On Becoming A Raven

Published on by Tosha Michelle20 Comments


The beautiful edgy woman
with the death stare
is sure I’m a one way door.
The all American girl,
a one shot deal in
illuminated skin.

She would never suspect
that I drink in
crows like the sky,
that I find clarity in chaos.
that I drowned Barbie
in a pool of cement,
that I may look like a black and white
1950’s candy sweet darling.
But inside my heart wears
leather, tattoos, a storm brews
beneath my skin.

The years giving me
color and form.
taking me from
red blush to blood red.
as summer turns to fall.
Underscoring the
damp edges of my soul.
Finally, growing
into my backbone.
I’m the other side of her
projection now.
A soul reborn feral.

Finding beauty in asymmetry.
Nurtured by rainfall that pools
into darkness.
Filing my nails on thorns.

Naive Southern Belle no longer.
The nightingale turned
into a raven with teeth.

-Tosha Michelle

Late Nights

Published on by Tosha Michelle20 Comments

image

Books are meant to be read late at night when the house sleeps
and the city huddles under a heavy lidded moon.
In these hours you can escape
from the kitchen drainboard deity
and the goddess of home and hearth

You can open the door to a street leading to adventure.
All you have to do is look down its length.
No matter which way you glance, magic awaits.
The crickets and lamppost light beguiling you with language
and the breath of imagination.
Power lines of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, infusing the body.
Perhaps, reminding you of something you once felt.
The words sustaining you. Fleshy and porous.
Iseult taking form with her thighs and Tristan’s lips.

You stay with them until you feel the sun kiss the nape of your neck
and you hear cars rolling down the street. Life’s commotion stirring.
All glass and asphalt now, waking the household gods, as they demand your attention.
You yawn, stretch, sigh, and close the door to the street’s salted pages and the night’s eloquent lure.

-Tosha Michelle

World Enough (In Terms Of)

Published on by Tosha Michelle24 Comments


You’ve taught me how far
I can go toward myself.
No need to run from who
I am.

That’s how it is with us.
Windblown fragments,
two are we.
Sometimes composed in rain
We always find our
sunny composure.

We converse fluently in
a language only we understand.
Your face never lies in the
way wedding songs and
lovers sometimes do.

In my head you’ve cut a groove,
leaving your initials there
Absolute. Right. Permanent.
They tell a story even when
my mind shifts and happenstance
grabs the pen.

The darkest ink is not dark enough
to eradicate the thought of you.

Our friendship  a sonnet to pathless
woods, always ready to explore.
We reach for a state of grace,
Knowing life can only get worse, but
better too.

Tosha Michelle
https://youtu.be/U8QV5fa7xa4

The Blue Notes

Published on by Tosha Michelle34 Comments

Hey y’all This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I have to turn my attention to writing a research proposal. I wanted to just buy it a ring and a box of chocolate, but guessing that is out. 😜 My lame sense of humor never goes out though. Seriously, it likes to hang around the house and perform standup in front of the mirror. 

But I digress, I’ve also got a couple of job interviews lined up. Wish me luck and I’m getting back into non profit work with survivors of human trafficking. It’s shocking how prevalent modern day slavery is.  There are so many atrocities in the world, I suppose it’s not that surprising. Love and action can make a difference.  We just have to break through the apathy.

On a lighter note, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for the likes. Gifts would be better. Yep, there’s that nerdy sense of humor again  Below you will find a poem and my musical attempt.  Hope you enjoy my mournful side. It constrast greatly with my silly side. All my sides wish you the best though xx

If I write it down
I can’t take it back.
When I’m gone, and
the wind of your world
is still scented with
my verse, what then?

Who will I be to you?
a bittersweet arrangement
of molecules only legible
under certain nostalgic light?

If your voice fails you
give them my words.
Tell them this is how
she adored me,
with syntax and lyrical sighs,
bleeding emotions.
The wingspan of her poetry.

I dressed you only
in the sun, too far gone
to halt our ending, but still
close enough for you to cling
to the last of light.

You’ll find me somewhere
lost between the pages of
your life. Sitting on a
porch swing singing
the blue notes, softly
as the intervals slowly fade.

Tosha Michelle

https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/the-scientist-coldplay-cover

The Harvest 

Published on by Tosha Michelle36 Comments


They gave each other the sweetness of apples,
immeasurable by hand.
An orchard assembled by 
loyalty and determination,
where two horizons met
bound by soul constellations
An intimacy that went beyond a
bed of grass and fleeting endorphin
laced cider.

But no matter how bountiful the gathering,
we sometimes become too accustomed
to the beauty of the return.

We forget to take time
to savor what we hold dear,
clinging too long to
memories of past harvesting
Or we become consumed with
the yields of new fruit.

No time to fight or even mourn
for bruised apples
left to oxidize in the
toxic air.

Neglect takes root, hurt unbridles
And careless words become an
apron full of briars.
A spider lodged in the hem.

The orchard once ablaze and alive sheds
it’s golden mass becoming nothing
more than a misbegotten shadow,
a crop of blue scars, an artifact
of loss.

-Tosha Michelle

A Mindful Poem 

Published on by Tosha Michelle70 Comments


In the brief tranquil reprieve
just before dust.
You don’t notice how
high the wind is
or the bitter in the cold

The night may carry a
satchel of bramble.
But for now you close
your eyes and listen to
the music of the air.

Focusing on the amber length
of the hour.
Your dormant heart made
melodic like a harp touched
by skilled hands

You realize you deserve more
than shuttering light and
shifting shadows. 

You who are besotted with
the fever of a waltz
And moonlit rivers
on the way to sea.

No matter how awkward your
gait, you know grace is
found in a soul that won’t
be nettled and a mind
made beautiful by the swarm
of fireflies.

You, this lady and warrior
who gets by on Southern
charm and the rhythm of
a drum that beats in three-quarter time.
Here. where prim
and proper meets sas and grit.

You who are singularity lovely
but hideous too.
A mess of colors, hungry
You refuse to live a sepia life.

For a moment as you watch
the sun set, you don’t dwell
on failed arithmetic or Dostoevsky
and his sullen things.

Instead, you reflect on the wonder
of aliveness and compose yourself
in a poem, composure found in a view
redefined . You rearrange the disquieting
into a sliver canopy of serenity.
Finding peace in your eccentricity.

-Tosha Michelle

My latest cover-Sign of the Times with a little Human thrown in

Sanity 

Published on by Tosha Michelle20 Comments

You have to let go of what is hurting you. You can’t keep rewriting the same story, especially when the ending never changes. There’s only so many revisions you can make. Some stories weren’t meant to have a happy ending, some stories were meant to be left incomplete
Sometimes you have to find the courage to put the old narrative away and write a new story.
Have a great weekend everyone 💕