There's a crack in the floor.

Daddy said,

"Just ignore it."

But instead I watched it grow,

Spidering it's way

Toward my bed.

It frightened me

Like the men with bad teeth

Lurking in the shadows,

Asking to touch

My legs.

I kept my distance.

I walked around it.

There's a hole in the floor.

Mama said,

"Pray about it."

So I crossed myself and

asked God,

How deep does the

Darkness go?

Would anybody save me?

I hung my foot over the void

And lost my shoe.

There was no sound of contact.

There was no answer.

There's a cavern in the floor.

Auntie said,

"Look around it

At all the shiny,

Unbroken things.

You have a roof over your head

And what a pretty head it is.

You are goddamn blessed, child."

So I looked around,

But all I could see

Was what was missing:

My swallowed flower crown,

The snuffed out night light,

My disappearing roller skates

and bicycle.

All the neighborhood children.

My baby teeth.

It took my dog today.

I didn't notice

Until I felt the foot of the bed

Cold, unrumpled.

It claimed my tears

So all I could do was whisper

Eyes dry,

"Come and get me."

2/30

#30Poems30days

We awake in your bedroom

And I wonder if you can see

Any part of me.

Does the dawn sun

Reflect the shape of my shoulders?

Are the dust particles

Dancing in my hair?

You hand grind your coffee

And burn your toast.

You're humming,

It's a song we used to sing

On the nights we didn't want to sleep.

The phone rings and

Your voice goes gentle

"Hello, my love..

My love..

My love.."

You say it three times

Over the course of the conversation,

And you're smiling.

Your eyes squinting through the kitchen window,

Watching the wrens

Jump from branch to branch,

You see right through me.

I bite my tongue till I taste blood

But nothing.

Outside, birds are yelling for their mates

"I'm right here!"

"Here I am!"

I press my cheek to the cold glass

And wail with them,

I need to be certain I exist.

I ate vegan today,

A bright white plate

Full of berries

And seeds.

But I am still

Too full.

My emotions

Crawling up my throat.

My vulnerability

Crowding towards

My fingertips

Until it all spills

Out, bursts of

Words on a keyboard,

Praises on my lips.

The world seems solid enough. 

Teacups shatter

bones break, 

and the girl who just jumped from her

tenth story window begs the Hilling Avenue

concrete to offer a split second

miracle before she-- 

It seems solid enough, the world.

But under the tunnels that run to Columbus Circle

gray slate and mantles shift, 

so that we're always moving up and down, 

and there are always spaces in between. 

She says, "If you jump at just the right moment, you'll fall 

through the gaps in it all and end up

on the other side." 

We all seem connected enough. 

A baby cries in the North Side of town, 

while an East End mother feels in 

in her stomach. 

And the girl you love more than anything

in this world calls you just as you're thinking

about how she bites her lower lip after she kisses you 

goodbye.

She says, "I just called to say good-bye." 

We're connect enough, it seems. 

Tiny gossamer chain-links extending from our ears

and stretching over topography. From a distance

it looks like cracks in white porcelain. 

She says, "I will always be with you. We are the thing that stars

are made of, you and I." 

But tonight you shake at the lonely end 

of a telephone wire, 

of a cell phone signal, 

of a soup can attached to string.

Hello?

Hello?

Pleading with the empty window on the tenth story

and waiting for illumination

a space, 

an opening, 

a pinhole, 

anything to let the light through. 

You and her 

were what lovers were made of. 

She was the electricity and you were

the contact wire. 

Together you were strung out Christmas bulbs, 

blink 

blink

blinking conversations, holding one another

and burning through dawn. 

She says, "Let's hold on to all of this." 

But tonight you grasp at the air and come up 

empty. You wonder if you'll forget her

voice or the way that she let her hand lay,

heavy on your chest, while she dreamed

of stars, porcelain teacups, babies wailing, 

and trains

rushing in and out of Columbus Circle.

You wonder if you've finally had enough. 

You wonder if there are chasms too deep 

for light to kiss. 

You think that maybe this Hades exists in you and you 

think of all the shifting and the spaces and how the ground

is crumbling beneath your shoes.

You wonder if you're enough. 

And you hope

that when the shoe finally drops, 

that when the cards finally fall, 

that when the elevator cable finally breaks

in a way you always knew it would break, 

you hope--

that you can jump at just the right moment

to be in the air at impact. 

I awake to

Spring showers

Each drop

A tick tick,

Percussion parade.

The alarm rings 8

And like a curtain cue

The sky lifts her skirt,

And light

Bathes my bedsheets.

I am a warm wayfarer

Surfing sanguine

But barely breathing

Drowning

In anxiety

Before my feet

Have hit

The cold floor.

Marches fuel you.

They are the shove down the water slide,

A coffee in hand cold shower,

Eyes wide woke.

They are here to inspire you.

To keep you angry and motivated.

They exist

To introduce you to your brothers and sisters--

Those humans who roar beside you,

You are not alone.

They remind you that there is work to be done.

So much work,

But there grows power

In people.

We organize,

Sharpening the tools to either build our walls

Or tear them down.

Marches are the initial push in the Rube Goldberg machine where one action sets forth another action and so on and so on and so on...

It may be messy and we may take the long way. But we'll get there.

Marches are the prequel.

Today, we begin another story.

Today, we work.

I.

Your chin was warm

And smelled like earthworms

The night we danced

On the shining boulevard

And spoke of an unborn son.

We dared life to surprise us

Because we felt so unused.

I wonder

If his eyes would have been green

Like mine

Or telling

Like yours.

II.

It rained today and for the first time

I didn't think of you.

Instead, I ate a box of Junior Mints

And with a cold mouth

Hummed to ol' Louie

While watching the neighborhood

Children tap-dance in puddles.

The northern star will cast a glow

You follow it and pray although,

We do not like what we don't know,

We have no room for you.

We have no extra cloth nor bed

There is no place to rest your head

And do not ask to break our bread,

We have no room for you.

Your home is now a crumbled heap

Your men are dead, your women weep

But that is not for us to reap,

We have no room for you.

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Are none of what we fear the most

We have no duty as your host,

We have no room for you.

Avert your eyes and just ignore

The brown skin babies washed ashore

We'll smear the blood on our own doors,

We have no room for you.

I.

Among the qwerty,

The only thing keeping my bank

account safe

Is the stroke of a password.

II.

Every time it rains

And I'm reminded of

Reemergence,

I change my password.

III.

The password like a poem:

One uppercase, two numerals, and three special characters.

IV.

A man and a woman

In bed.

Her hand guides his,

A password on skin.

V.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of keys tapping

Or knuckles rapping

Staccato password,

"Come in."

VI.

Positive affirmations in the mirror.

The shadow of her password

Reminding her,

Hell yea, girl

youAREbe@utiful!

VII.

Why do you imagine

An impossible password

To unlock happiness?

Do you not see that

The right combinations

Of characters

Are dancing at your fingertips?

VIII.

I know you as well

As my email password.

We are an inescapable rhythm,

I can find you

Without looking.

IX.

When my dog died

I memorialized him in a password hint.

X.

Infinite passwords

Floating through space.

Everything is protected,

The universe knows our secrets.

XI.

He drove over GW Bridge

To see her smile, an encore.

Her lightning eyes indicated that

He mistook a one time invitation

For a password.

XII.

I am locked out again

Because I forgot my password.

XIII.

It was morning and we were sleeping.

We were dreaming

And we dreamed of secret passwords

That reveal boundless treasure,

"Open sesame."

One day I will

Write a love poem

To honor your

Jack Kerouac

Frown lines,

And Ginsberg

Sensibility.

But now, I

Will simply

Study the curve

Of your

Nose and lips

Like I'm photographing

The Guggenheim,

I will wrap myself

In the way your voice rasps,

Neil Young in the morning.

One day I'll call it

A love poem,

Today

It's just

A resemblance

Sleeping in a shared bedroom.