Decorated in velvet with heels too tight, I crouch over a curb maintaining my balance as the rotting garbage provokes me to vomit. My stomach is in bundles, and my eyes begin to water. Not daring to ruin the hours it took to paint my face I raise my nose to the stars, hoping the wind will ease the nerves. Minutes away from my current phobia, my body begins to hum in terror. Unwinding my back I stand to face the bar lights and the patrons milling around lingering in its hue. Who said this was truly impossible?

Before my brain can process the dumpsters are long gone, the music hits and my hands move on their own. Throwing open the curtain to a roar of cheers, the creature who lives inside runs to the light. How did her and I become one?

Growing up shy, I was usually acquainted with the silence. I often chose it, demanding to only be still, refusing to speak. I never truly understood the power of voice, and decided that I deserved to hangout with the shadows. My family often would tell me I did not belong with them. Not from a malicious intent but truly from genuine laughter and observation. The fed-ex baby they'd howl at me during long nights of family mischief and home cooked meals.

It soon became my mission to understand why I felt so far away from my family. Physically we were always close. My siblings and I lingering in the hallways and teasing each other about our newest clothes, we always knew how to share the room.

We never knew how to fill it though. Long pauses and extended breaths, the truth was not revealed often, if ever at all. I could feel the hesitation when each moment came, but all we knew was strength and anger. The shadows held my secrets for me, but I didn't realize at the time they can't always be there. As time continued to pass and I grew older, the shadows nuzzled into my mind, allowing me to find comfort with them there. They pushed me to speak, allowing me to be heard. It was a long journey before they realized how to roar.

A trickle of coke still lingers within my throat,

Tequila rests on my tongue,

“Shall you vote” is offered on the table,

As an exotic dish glimmering in between sniffles.

Dancing around the answer sitting centerfold I feel the weight of their pause deep within my joints

my teeth begin to clench.

“Will you vote?”

Echoed again

riveting between my skull

“Will you vote?”

Listening to the charade of false promises and pessimistic unfolding I begin to interject,

“How-“

Cut off with whipped tongues and more false truths I sit,

And I sit,

And I sit.

I wait for a lull in the conversation before I begin again

“You need to vote”

Crashing waves and imperfect truths spill over the platter face-fold for us to devour

A man speaks,

Again and again,

A man speaks.

Frozen in my seat I realize how its happening,

Mouths wired shut, eyes dreary.

The reality etched within me.

I’m back to my human necessities,

Fear,

Primal fear.

“What a privilege to say you’re not sure”

Will you vote,

Shall you vote,

You need to vote,

Please dear god, vote.

Doom rattled my skull as I dragged my bicycle across the cement.

Shoulders hunched in defeat I realized,

The world plays fair for the ones born into it correctly

Ivory skin and heavy penis,

Chipped shoulders and entitlement wired through.

Prerequisite to decide.

Do I need to vote?

Declaration of kindness is painted on the door

Heavy oak soaked in rain

Wood etched by howling winds

Slow to open

Will you dare to go in?

A chapel dedicated to the patrons of the masses

Each face holds home to a moment of love

How do you explain

Your bones the beams

Your skin the seat

Each pew a rib

They cross your heart

It's so hard to be an unwavering saint.

Monstrosity of indulgence,

King of greed,

Performing what you know,

Replication of dozens before you.

How can one expect better,

From a being disconnected?

There's only room for one.

Pandemonium in the rhythm you delicately assemble,

Creator of melody,

Repetition done grotesquely.

Moments of admiration,

For the dedication to what's been done,

Slave to structure,

Seeker of all.

Temptation of flesh,

How can anyone expect you to walk away?

Isolation of the oasis of compassion,

We watch as you seek to cut the throats that chamber the truth.

Carving out flesh that best fits you,

Discard the corpse that's left.

Master of indulgence,

King of greed,

How can you not see all that's left to be.

Heart seeking compassion,

Tumbles to pity.

Rhythm squire,

You were just doing all that you know.

So sure of yourself.

Have you ever considered learning something new?

Sweat with tattered sheets,

Musk emitting from where we once laid,

In between my thighs you stay,

Pressed for flesh.

Do you remember how I taste?

Caviar kisses and honey alamode

Sweetness haunted with decomposition,

What have I become?

Woman of simplistic measures,

Never seeking luxury,

Looming over sale prices and broken teeth,

Freckled skin,

Misaligned to my own hollow crevices.

How did I manage to lose her?

Tasting a possible tomorrow,

Appetite unbearable,

Roaring for the sweetest wine.

Suffocating in tartness, only seeking a somber kiss to purify.

How has my cup become empty?

Sherbert skies lay past the window frame,

Cut by empty branches.

Yearning for one to shatter the glass,

Shards shaking my marrow.

Will I recognize the blood as it pools at my feet?

Greed laced within my palms,

Your cheeks rest between my fingertips.

A kind of love yearned for,

How does one build a home from a shattered dream?

A woman who feels more creature than a being,

Finds hope in life,

Cascading in beauty.

Pockets of time filled with silent laughter,

And love that blankets the air.

With ribbons cascading down her chest,

She looks up to his clear eyes and soft smile,

He tells her she is beautiful,

Every chance he gets.

A life filled with wonder and possibility,

Silken pillowcases,

And fever dreams.

A life once thought to be impossible,

To be in love with a man who repairs the seams.

Used to the roughness of love,

Ravenous and mean.

He warms the rigidness resting in the bones,

Embracing the abrasiveness,

Jagged pieces remain,

With brittle flesh.

Does he dare to love the woman hidden underneath?

Liberation has begun,

With a life unfolding,

Filled with aching chests from joy,

and losing their breath.

Finally, she can rest.

Sometimes I still think about killing myself,

It dampens my mind, but only for a brief moment,

Once suffocating, now a moment spent pondering,

It's not because I'm unhappy,

Nor is it because I wish to leave,

But it's rather just me resting in my cocoon of silence,

Avoidance is displayed best.

Sometimes I still think about killing myself,

The thought of the world spinning on even when I'm not around,

Floods my body with relief,

Knowing my mistakes, hold no weight here.

Sometimes, I still think about killing myself,

But in these moments of guilt,

Of ravenous selfishness,

I remember,

The robust beauty of being alive.

I remember,

How to fall in love with living.

Even in those moments when I think about my departure,

I feel the weight of a lover pressed against my skin,

mashing of membranes,

laughter etched in the hallways,

music webbed in the bricks of the house we lay in.

Maybe today, I won’t think of killing myself,

For the weight of the world no longer laid on my chest,

Dozens of faces have gripped my heart,

Lending me their hand when I can not rest.

And I’ll remember,

When all of my days were spent pondering my exit,

evaluating my departure,

selfishly,

desperately,

I’ll be able to release my breath.

On that day, so close I can feel joy dancing in,

I think I’ll make it, peaceful within.

Universal mouthpiece to all walks of life,

a devious record of all forms of filth.

Infiltrated with beauty.

You can’t forget the damaged or the damned.

The gruesome burden of being the eyes of all,

The ears of many,

the perspective of one.

Succumbing to our knees for something so great

So dampened by melancholy,

looks plentiful.

A feast for all.

How do you call one soul yours to keep when so many see the beauty?

How does one so lackluster,

Dare to stand within something so great.

For seeking the filth you can’t ignore the glorious.

How does one sinful secret keeper try to make themselves pure?

Something beautiful.

Continuously flawed,

Forever damned.

Indefinitely ethereal.

With the eyes of many,

And the ears of some

will always leave a singular perspective.

Nobody is left to perceive their silken sin.

Melancholic cries lay to rest here

A thousand voices pulsating down

Bestowed upon every year

The world home for our frowns

Cascading breezes have lifted our voices,

Our hearts have finally called in rejoices.

Ivory and Midnight skin,

Have demanded the air,

Only crying to be seen as a voodoo pin.

Scorched facades to wear,

Has been placed there by the greedy,

Forgetting that we are all that is needed.

Whirling wind begins to form,

Breaking the bark of our tormenting lives,

Illuminating our fury storms,

With an envious ego of prickling hives.

Where our melancholic cries have been put to rest,

After taking the time to see what needed to be addressed.

The plaza is endowed with garments of emerald,

Lives a lulling heartbeat,

Encased with a spindling of ribs refusing to depart,

A universal history resembled.

A meadow engrained with our melodies,

Millions of voices have spoken,

Our own liability has awoken,

Into blossoming buds of remedy.

Human tears have soaked the moss,

Souls entangled in the breeze

Forever lovers trapeze

We have come across,

A home for the lovers

Sometimes a cascading heartbreak

Comes the new daybreak

Will always call sanctions on others.

For a mere plaza engulfed in greenery,

Still lives the harmony of our hearts.

Love always starts

With our universal history.