Tag: music

Can’t Ignore the Rhythm

Published on by Tosha Michelle53 Comments

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He’s the softest of stanzas.
The lines strong enough
for me to swallow.
I lean into his lyricism
The words light a match under
my skin.

He’s my reason to turn the page.
I breathe in his poetry.
becoming what he crafts.
Adjectives and verbs twisting
into sugar and salt.
Dazed and dazzled. I never
demand a definition.
I just bask in the white heat
moment of now.
Coloring my heart with
phrases that never compromise.
Teaching my soul to listen
to the whispered language of
whatever will be.

-Tosha Michelle

Crafting

Published on by Tosha Michelle59 Comments

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The only light worth having
is the light you have to work for.
I try and find it in my craft.
But sometimes I’m angry with
words- the pen- the paper- the
storm scape inside my head.
Yet I write best in restless hues.
Red with an undercoat of black.
I grasp for understanding.
I look but can’t see.
Clarity is a lie told by the
mentally sane. I sit at my desk
a labyrinth of doubt, trying to find
the middle ground between dark and
a glimmer of unfurling light.
Knowing joy is unsustainable
but knowing what I do not know.

-Tosha Michelle

For You

Published on by Tosha Michelle56 Comments

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For you, I would paint
the undercoat of grey
a cheery yellow.
We would live well
in a settled blue,
touched by fiery red.

I would give you words
to eat, starting from
scratch. Syllables that
teach us how to be happy,
how to negotiate with
dark clouds.

For you, I would gloss
the vernacular of porn
stars, and crack the night
open with anatomy,
and backseat geography.
Unbuttoned periwinkle
shirt, pants flying off.

I’d be the force of nature
you saw God in.
a piece of light that turns
to a flame.

I’d take you where we
could water the moon.
Two celestial wonders
finding a new constellation.
Alive and quivering in
the unknown.

For you, I would offer
my fractured soul and
a flight map of scars
I’d give you my outlaw
truths, the real story,
and a fresh love
devoid of pipe smoke.

I would give you days
made entirely of lilacs
and grapes.

Together we would relearn
how to claim the drumbeat
and rise like a dove,
just winging it.

-Tosha Michelle

My cover of “Falling Slowly” One of my favorite songs.

We Create Our Own Happiness

Published on by Tosha Michelle86 Comments

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Let’s take the sun and leave
the rain for other minds.
Let the light go straight
to the center of our brains.
Linger on the green grass
of a happier life. Home free,
but not homeless.
Let’s live in the world
inside of us where nothing can be lost.
Someplace where it’s always autumn and
there are plenty of leaves to break our fall.
Just you and me where’s there’s no them or they.
Showing the hollowed out existence,
the slamming screen door.
No longer waiting on the light
to save us but shining our
own brilliance. Knowing
if the light ever finds us,
we’ll light its way.

-Tosha Michelle

Upon Awakening

Published on by Tosha Michelle136 Comments

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When I finally emerged
from my hibernation,
the light had long
since moved on.
My image transcending the sidewalk
as I shed my winter coat.
I looked down through the stars,
the earth no longer beckoning me.
The voices of a thousand
nightingales singing hopefully,
stirring the air like cream.
I sit nestled in the arms of the trees,
tipping my hat to the wrens and willows.
All life’s little delicacies are stored away
in my knapsack for later. As I descend
into the night the moon begins to glow,
alighting the darkness like a thousand
movie screens. In the distance a
church bell rings, and for a moment
I don’t feel so alone.

-Tosha Michelle

Miniscule

Published on by Tosha Michelle103 Comments

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I am less than.
My insignificance a common thing.
I’m a particle of dust but even I
sparkle in certain light.
At night I float around pages
filled with words that
no one will remember.
I sing a melancholy tune.
Bare and ruined.
I pray to the God of dust bunnies,
who is adored or loathed by all
the other particles.

Everyday we lift up our dusty eyes
to the ceiling, hoping for a skylight
to reveal the heavens. All the while
awaiting our death sentence by rag.
Resigned to our fate we conversed
with the ashes and await our downfall.

-Tosha Michelle

Lyrical

Published on by Tosha Michelle53 Comments

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He says I’m storm water
and chocolate cake.
The hot static of hair being
brushed.

I say take me in your arms
and speak your proverbs
upon me.

I watch him undress, his hands
soild verbs. I turn away to keep
my sanity.

By the time he touches my shoulders
delirium and lightening have set in.

-Tosha Michelle

Ready

Published on by Tosha Michelle58 Comments

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There’s no hiding place left
for my soul.
The dark spaces have all been
lit, filled with a warm glow.
My flesh radiates heat, my skin
alive. My eyes giving me away.

Should I run? Try and find a dark alley
somewhere? The street lights shaped
like hearts seem to say “be still”.
But I’m afraid. I want to close my eyes.
But I know I’ll just end up peeping.
Finally believing in the voice I hear counting.
Knowing I don’t want to be invisible anymore.
I’m ready to be found.

-Tosha Michelle

Just Breathe

Published on by Tosha Michelle39 Comments

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Sometimes the air around us is foreign.
Our lungs adopting to the atmosphere.
Knowing. Unknowing. We await
as the intervals thicken or thin.
Will the air become audible?
Will the seasons brighten or dim?
Do we lay store or forge ahead?
Is it enough to seek answers to questions
or is the living in the doing?
A thought held close built around another
thought is of no use if it sits braced to
a chair reluctant to breathe the air.

-Tosha Michelle

The Chill

Published on by Tosha Michelle67 Comments

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Sometimes when the world and people become too much to take
I develop winter brain: a sort of icy mindfulness
where I embrace the chill and long to hibernate
with the bears, while the snowbird helicopters
over the frozen lake harassing the air and
frost bite lingers on my soul.
My heart a solid ice sheet hasn’t a care.
I inhale the silence while the palest of
green fights to break through.
For a moment at least, I remain
as cold and calm as the
white of the snow overspread
on the ground.

-Tosha Michelle