photography – Page 25 – Everything I Never Told You

These Are The Days

Published on March 13, 2016March 13, 2016 by Tosha Michelle91 Comments

Dedicated to my children.

My daughters’ laughter
fills me like a bell.
It’s the most joyous sound.
They share stories with
me over tea. It seethes
in our merriment.
My cup overflows with their
happiness. The days of
Goodnight Moon and Dora
The Explorer long since
past. I’m thankful for
what was, happy for what
is. Pleased by
the young women they
are slowly, not so slowly
growing into. I pray to
the God of teenagers and
driver’s licenses and hair
products. Since it seems
what we are made of is their
images, dark hair, blue eyes.
Blessed is she who gets
to kiss those beautiful
sweet heads. Sitting
with them in the kitchen
after a wrecked day. Thank
you for their laughter and
this unearned sweetness.
To the God of two beautiful
miracles,

I say, Amen.

-Tosha Michelle

My Port of Call

Published on March 12, 2016March 12, 2016 by Tosha Michelle105 Comments

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

Suffused

Published on March 10, 2016March 10, 2016 by Tosha Michelle75 Comments

I write my life in black
and blue.
I’m the girl suffused with
exclamation marks
and dramatic pauses.
My words infused
with dust.
The counter winds of my mind.
Years linger on the windowsill.
The past flows from the
same white cup.
Memories arrive like Jehovah’s Witnesses
on my front doorstep.
Fragments of my life
trying to convert me.
Pestering me to revert back.
Trying to lure me out with
promises of redemption.
I reattach myself
one line at a time.
Slipping from grey
into lavender.
Bound to advance
not retreat, I vow
to right my upside down heart
by the slip of pen
and the exorcism of yesterday.
I slice myself in threes
and write my riddle of release
over paper full of
missteps and scars.

-Tosha Michelle

Journals

Published on March 5, 2016 by Tosha Michelle67 Comments

The craving for them is on par
with my desire for chocolate
and James Purefoy.
It’s almost carnal, this longing I have
for the blank pages.
How I love to let the want fester and grow.
My mind a compass of yearning.
This urge to fill them with erotic possibilities,
kissing the pages with ink and language.
I approach them like a hopeful lover.

I don’t need shoes or jewelry or a line of men out my door.
I just need you to direct me to the nearest bookstore or stationary shop.
I can never get enough. I’m impractical, wanton, greedy…

My house is a shrine cover to cupboard. Any day now I expect them
to get together and throw a meet and greet.
I don’t know how they cope with the burden
of my chaotic musings, my erratic penmanship, my half truths,
my outright lies, my heart’s telling secrets.
I love them for never being judgy of my judgement.
Always there to offset any loneliness.
They are the most patient of listeners. I scrawl my confessions out
and there’s always another lovely page ready to learn more.
I confess I might need an intervention, journal rehab.
Until then it’s just me and my sweet notebooks
of beginnings where preservation and obsession
never end.

-Tosha Michelle

The Day After

Published on February 29, 2016February 29, 2016 by Tosha Michelle100 Comments

He’s somewhere between a
brother and a lover.
But not my brother or lover.
He says my sighs say broken.
And because he’s near I’m
transformed somehow.
The words sound different
when they come out of
my mouth.
My form has changed, even
the evergreens take notice.
I bathe in the dappled light
between the trees.
He takes my hand and leads
me down an uncharted road,
where no one has thought of easy.
He says December is the perfect month
for skinny dipping in Minnesota.

-Tosha Michelle

Upon Reaching for the Sky

Published on February 28, 2016February 28, 2016 by Tosha Michelle63 Comments

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

Published on February 24, 2016 by Tosha Michelle68 Comments

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

Only One

Published on February 18, 2016 by Tosha Michelle94 Comments

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

Then Sings My Soul

Published on February 16, 2016 by Tosha Michelle68 Comments

I once sang of faith
with unwavering clarity.
Certainty in every note.
The wild berry of a purple heart,
noble and true until hope unlatched,
fear reaching it’s breaking point.

How quickly the fruit
turnned bitter on my tongue.
Now I struggle to hold on
to the melody,
whispering my song
through broken lungs.

-Tosha Michelle