I just want a corner to lie
down in.
Pull the covers over
my heart.
Let it get buried in
snow.
Somewhere underground
where the coordinates get lost
A hideout from worry and the
slow burn out of life.
My calendar whited out.
My fingers too cold to hold.
My lips too raw to kiss the end note.
And I can live in the moment
before.
A frozen vessel alone
in the stillness.
My soul encased in a thousand
miles of Arctic air.
-Tosha Michelle
Sometimes all I can think
about is chocolate cake.
Sugar seeping into my
parietal lobe.
I run my fingers through
your blonde hair, stroke your
teeth with my tongue.
We move like batter
Clinging to each other
Stumbling around the
kitchen.
Desire in an embrace
You flutter to my
fingers, and I beg
you to give away
the recipe.
Knowing how this girl
butters to Southern charm
and blue eyes and measures
her life in spilled
flour on the floor.
Going under in a
flood of batter.
Gluttony in a three
piece suit.
I dream in dark
decadence and open
my mouth and heart
to confectionary splendor.
Happy to get lost in
frosting, strong arms
hard kisses, and oven
baked seduction.
-Tosha Michelle
I’m tired of being love’s
recruit. I want to enlist
in hate
I wish there was a dose
of something that would
make me care less.
I’m tired of doing math, I
forgot a long time ago.
Tonight, I want to get
wrecked and call it
victory.
I want to sleep on the
deathbed of empathy.
and be reborn a cynic.
Instead, I’ll wake
tomorrow. Victory
sinking and thinking
love is as necessary
as a soul patch to
a hipster.
Never content to let
it rest. Always trying
to stitch it and people
back together.
Always a sucker
for Mahler and his
tragedies.
Always in tune with
the birds weeping
in the trees.
Never content to
hide in dark places
with the moon.
Always making
something out of
nothing that
isn’t there.
-Tosha Michelle
Old school style. Happy weekend, beautiful peeps xx
“Why do you keep a comin’ around playing with my heart?
Why don’t cha get out of my life and let me make a brand new start?
Let me get over you the way you gotten over me, yeah, yeah
Set me free why don’t cha babe
Get out my life why don’t cha babe (ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)
‘Cause you don’t really love me
You just keep me hangin’ on
No, you don’t really need me
You just keep me hangin’ on”
This is my elegy for those lost lines of poetry.
The ones that died in my mind,
when I was in the store, out on the town
or walking in the park.
Those times when pen and paper chose to stay
home and take a nap. My usually
fruitful memory-barren.
Go, little poem off to the land of word limbo,
out into nothingness.
The braids of forgotten syntax and out of sync time
will guide you. You’ll forever dwell with untold
stories, names unrecalled, and dreams unremembered.
What if and
what never was will comfort you.
I’ll mourn for you as I sit at my desk
staring at the unfulfilled pages, lonely,
for lines that came and died suddenly.
Erased between here and there.
Sentences that turned into ashes,
leaving only the residue of punctuation
and a memory of the moment
just before I forgot to remember.
-Tosha Michelle
I sit. Heart in hand. I
create. Some of you
may turn away from
the blood. The red
spilling over. It’s OK
if you do.
Sometimes it scares
me too, but still I
hold it. Palms out.
I’m giving you what
frightens me. This
is me saying, yes, I’m
still here.
I give you my less than
moments, my insecurities,
my madness, my ideas
about life and love, my
shrine of longing.
My heart slipping from
my hands, falling past
my knees to the floor.
Falling toward your
shadow I hope you
will pick it up.
Feel the hopeful
beat that wars
with my still
soul and chaotic
mind. I give you
my wounds.
We connect through
our pain, my friend,
my reader. Through
the hornets in our
coffee cups. Our
syllables of what
we can’t forget.
As we suffer together,
fear becomes less.
Our hearts beat stronger
Place them on the
dashboard like a
plastic Jesus.
It’s doesn’t matter if
they leak on the
floorboard. It only
matters that we travel on,
even if we’ve misplaced
the map, even if our sanity
becomes displaced, even if
we drive down a reckless road
on a moonless night.
Understand, if we want
heaven and angels,
sometimes we have
to ride around with
our demons.
Understand, sometimes,
darkness is the heart of
life, of beauty, of art.
-Tosha Michelle
Abstract art by Yours Unruly
Hands Over Eyes
Stand behind me
Take your hands and
cover my eyes, so
I don’t see all
those doubts that
take flight in me,
so I have nothing new
to fear. No new
heartache to blindside me
Loss always coming
unannounced.
Whisper filthy things
in my ear, so I can
breathe deep your words,
drowning out the
voices in my head
screaming “be cautious”
Imploring me to not
be so reckless with
another one so
intoxicating.
Give me new skin
to touch
so I no longer feel
like a castaway
in dark harbor
full of scabs and scales
Let me feel your warmth,
as hope slips inside me.
Face to face now.
You teach me that
everything opens
with time- eyes. minds,
and even a heart damaged
by love undone.
-Tosha Michelle
Longing befell me on a sharp
right turn, wrong.
A dark disciple rose up in me
I call her nostalgia
Our love is like snow
that refuses to stick.
I am always breathing in want
and exhaling regret
in your icy air.
I take water into my lungs,
and pretend it is you
I measure sugar and salt
in equal cups.
The yearning for both,
making me desperate,
Sugar.
Salt.
Drift.
I keep looking for a blizzard,
but the sidewalk is bare,
and the treacherous sky
swears snow never fell here.
-Tosha Michelle
https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/the-scientist-coldplay-cover
But now I’ll go sit on the floor
Wearing your clothes
All that I know is
I don’t know how to be something you miss
https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/last-kiss-cover-vocals-only
Sometimes everything is rhetorical
Everything is monochrome
My limbs wracked with rain
I tread gingerly.
I make promises I may not keep
Go on with my soltuide,
my soliloquy.
I’m almost out of words.
Knowing you cannot grasp
what you cannot hold
Things vanish all the time
And what is only left of me, is
me only.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 