I’m not sure why anyone would want to interview me, but this lovely lady did. You can read here. My thanks to the divine Miss. S. If you aren’t following her, you should be.
Tag: music
Plotting
The man I kissed on the train
was a Michelin star chef from Ireland.
We talked scallops on the way to Paris
and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Was this scene partly real or dreamed?
After I lost my car in the parking lot,
I invented a serial killer
to give the story just the
right amount of suspense
Believe me. even James Purefoy belonged in that
bar fight at Whiskey River, but
I still can’t decide if he should
speak with a British or American accent.
And when exactly should he notices me
and my long legs, because I’m 5’7 in this tale.
But sometimes I’m stuck in the world of what is
helpless to the sufficient things.
5’2 and looking at the magnolia tree in my backyard.
It’s beautiful at dusk, all tact and fact in a serene spot.
What could be better?
What could be worst?
I sigh as I sip my tea.
I can’t muster up the inclination to make it bend or sway.
-Tosha Michelle
And It Happens Like This
Eveytime I put on my sandals
I open the door to ice.
There’s a fire in the building,
and I’m stuck in the elevator
with a haystack and a needle.
I escape with a hard hat and scalpel
only to find the costume party has
a Star Wars theme.
When I try to hold on to what
I need. There’s an angel on my
shoulder saying go, you’re what you need,
you idiot. There’s a baboon on my other
saying don’t let go, you little shit.
I climb out of a ditch just in time to
see I’ve missed the bus. I order
orange juice but get lemon instead.
I put one foot in front of the other in hopes of going
anywhere only to find I’m on a treadmill.
First come love, then comes marriage and
well you know the rest.
I just want a comfortable bed.
I’ve been told seeing is believing but it isn’t,
it’s a road stop on
the way to somewhere else.
Thursday I’m at the the bank
submitting myself to math
that never adds up. Saturday
finds me in Vegas playing the
slot machines and knowing
I’ll never win. Sunday I’ll push
beyond cereal and milk
and plot my escape plan.
-Tosha Michelle
My Port of Call
Every time I’m in NYC
I start thinking I should
change my life.
Stop acting my digits.
Set fire to the rain with Adele.
Climb the Empire State
like Spiderman.
I’d be Vera Wang to the hilt
Stylish, polish, beautiful.
And then I think of where
I come from, my blood deep
roots of sweet tea and grits
Magnolia blossoms and
ancient oak trees stooped
over like sage crones
Of some warm song with
just a touch of twang coming
out of my Daddy’s guitar
I think of Southern charm
and those gloriously still
moments just before dawn,
when we rise with shine and
crow.
And I realize there’s a lot
to be said for flawed and small
for canned jam, for tangled forest
where blue birds lives and kudzu grows
And suddenly, I just want
to be me and who I am.
And who I am
can’t wait to be home again.
-Tosha Michelle
Upon Reaching for the Sky
Inside her pocket
she keeps letters
she’ll never send,
and long lists.
She sits at the vanity,
brushing serenity out
of her golden hair.
Listening to lost rain
that’s surly meant to fall
anywhere but here.
Somewhere already green
and lush.
Her mind grieving winter brown
It’s February.
If she mailed her letters
and shared her lists,
who would read them?
She asked for a cup
of tears
The liquid burns
her tongue.
She listens for the
soft cadence of his voice.
Her heart repeats its inquiry.
Memories and reality
undefined.
-Tosha Michelle
American Honey
I miss childhood,
when I could climb trees,
unencumbered by branches.
The delicate days new born,
when hope came in dancing in
from the backyard and stayed
for Sunday dinner.
Endlessly long days that
always seem to fade into
sunsets and deliriously delectable
dreams of dandelions and
determined alliteration.
There, nights were made
of lightening and a well lit horizon-
the symphony neverending.
Now life has uprooted that sense
of joy, of ignition.
These days I’m just sound
slighted, the residue
of the morning mist,
burnt out on the melody.
Longing for backyard green,
the verve, the contentment.
-Tosha Michelle
Desire: written.
When he speaks in my dreams
I am allowed to look at him
Somehow our clothes
are always off.
I let his perfect form
slide all over me.
His lyrical sound
is loud in my head.
How my mind wanders
and sparks.
The thoughts reaching out.
I try to still my hands,
but his skin is a tempting idea.
The open mouth kiss
of illicit toxins, sensual sin.
The more I try to latch on
the less real he feels.
The space between his face
and mine only grows longer.
I awake in my bed, the good girl,
still feeling the lingering wind
blowing in from the bad girl North.
How it likes to torment and tease
tameable me, untameable in dreams.
-Tosha Michelle
The Pillow Who Loved Me
Every night her bed spoke to her, but her pillow had no use
for language. It was too busy being soft and comfortable.
Its natural state, one of rest. She was clueless to its
aversions and desires, but suspected it feared dust mites,
daylight, and the sound of the alarm clock. The bed loved to
share all its secrets of sleepy heads, and banging heads, and
unmentionable head. The pillow refused to participate in such
tomfoolery. Its downtime was spent inside a silk cul-de-sac
so quiet even darkness was suspicious.
If the pillow had any hobbies, they were wordless, soundless. Oh how she hoped darkness was on to something, and that the pillow secretly carried on a 007 life of adventure; Something sinful and dangerous, wild and ridiculous. A secret life of motion, martinis, fast cars, exotic locations. A place where pillow was always in its prime and at its fluffiest. A place where, when asked its name, you could hear it say, in true debonair fashion, Bond, Pillow Bond.
-Tosha Michelle
How My Mind Works
Today I don’t love you.
No. I don’t think I do.
Although I was sure
once I never loved you
before.
But now that I don’t love
you. I’m sure I did
love you once before.
Yes, I most definitely
loved you before.
And if tomorrow, I no
longer love you, then
today perhaps I do
love you, like I loved
you once before.
-Tosha Michelle
Only One
She only wants to bare her body
to one man, only one to know her bones,
the sighs of her mouth, of her heart,
the naked parts of her soul.
Only one man to strip down her voice,
to breathe back her breath,
only one to know the wilderness of her desire,
to know only one man calls out to her in his dreams,
speaking her name as if it were pagan as if
it were a psalm.
She wants uncompromising totality, the near impossible breath
from water, fire, bare, possession unclothed, belonging to one man,
his being inside of her, the only one she wants
to want. His bones. Her bones. Belonging.
She wants one man, only one, to undress his soul for her only.
Knowing that it won’t always be easy
some nights his heart might ache
for the touch of new bones, the unknown breath,
the unclothed breath of someone less difficult,
but she will honor that ache and sooth it with her sweetness,
breath after loving breath, speaking to her one man,
her only.
-Tosha Michelle
Photo courtesy of lostkat
Everything I Never Told You 