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I want to dance with you/ not in the way these youths do/ with the

impeccable curve of your backside pressed against my crouch.

No/ but the way a man and woman is supposed to. To engage

in the unfamiliar greeting of palms – experience the wonder

and awestruck you feel, when two worlds collide. To know

adventure when my fingers travel above your waistline.

Yes, just above your waistline – the valley of  two extremes

– ‘friends’ or ‘more than friends’, to hang in that balance and

learn what it means to be humble. I want to dance with you.

To know metamorphosis if only for no more than 5 minutes.

To stare deep into your pupils and be student enough to learn

from them/ To change from boy to man/ To be brave enough

to not steal but earn your glances, find comfort and awkwardly

laugh, I want to dance with you. To move in a motion that

makes words obsolete and speak only with my heart beat.

To let your smile destroy everything I thought I knew about

beauty, and magic, and romance, and love. I want to dance with you.

To be God for 5 minutes, and know what it means to hold the world in

my hands. Yes, this is what I want,  I want to dance with you.

“Only the strong survive”.

This adage coined way before my time.

Passed down from father to son,

From mother to daughter,

From the last generation to the present.

But what is strength? And who is worthy

Of this title? I used to think it something manly,

Broad shoulders; biceps that could pass for thighs,

And a back big enough to carry any load.

This was strong for me. But, when the young die,

When a lion heart is called before his prime,

And breath is taken back, where does strength go?

When strong tower is forgotten and those around

Him break down into everything human and

Remember, that they too are flesh strength

Seems to have vanished. I’ve learned that strength

is woman; strength is broken heart healing by

trying again. Strength is my mother, it

is learning to live after my grandmother died,

strength is moving on. It doesn’t always look

like broad shoulders, sometimes it’s tears,

it’s smiling after the storm. Strength is standing,

when all you want to do is fall. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones,

And my words will hold me captive.

Syllable forged bars jail the careless in me.

I’ve always heard there is power in words and

Human ears are fragile enough to be rattled by them,

I pray my frequent earthquakes don’t do much

Damage and my tongue gives life rather than take it.

  Bandage and bondage are two cousins

living in the same house, blood ties;

they both live to keep things under wraps.

Marrying within the same household is an abomination,

And the wrong words are sin that will keep you under wraps,

I pray today that I will be savior enough so no blood is spilled.

  So I’ll do my best to remember,

that harsh words stir up wrath,

And, an erupted volcano destroys everything in its path;

 Its soot stifles everything that lives.

This is how you lose your peace,

And all that remains is the flame to feed it.

The wise man’s counsel is to be slow to speak.

Wisdom can be found in patience.  

I pray that I will be strong enough to deny myself.

  Love is an attribute of the strong. I pray that I will be

Strong enough to speak it, that this fragile vessel

I call my body will be able to bear its weight.

Love destroys, and it also builds; my body is under

Construction and my tongue will prove its existence.

The man with no words

Is trying to find refuge in words.

Irony is the house I’ve built. My

Life and body are trying to figure out

How to live in it. I once said I love you to a girl

who didn’t say it back. She apologized.

I told her it’s ok. I’ve welcomed love at my

Door but it didn’t stay long enough to make itself at home.

Life, was never one who knew how to handle with care.

And I was born fragile. See the problem here?

See how my destruction was imminent?

  *

I’ve seen what it looks like though.

My grandparents had it/ it starts as

An innocent glance/ then the glances

Become deliberate/ Then a war starts

Between what you know and what you feel.

But in all this you find peace. And that peace

is sometimes a volcano that erupts into

the most epic of loves. And that love manifests

itself into home. A home that lasts even after

you’ve moved on. A home that could never

be destroyed by flames because it was birthed

from a flame. And it’s the nature of a flame to

consume everything in its path. and I am charcoal

I am burning but I do not die. Because a flame

Cannot destroy itself. And I’m just looking

For someone I can share this flame with.

When you were little; your grandfather picked you up after school.

You remember his snapback/ shoes with no laces/

Pants that seem to run away from his knees/ the school bell/

children parading the courtyard./ A market bag secured

on his right shoulder/ he was a treasure hunter, your grandfather.

Taught you how to recycle and reuse. To find the value in what’s

Thrown away;/ like empty beer bottles and people.

How to look past the dirt/the grime/the unpleasant.

This is why the past is never behind you. You’re a treasure hunter/

his legacy. You see light passing through broken glass/

you see light passing through broken people. You think to yourself,