Old Love Letters 

Imagine discovering a box
of old love letters.
At first glance the language
is hard to decipher,
written in the secret code
of lovers.
A past you can barely
recall. The girl
you were long since gone.
You marvel at his
dotted Is and counterstrokes,
knowing now he had
something to hide, that he
left no clues.
But now you know to read the
movement, the pattern
of his hands. You’ll trace
the beauty and betrayal
of young love by
the placement of
the periods, the allusions
and faulty script.
The blueprint of  heartache
and blue  eyes.

-Tosha Michelle

No Turning Back.

The well-traveled river has been everywhere one could imagine. Discerning, dividing, cutting deep into rocks. It’s seen it all. Everything has been done and said where it comes from. Yet, it still longs to return to the sea. I dip my toes into its water. The tide pushing against me, the waves echo another time and place, and a long ago hurricane far enough away now that the river should have forgotten. Yet its heart is still filled with rhe memory of seaweed. The shore, not satisfied with the sway of the waves taunts the river. Flaunting its erosion in its face.

-Tosha Michelle 

Leaving on a Jet Plane 

This covet goes out to my friend Randy. Lovely woman  You can find her blog here.

https://newsnotes1.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/the-i-team-the-pupils-final-examination/

I would also like to thank my friend Danny for his keyboard work and harmonies on this song.

Hope you enjoy

Alternate Endings

I always shut the door on the past,
but forget to lock it.
I still find hope in the
alternate endings, written
but yet to be shot.
My gauzy veil gets
caught in the closing
curtain every time.
I compose yesterday
in my poetry.
I find solace in fastening
myself to what was.
Binded to moments long gone.
I write text to loosen the memories,
to dissolve the unrest
inside of me.
The undertone of melancholy,
my favorite feeling,
lingers in the emphatic prose.
For a poem, I fall back
into what was.
Then I put the pen down
and give myself to the now.
Letting the presence remain
perched for the here,
on my shoulder.
Hoping, one day words
will linger in today.

Tosha Michelle 

Willfully Wild

If you’re going to love,

love wilfully and wildly,

like a leaf on the wind

soaring out,

with abandon.

Burn yourself through

for passion.

Make an altar of greater than.

Praise longing and

its insanity

Love bold men,

the ones like red umbrellas

with strong wooden

handles, and a fancy inscription,

big and deep, that makes you

feel like the daintiest

of ladies out for an

afternoon stroll,

his sheltering arms

keeping out the misty rain.

Let every idea you have

be love.

Study him like

you would the curve

of the horizon.

Follow your instinct,

lose the pattern.

Go where he goes.

Don’t let the sun disappear.

Let it swell

and put him first,

draw him closer,

until he believes in you

and the sky trembles

when you touch.

Fall

Fall

into his eyes, his thighs,

the pulse of his being.

Fall into ripeness, rightness,

until time is stripped away,

and your soul is cast in

forethought. Forethought

brushed in red and heat.

Never to be an afterthought.

If you’re going love, love

willfully and wildly until

you are spent, until the stars

shatter over the white tips

of pillowcase as two lovers

fall out of God’s mouth into

rapture. 

-Tosha Michelle

He Is 

He’s that something to lean

on that doesn’t give away

under the weight of my fears.

He receives my light and

returns it.

He unlocks my secrets and hides

the key.

Into his ears he listens as I speak

my demons in an inexhaustible

language.

For once I’m not afraid of the wind

breaking my flowerpots.

He pulls my hands away from

my eyes and encourages me

to look at the beauty of the sky.

He takes my hand and we follow

the blue bird into the woods.

My soul lights up with every

sways of the tree branches.

I breathe in the golden air.

Knowing it will linger on

even if there is a change in

the atmosphere.

Let the wind announce rain.

Let it stick to my hair, muddy

my feet.

I’ll just slip closer to his light,

closer to his arms, back to

dreams where the world opens

endlessly for me.

Tosha Michelle

And Everything 

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He makes my heart leap

But i’m so very careful of the rocks

In the distance I see the lush

greenness of the vineyard.

The roots true. The vines ripe

Do I have faith in the landscape?

It still looks abstract from here.

I walk on with my shoes of hope

wearing clear blue skies and a

thawed out soul.

 

Still I worry about a change in

the weather, falling into a ravine

My spirit like a sacred dare

challenges me to forget my fears,

to journey on deeper into what

could become less or more.

 

His voice in the distance

permeates my darker self until

all I see is sunlight.

Who can say what dust will bring?

Wine or a cloud spun our of

misguided fate?.

 

For now the light glimmers

How freeing it is branching

it’s way out into the unknowns.

 

-Tosha Michelle

 

Doll Friend


My voice is a tiny grain
in his skull to be devoured
by vultures or fertilized by madness.
Evey morning as I rise I
pay homage to his stony
face. I read novels into
his stature that never moves
He never remembers anything
beyond his well preened shoes
I type with one eye open well
into the day. In stillness,
he stares narratives through me
Frantically , I write nightmares
in bold font until I am spent.
At midnight I place him back under glass.
My eggs firmly stored in his basket.

Why?

When I get tired.
I sometimes wonder
what’s this poetry
thing all about?

What am I writing for?
During these times
I’m usually stuck
in a creative muck,
I still don’t dare
call it a rut.

There’s no food
in the picnic basket
so I eat drudgery instead.
My mouth full of lost time.

I’m so hungry for words
that have run off
with my silk dresses.
I dream of nouns, adjectives,
and verbs, sinking
in a sea of syntax.

I try to dive in
but get stuck in the sand.
I sit along the shore
I wait. As seagulls fly
from under my bed,
my silk dresses hanging
from up above.
I reach for them
while I still can.

-Tosha Michelle 

Grace 


I’ve inhaled tbe spell of honeysuckles
I’ve invented my own fortune,
spinning them into the fabric of my skin.
I leave poems behind for you to read
I sing you songs made of
moonshine and starlight.
The keening of my heart
in every note.
I no longer believe in stories with no endings
but I do believe we create
our own beginnings.

-Tosha Michelle