Delightfully Chaotic

saw them then. Those fruit still swing

There are so many wonders built in life that simply take the breath away.

How could mere man have forged such landmarks that last for lifetimes, stand through empires, maintain lost civilizations, and pay homage to lost practices of patience.

The pyramids, the sphinx, the temples and statues and towers…the bridges…

all began as nothing more than an empty space on the ground, a spot of dust that some architect of the masterful found

and decided was potential enough for greatness.

Bridges, tombs, cave drawings…

such revelations of creativity, innovative superiority and strength…

last for centuries standing.

But even these odes to dead and forgotten patrons and footfalls require the maintenance of delicate attention

many of these masterpieces would not last without constant re-fortification, constant love and care from the patient

the strongest walls are not held up by mortar but by resilience.

Now it may not seem like much more than a series of lucky survivings of a dying history, but to me

that is love.

Love is the constant care of a temple so beautiful that even if you don’t understand the origins of it, the conception that led to every curve and crevice and crack on her smooth aging skin you would do all that you could to keep its beauty whole and spread the awe of her wonder to those around you

Love is the reinforcement of that towering man who stands tall as a sure sign to passerby that there is a right path, a sure lead, evidence of magnificence in its purest built form that men for generations can look up to

Love is…building bridges that don’t resist and crumble at the slightest wind but bend and sway and adapt to the challenges of the world around it so that the nature of either side never loses that beautiful connection spreading those feelings between two unlikely points in two otherwise unconnected lives

Love is not strength but fortification. Know that I am only as strong as the hands that keep me up when everything around me is left crumbling and calling to me to fall to pieces with it.

Know that I am only strong because there is someone out there who will pass me by and see all the scars in my frame and see not the decay of life but the beauty that deserves both admiration and preservation

I pray every day to be someone’s sanctuary…

a sign that ties them to lessons passed and experiences new where they can build a family within a community that is my heart and love all there is to my strength.

You see me and see strength and independence

but a building only stands this tall when someone sees the need for care in keeping it up…

He feels like the weekend,

a reprieve as fleeting as it is soothing,

one that we yearn for each time it ends,

but never grow brave enough to outgrow.

This is not a love between

soul mates but still somehow I trust

him with the depth of something as unyielding 

as fate…he is everything I hate.

I hate opening up to someone and having

to pray from every moment forth 

that they will not walk away and 

stretch that shared burden across

miles that my soul does not know how to balance.

Never to return, it would be a constant trickle

of life from a wound to the soul

with no way to bandage the source of the flow

I know  that I am making an ocean out of tap water, a tornado from a whistle

But this is all I know how to do

Write stanza after stanza about you, me and you…

Spoon fed love, as if those involved have become too sick with distrust to hunt for their own sustenance. Romantically starved loneliness unquenched… Resentment belched from her depths leaves behind a pitiful stench. Cravings like high metabolism in her second trimester, She yearns not for pickles and soy sauce but the hum of a strong voice in her ear as it’s owner caresses away the crankiness Of her emotional hungers, Starving like this her days are numbered.

No nutrition nearby just naked cannibals helping him into this pot of boiling insecurities, Misogynistic impurities sprinkled on cholesterol building fury… This poor young man is too young for the heart attacks Caused by these starved predators hunting for a husband, a lover, a guide, that’ll survive their cookie cutters shaped like a faithful, providing, fatherly, unrealistic CEO of God knows what. This man would rather burn in…an oven than let some cannibal (with no taste for the organic uncompromised sustenance he will one day age into like a fine aged wine) cut away all the fat that defines his spectrum of potential tastes. He merely gives endless taste tests to those starving to the point of unrest, No sympathy to the young woman eyeing him like a non risen pastry Starving like this his days are numbered… Unless they wander into a market of compatibility

scent luring like brewing coffee beans promising a heart pounding, bittersweet encounter

With a carefully crafted, still fresh off the heat but not too burned, taste so good he or she has to close his or her eyes and groan,

Paintings from the series Power by Nigerian-American artist Dawn Okoro.

On Dawn Okoro’s “Breathe Easy”

  Her head tilts back

pulling your attention

not quite

to the center

still

it seems as if

serene purple

spills from her

like an extension

becomes a focal for attention.

  And dark mocha-skinned Serenity

must feel the power she exudes

like hot water

from a faucet.

Her many facets of color

exemplify her namesake,

Serenity,

fully dressed in yellows

runs her hands over her own

relaxation.

  And you glimpse total relief,

you want to shower in the same

liquid restoration

of purples and yellows and

beautiful brown,

soothing libations.

You do not know

what emotion

brought Serenity

to culmination.

  And you do not know the feeling

of pure relief expressed in Serenity’s

pose. Yet you watch her

you begin to feel as though the air

in her world is what you’ve been missing

You can almost see

the first moment

when a butterfly opens its wings to the air

and finally realizes what it feels like

Photography: Pedro Bucher

Make-up: Fox Goulart