risking nothing but soiled sheets and explored desires My tongue massaging aches you carry like thorns in your stem  Attempting acrobatics fluently as you surrender to my blossoming of petals Tell me how you daydream of throbbing upon sweaty palms on a Sunday morning Moaning for “God” praying for “fuck” Sucking the souls from our bodies dripping from our mouth in scandalous whispers Tracing cursive scripture into skin The sweetest poetry I’ve ever written With nothing but cliffhanger stanzas to remind you that I am far from finished

Where do I begin When the whole world has been crumbling for a minute All of us fighting for this pot to piss in like it’s the only place to sit Game of porcelain thrones Everyone bleeding over one-ply papers Worth international deficit Shout out to my American privilege Where ignorance is protected And propaganda is the primary news outlet No scorn over countries war torn, just know both sides are US funded Terror isn’t as terrifying til you and yours become the target When it comes knocking at your door Economic decline existing solely in the working class and poor Gas is $4.20 in Vegas on a good day I’m just trying to make it to work Make it work Knowing someone else is benefiting from this sweat Thirty percent of this check Already guaranteed to the government Navigating tourist traffic They have a habit of making us their escape Make us wait as they wade through ensembles of tax dollars on display While teachers take yet another strike day Begging for a fraction of what is deserve...

Mom, Dad, teacher, friend, Life coach, therapist, love guru, Seriously, the list does not end… My Mom always was, is, and will be, EVERYTHING Equal parts enamoring and terrifying I remember as a child  Forever pining for her tickles before bed However panicked every evening Hearing her heavy steps Clamoring as she climbed our iron staircase after a ten-hour shift Little hands desperately fanning the tv to remove traces of our lazy mischief Spoiler alert, she always found out anyway Apparently in addition to being everything, she really knew everything too Momma Dukes is one of the sweetest, most compassionate, and deepest people Kind, articulate, and true She has also been known to be a little bit of a scrappy chick with an incredibly short fuse Oh, how the feet never stray too far from the shoes Such big ones to fill… My mom did her best to raise me in a way I could learn self-respect, love and faith I can honestly say, to this day, she raises me still Raises my spirits, hopes Rai...