My thoughts on Prince Harry.
Tag: mental health
An Apprentice of Sadness
If you listen to the language of sadness,
you know it has much
to teach us.
There’s dignity in the monochrome
Sanctity in darkness, in the pulse
of quiet, in the rut to be dug out of
.
Sadness can be a type of burning bush,
the X on a map.
It can make the unknown, knowable.
It can help us unfold
It can rip away our untruths, like
paint torn off a congealed can,
taking skin with it.
Sadness can then suture that skin
back together.
It can birth art, music, poetry.
I write proudly with my back ink.
I take solace in words,
even the ones written in water
I choose to write my difficulties,
my grinding realities.
The fantasies under which I labor.
I write to remember-my rain of tears.
How cathartic it is when the downpour
renders everything lush and green.
Enlivening the colorful sensations of hope
I am a student of sadness so
I can become a teacher of light
-Tosha Michelle
Not Quite Love in an Elevator
Some people keep in
touch via the phone,
the internet, weekly
lunch dates.
You keep in touch by
pissing me the hell off.
Lightening up our
elevator display
of toxicity until
we’re stuck between
floors.
Listen, do you hear that?
that’s my head lacerating
on the wall.
My sense of peace
fractured.
Go ahead pick the bone.
I’m done battling
scratched glass.
Drag me through it.
It’s time to rinse
off the anger,
and nail all 1483 of my
grievances to your
sanctimonious door.
Martin Luther and me
the grand reformers
He sowed in grace.
I’m more prone to
mace.
Maybe, I’ll just try to
lose you in a place
I’ll never find again.
Unraveling your
foothold or finding
mine, up your………
I’ll save the hair pulling
spear throwing, and
obscene gestures of
distain for terrorists
and guys named Tad.
I’ll just vent my anger
in a silly poem
Snide as my temper,
but light as numbers
with no equations,
letters missing
sentences, and a
poet whistling
satirically at madness.
-Tosha Michelle
The Fold Into Winter
I’m walking through the
Queen City,
moving toward what?
It’s late
November, late afternoon,
The light, leafs
through its book of buildings.
Tall high rises,
The trees telling a back story.
My thoughts are
dark, tangled, melancholy-
as my thoughts
tend to be. This is not a
forlorn plot.
I’m content, enough. Biding
my time, on Trade Street.
In the distance. I hear the
bluesy notes of
a saxophone. For a moment
the sky opens
for me. My imagination shines
like an angel.
The air is so vibrant and busy
my whole body
feels weightless. I let my mind
wander down a
rainbow path. Time turns around
I am the princess of a
lightless country. Free from
the angst of
my mind. The molecules part
for me. I breathe
in serenity. The horizon clear.
I hold tight to the illustrated pages
I listen to the noise
of magnolias. I’m released from my self critical ways.
The words behind words are full of
grace… for once
devoid of longing. I brush a bouquet of daisies
from my hair. My own avant-garde
parade- lace, glitter,
sunflower seeds. I hold tightly to
the plot even
as the sun decides to deviate
from my happy
narrative, turning back into
clouds, tumbleweeds,
and hornets.
I accept the fragments from
the sky. I have
no choice. The stained alleyways
beckon me.
All I can do is keep walking
All I can do is live this life.
Write this life.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 