I know the importance
of manners and kindness.
Every now and
then though, I take
advice from the devil,
who likes to massage
my shoulder.
I break the cup of tea
and guzzle from a
wine bottle. I rip
apart my dress of
virtue and fornicate
with the wild flowers.
I dance naked through
a continent of imagination.
Stopping to wink coyly
at the opposite sex
Sometimes I swim
on a full stomach
and dress as a
category five hurricane
Finding passion in
every swirl. He tells
me, I’m such a pretty,
little savage.
He encourages me to
be reckless with my
destruction. Briefly,
the world stops for me.
I speak without language.
Then I awake in a bed
of obligation and social
graces, a world of selfless
and righteous living.
Posed. I rise and begin
my day. The devil hides
under the pale satin of
my dress. Later, we
scribble poems over
a path of moonshine,
skinny dipping in a
dark pond of paper.
Diving to the bottom
of uncharted debauchery.
Laughing at how “literally”
some people will take
this poem, and how
one will say he knew
it all along.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 