Love Me

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Hello. This will be my last post until Sunday. I leave you with a (gasp) love poem, done my way. Hopefully, devoid of sap.

Love me, not just my body,
but the curvature of my being.
Take me as I am, as I’ll be.
Give me the quiet music
of your heart. Teach me
the lyrics and tune.
Love me for infinity, and not
just indefinitely. Tell me
we can work, if we work
for it as if it were our livelihood.
As if it were our art.
Love me enough to make
revisions to replenish.
Let me be the black and
blue uprooting your veins.
Love me from the inside out,
where the echos are heard everywhere.
Let me be your irreplaceable.
This body, this spirit, this future corpse.
Let me translate and soothe in a language
that’s never been anywhere but us.
Love me with substance and let our love
be a love of existence. Knowing I’m flawed,
that I’m nothing special but knowing
I’m enough for you.
Love me, like an
idea fully formed, like a love poem
filling the paper to capacity, full of hope,
written at the desk by heart light.
Love me, like yours is the hand
holding the pen.
Let the rhythm belong to you.
Love me, like I’m the
syntax of your verse,
the reason behind your rhyme.

Love me,

-Tosha Michelle

Emily

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She spent the month of July
with Emily Dickinson.

The sun burned her eyes,
but she read on.

Her cat napped at her feet.
Nearby you could hear people
playing volleyball.

When inspiration failed, she
looked for a thing with feathers.

She wore an old t-shirt that read
“Heart, we will forget him”

You could see her reading,
into the evening. Her face
lit by moonlight. Every word
her night cap.

While others slept,
she thought about Emily
and what she would do.

Having arrived at a poetic conclusion,
she takes out pen and paper
and writes with modest ink.

For a poem she loses herself
in a room of another life,
in a house far away in Amherst.

Knowing she’s just a small star,
basking in the glow of another.

She composes verse about
her summer companion.
Emily the loner and recluse.

And shares how her favorite
poet became her muse.

-Tosha Michelle

Reprieve

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Leeches and vultures
and time I can’t swallow.
Eyes on the tulips
under ice.
My heart in need of air.

Interior dialogue
Some voice I can’t decipher
endless fears,
needless worry,
and a place to contemplate rest.

-Tosha Michelle

No Gem Here

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Knowing that I’m less than a diamond,
no emerald or pearl, only mere glass.
I’m not afraid of being common,
or choking on insecurity’s bone.

I carry no bitterness in my veins.
Just a faulty valve of naivety.
My blood pulses with compassion.
The flow of humanity.
Brokenness, the barbedwire
fence I like to call my soul.

I trip over needle and thread
trying to sow a stronger spine.
I back tack kindness to my sleeve
and watch as my heart slips to the floor.

Hope perches on my breastbone.
I listen to it’s tune, wanting to soar.
It drowns out the murmurs
of negativity and doubt.
Finally unencumbered,
I sing along, the words repeat
“go on” “go on” “go on”.

-Tosha Michelle

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Another One?

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I know this poem.
It’s another one about you.
In this one you’re the moon,
moving away from the earth.
The nights getting darker.
The poet seemingly losing
herself to longing.
But maybe this is just a
rough draft.
Perhaps in the revision
you’re not the moon,
but the sun she
orbits around and
you take her hand.
Moving closer to her gravity.
Entranced by her softness
and charming ways.
And I feel like I’ve lived
this poem and I know
this man. Alone in bed
I savor evey word.
And for a moment
I get lost in a fantasy
where I believe in the
poem.
I’m holding in my lap
and, in the man, the
poem’s about
His head resting
on my knee.
I memorize every verse.

-Tosha Michelle

Listen to Underneath Adam Lambert Cover by Tosha Michelle 2020 #np on #SoundCloud

Yorkshire Pudding

I’ve plugged this A-hole before but here I go again. If you aren’t following the King of onion gravy, insomnia, strange dialect, weird dance moves, and Chandler Bing wannabe. Shh! Don’t tell him it’s 2016. You’re missing out on some truly diverse and interesting prose and poetry. All kidding aside, his wordsmithing is phenomenal but what’s with his Angelina Jolie lips?

Sooooooo

Follow the yellow brick road. Take a right and follow this guy. The man behind the curtain is pretty OK.

No. 3060 – http://wp.me/p27egX-2Qs

The Invitation

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I’m dreaming of you.
No, someone like you.

Someone who receives
my invitation and can’t
wait to come over.

My house, lit up by
moonshine and heart
light, awaits your arrival.

I bake a cake in expectation.
I’m hoping to sit with you
on the front porch, and
converse in real ways
where I can sit with my
legs crisscross and
not worry about how I look
with my hair up in a bun, no
make up on. You’ll look beyond
the shallow and see grace.

We’ll see our way to the
other side of the conversation,
your side, my side, our side.
And I won’t want more
than I have, now or before.

Did you receive my invitation?
My someone, my someone like you?
I’ve tenderly adjusted the view.
No backbends or recrimination,
not a single back wound.

Come over. The door and chapter remain open.
Rest here with me. Tell me a story.
One we don’t know the ending to.
We’ll make love’s revision
or write anew.

-Tosha Michelle

But I Don’t Wanna be Queen.

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Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen

Mind your manners.
Curl your locks.
Priss and preen
Everyone knows the
world loves pretty.

Don’t sit with your
legs crisscrossed
Sit like a queen.

Smile.
Show those gleaming
pearls.
Never be cross or mean.

Don’t grow old,
frail or weak.

Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen.

Paint your nails.
Fingers and toes.

Give up food.
Remain a size 2.

Be the princess
married to the king.

Don’t sit with your legs
crisscrossed.
Sit like a queen.

-Tosha Michelle

Silence

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Sometimes even the flutter
of moth wings is too loud.
I crave silence. I even write
in hushed tones under an oak
tree where nature seems
spiritual and serenity touches
me through the dew filled daisies.
I raise my pen to the sun.
I take in the charm of fresh air,
a storytelling of peace. It’s easier
to trust in the smell of honeysuckles
and the blueness above than humans.
People vanish with the seasons and create
noise and chaos inside my head. But the sky,
today, at least, is a reliable ally.
It whispers to me in
calm meditative tones
In the quiet I breathe again.

-Tosha Michelle

Understanding

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I always want the things I can’t understand.
And I want understanding
from the things I can’t understand.
I turn them over in my mind like a Rubik’s Cube,
or an outdated reference.

This is regardless, of the things I have and do understand.

What’s the demarcation between settling and unrealistic expectations?

Why am I more interested in the mist than seeing the horizon?

What is it I think I’m missing: sex, romance, adventure, simplicity, humidity?

Blocked by what- responsiblility, obligations, discipline, weather?

I don’t want the mist to clear.
I play keep away with the sun.

The wheels on the bus
turn round and round but
I’m not waiting on a ride.
I’m going nowhere.

Maybe my mind just has a grudge against me.
Look at it always wanting something more,
in spite of….

-Tosha Michelle