Sometimes,

it is not enough

to save the world.

Sometimes, it is necessary to be completely selfish

To shout epiphanies into vacuums &

walk on water just to prove that we can

Sometimes we need to fuck the world

In all its glory

Until it screams our name

Because it sounds so much more alluring

in the dark

it’s hard to tell the difference between

A poem and a crime scene

Between a scribe

And a woman flirting with the ledges of skyscrapers

Just to seduce gravity

Sometimes we need to save ourselves first

Doppelgang our hearts into talking heads

Whose words can convince us that there’s more to living

Than not being dead

Reverse the curse of our bodies

And return to the Earth in spirit

Chant to skies with no name

just to reclaim our faith in

something bigger than these boxes

We call home

When we need to fall back in love with the sound of our pulse.

This is a love poem to the suicidal tendencies

We’ve been conditioned to call sensibilities

A love letter to myself when my aura’s slit wrists

Stop being content with invisibility

And my inner artist wants a go at carving sculptures of skin and bone

 Because sometimes we need to save ourselves

Prevent our pens from rewriting the fall of man

Into the dialogue of brownstones and broken hearts

City streets and christenings in the water of individuality

We need to forget what it feels like to be an afterthought

Caught somewhere between cerebrums and spines

Stop folding ourselves flat into doormats

For slick shoes to walk in on

We need to stop asking for the things we blame God for

Thirsting in preparation for hell and high water

We need to stop throwing ourselves 

Onto train tracks

Just To test the speed of call and response

I need you to need me

But I need to need my self love

More than your approval

So this is a love letter to the girl you knew before,

The song I’ve been trying to write you ever since the night before you lied

I am not giving up on me

Not choosing between a lackluster reality and the space between dreams

This is just a letter from my heartstrings

To the first fingers who learned how to play them

Thanking you for bringing me back to life and reminding me

That I am music

again

I will sing until I break

Will not pick up the pieces

Tye dye your perspective in the red of my honesty

I will warn you not to wear white around me.

will tell you not to shut the door

Will not look both ways before I cross my own borders

Will let you in white flags and all.

I String hope from my vocal cords until it withers

Into a jet-stream sign language of smoke and desert roses

That helps you face your fear of sound

I will be best friend you ever had in every language where agape is written

If you promise that the road less taken

Will always end

In this spot

In this room

Where a compass rose sits in the palm of a map lacking direction

To anywhere

But the home

I find

In you.