I’m honored to be the featured blogger of the month over at my friend Robert’s site. Robert is a talented artist and writer. Please check out his work.
Tag: photography
Wisps of Him
She carried his image like a cherish photograph- a handsome man dressed in a soft, faded sweater, blue jeans, and loafers, standing on the beach in a seaside town on the last day of November. The sky hinting at something brighter. There was hope but no chance. The sun mournfully hid behind the clouds. The seductive and perilous waves tried to shake the image.
The image would not fade. It was the eve of the other life she would never live. In the years to follow, she would return, her heart trying to translate what was never meant to be. Her singular salvation of faded dreams and a man she loved well once, lost to the seasonal tides of life and the fatal missteps of fate out of time.
-Tosha Michelle
The Self
The self always strikes
dissonant chords,
the world of her mind
never quite at peace.
More often, the self walks
along imagination’s street.
Here she is free from
monotony and fear.
The self wants? What?
A freezing shot of clarity?
The pulse and throb
of a sexy life?
The bruised scent of strawberries?
Piano keys and satin sheets,
a world free from hate?
The sweet salt of a lover’s skin?
The self never can seem
to get it right.
She offers herself to pen and paper.
Writing her rebellious truths.
She travels along on words
in moonlight visions,
casting a poetic sheen.
Plunging toward that place
you aren’t allowed to dive,
but the self does anyway.
Here she comes alive.
Here there’s no bottom.
No end. Here the self can
tell you anything.
Watch the self
spilt herself open.
times three.
-Tosha Michelle
“Everything that drowns me, makes me wanna fly”
Particles
For J and P
We no longer exist,
but there still residual
dust to clean up.
Butterscotch wrapped in
clinging plastic.
The pull and tug of the
invisible.
Your arms.
The only sun.
The evening a chance to
yearn for a fresh dawn.
-Tosha Michelle
My cover of Taylor Swift’ s”Last Kiss”
Listen to Last Kiss (cover, vocals only) by Tosha Michelle 2020 #np on #SoundCloud
On Becoming a Raven
The beautiful edgy woman
with the death stare
is sure I’m a one way door.
The all American girl,
a one shot deal in
illuminated skin.
She would never suspect
that I drink in
crows like the sky,
that I find clarity in chaos.
that I drowned Barbie
in a pool of cement,
that I may look like a black and white
1950’s candy sweet darling.
But inside my heart wears
leather, tattoos, a storm brews
beneath my skin.
The years giving me
color and form.
taking me from
red blush to blood red.
as summer turns to fall.
Underscoring the
damp edges of my soul.
Finally, growing
into my backbone.
I’m the other side of her
projection now.
A soul reborn feral.
Finding beauty in asymmetry.
Nurtured by rainfall that pools
into darkness.
Filing my nails on thorns.
Naive Southern Belle no longer.
The nightingale turned
into a raven with teeth.
-Tosha Michelle
My Plea
Typical, I’m already lost
and you house is nowhere
in sight. Dusk is setting in
and there goes my light.
All day I sat near the
pine tree watching the
birds fly away from the cold.
The long limbs of the branches
shedding their yellow and gold.
Fallen leaves all around me,
crushed to the earth. I see
just the tip of the solitairy
orange leaf I have hoped for.
-Tosha Michelle
Starlight
Sleep unraveling from her soul,
she takes his hand.
They walk through a garden
at midnight.
Her bare feet sinking into the
lushness of the grass.
The moon plays hide and seek
between the weeping willows.
In the morning, she won’t remember
her dream, but she will remember
a feeling and the residue of moon dust.
In a poem she’ll reflect on
how the stars drew near to her.
In words, those stars become
her constellations.
They are like a million hearts
yearning…. burning.
Her poem reaching back to
the sky. Beckoning-
-Tosha Michelle
Winter Song
Winter will always take the light.
The birds will go too.
The cold returns.
The leaves abandon the trees.
You live with it.
You survive.
Knowing it doesn’t matter,
you still hold the birds in the
lushness of green.
The magnolias bloom.
Alive in your mind.
-Tosha Michelle
Life in x’s and o”s
On those rare occasions when the
stars in the sky fail not to disappoint
And even the earth is winded from
the sky’s beauty.
Stop. Just for a moment
and let the night light absorb you.
Our lives are painted as simply and as
haphazardly as a pre schooler turnned loose
with their first art kit. Leaving a trail of x’s
and o’s behind us in the grass until the
entire lawn shifts.
Tonight, for a second, let’s tear away
the leaves from a trees and dance
with the branches to the song of
a whippoorwill
In the morning, the sun
will pull us forward.
-Tosha Michelle
Cold Heart
Our love was a dark continent
we shared, violent and untamed.
It was unholy and seductive and left
destruction in its wake.
We were wind and fire.
Hot beginnings and painted
roads that led to secret gardens.
How quickly heaven was lost to us
when the sky destroyed the night
and the night decimated the sky.
When the lightening struck
we weren’t surprised when
the tree limbs splintered.
Knowing the branches couldn’t save us.
The storm burning away what
was left of the twisted roots
but never the wildness of our hearts.
The moon and I still yearn
for the chaos. Stealing our
breath and taking out sanity away.
God, how I wanted the pain,
the pleasure to abide,
but you can’t control the weather
Now the aftereffect remains.
and the wind goes on.
Closing all the windows as the
chill sets in. The cold comes
and you live with it.
-Tosha Michelle
Everything I Never Told You 