Category: Poems

Ensnared

Published on by Tosha Michelle69 Comments

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The wind breaks hearts
while the tangled tree branches
shelter their list
of grievances underground.
All they ever wanted was to be loved.
To the forest the tree stands
in regal glory and sweet familiarity.
All the while ensnared in the whims of nature,
the tree can’t break free from
the toxic atmosphere
The branches rustles to offset despair.
The husk marred by neglect
begins to rot
The sun attempts to change the tree’s fortune.
The pine leans toward the light, but the wind
draws it back in a jealous purchase.

Wrung out. Resigned to the oncoming storm’s chaos, knowing trying to shake it off
is futile. The tree lifts its branches in surrender. The
leaves, unencumbered by obligation, jump then fall. They would rather die than submit.

-Tosha Michelle

Own the Years

Published on by Tosha Michelle67 Comments

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Before the years vanish
Let your body wander.
Be a lover, a traveler.

Let the theatrical lights
shine on you.
Bathe in the syllables
of adventure.

Crown the stars, and
dine on constellations.
Drink up the sunlight.

See the Nile, and tropical islands.
Take note of each sunset,
the mountains, the ocean.
Don’t let there be
a single empty page
in your life book.

Be a door swung open,
withhold nothing.
Dare to do, so you have
no regrets.

Don’t let your life
be haunted by dreams
that happened elsewhere,
and to someone else.
Haunted by the ones you never met,
the journeys you failed
to take.

Lift your arms up
and embrace what you make be.
Belong to the jungle,
the marketplace,
the English cottage,
the abbeys of Italy,
the domes, and to all
the scenes of your life.

-Tosha Michelle

Yorkshire Pudding

Published on by Tosha Michelle16 Comments

I’ve plugged this A-hole before but here I go again. If you aren’t following the King of onion gravy, insomnia, strange dialect, weird dance moves, and Chandler Bing wannabe. Shh! Don’t tell him it’s 2016. You’re missing out on some truly diverse and interesting prose and poetry. All kidding aside, his wordsmithing is phenomenal but what’s with his Angelina Jolie lips?

Sooooooo

Follow the yellow brick road. Take a right and follow this guy. The man behind the curtain is pretty OK.

No. 3060 – http://wp.me/p27egX-2Qs

The Invitation

Published on by Tosha Michelle124 Comments

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I’m dreaming of you.
No, someone like you.

Someone who receives
my invitation and can’t
wait to come over.

My house, lit up by
moonshine and heart
light, awaits your arrival.

I bake a cake in expectation.
I’m hoping to sit with you
on the front porch, and
converse in real ways
where I can sit with my
legs crisscross and
not worry about how I look
with my hair up in a bun, no
make up on. You’ll look beyond
the shallow and see grace.

We’ll see our way to the
other side of the conversation,
your side, my side, our side.
And I won’t want more
than I have, now or before.

Did you receive my invitation?
My someone, my someone like you?
I’ve tenderly adjusted the view.
No backbends or recrimination,
not a single back wound.

Come over. The door and chapter remain open.
Rest here with me. Tell me a story.
One we don’t know the ending to.
We’ll make love’s revision
or write anew.

-Tosha Michelle

But I Don’t Wanna be Queen.

Published on by Tosha Michelle101 Comments

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Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen

Mind your manners.
Curl your locks.
Priss and preen
Everyone knows the
world loves pretty.

Don’t sit with your
legs crisscrossed
Sit like a queen.

Smile.
Show those gleaming
pearls.
Never be cross or mean.

Don’t grow old,
frail or weak.

Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen.

Paint your nails.
Fingers and toes.

Give up food.
Remain a size 2.

Be the princess
married to the king.

Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen.

-Tosha Michelle

Silence

Published on by Tosha Michelle103 Comments

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Sometimes even the flutter
of moth wings is too loud.
I crave silence. I even write
in hushed tones under an oak
tree where nature seems
spiritual and serenity touches
me through the dew filled daisies.
I raise my pen to the sun.
I take in the charm of fresh air,
a storytelling of peace. It’s easier
to trust in the smell of honeysuckles
and the blueness above than humans.
People vanish with the seasons and create
noise and chaos inside my head. But the sky,
today, at least, is a reliable ally.
It whispers to me in
calm meditative tones
In the quiet I breathe again.

-Tosha Michelle

Understanding

Published on by Tosha Michelle86 Comments

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I always want the things I can’t understand.
And I want understanding
from the things I can’t understand.
I turn them over in my mind like a Rubik’s Cube,
or an outdated reference.

This is regardless, of the things I have and do understand.

What’s the demarcation between settling and unrealistic expectations?

Why am I more interested in the mist than seeing the horizon?

What is it I think I’m missing: sex, romance, adventure, simplicity, humidity?

Blocked by what- responsiblility, obligations, discipline, weather?

I don’t want the mist to clear.
I play keep away with the sun.

The wheels on the bus
turn round and round but
I’m not waiting on a ride.
I’m going nowhere.

Maybe my mind just has a grudge against me.
Look at it always wanting something more,
in spite of….

-Tosha Michelle

Loving You

Published on by Tosha Michelle80 Comments

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Something sweet and romantic
____

Loving you is a Saturday
feeling and a Sunday stroll.
For you, the encrypted
become unencrypted.

You will never not love me,
even when our weekends turn into
Mondays.

Even when our photos
become monuments of us,
a still life of
sunlight and cedar,
the girl I was, abloom
in a field of beginnings.

Love that can’t hide
in a napkin, a coffee spill
or a blade of grass.

Liveable lives.
Forgivable.

Serene seas and mountains,
and the artifacts of
a champagne flute,
periwinkle shirts
and promises.

The litter of swoon
and our once in a
lifetime constellation.

-Tosha Michelle

Vicious Cycle

Published on by Tosha Michelle74 Comments

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Unseen memories.
Thoughts of yesterday,
Circle an empty room.
They don’t make a sound.
Scars commiserate with
what was in a silent benediction.
Nothing stirs, except my soul.
The past is everywhere.
The past is nowhere.
Years have gone by, and
still I can’t stop collecting
dust of spent regrets.
The particles a reflection
of what is left of the light.

-Tosha Michelle

Listen to Fields – Of – Gold -Vocals and Guitar by Tosha Michelle 2020 #np on #SoundCloud

Fault Lines

Published on by Tosha Michelle54 Comments

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Why is happiness so fragile?
It can disappear so quickly,
like the dandelions along
the roadside in spring.

Have you noticed how
quickly judgement comes
with those unfamiliar with
the scope of the night,
the serrated edge of
life, the blunt
edge of depression?

I sit in the grass watching
the moon rise and I
wonder if we can live
our way into happiness,
into being. I’ve spent
the whole of my life
on the precipice of
sinking deep, and far
into the bottom of
darkness. I’ve been
drawn to my limit, but
I always spring back
anchored by hope, by
faith. I always stand
back up and run toward
happiness, waiting for its
embrace, like being scooped up
in the arms of a strong man,
who loves me even if I
can’t see the horizon,
and I’m constantly stuck
between continents in
death cold current.
I never drop. I never stop
hoping.

-Tosha Michelle