City Haze
by Tosha Michelle
Dance with me in the city haze,
Through September grooves.
under the beauty of a harvest moon,
in pattern fields of amber.
Colored by a heavenly mist, dust of serenity.
We’ll set the night ablaze.
While the shadows enfold us
as the willow whispers
And the wind sings us a melodic tune.
Our imagination sets the beat.
We’ll find solace and cohesion,
As melancholy drains away
on cracked sidewalks of urban decay.
I Don’t Want to be Just Like You.
By Tosha Michelle.
If we lose our individuality,
We lose what’s make us unique.
I don’t want to be just like you.
I don’t want you to be just like me.
Imagine if we were all the same.
A paradigm of indistinguishability
The world would be innate and banal.
We’ve walk around in a zombiified state,
trapped in our own egalitarian but bromidicdevices.
The world needs diversity.
There’s a rightness and purity in being different.
We’re all family, our mélange makes us beautiful.
Our commonality is our humanity, rooted in love we grow.
Remember at the station, waiting
On the train, on that sultry summer day?
We stood lost in an embrace, breathing in
each other that way. that awful, terrible,
perfect mad and delicious way that took us
to the shrouded place.
Remember at the station that day, waiting
on the train, as the wind hummed a lovers tune?
She sang of sublime ends, from supple beginnings.
the alluring medley of serenity in a war of rhyme
on the sharp bloody edge of Neverland and Narnia,
the peaceful enchanting interlude of rage & myth.
Remember at the station, that day, as
the train churned closer and we cussed goodbye
His steam a prelude to our eternal kiss, the sun
soaked, never ending fuel of light, of love, of
heat. Basking and bathing,
merged and emerged and submerged,
Dancing and swaying in time
with golden chariot and the huntress.
Remember at the station that day, as
the train tugged away, on a endless track?
We gazed as it came — as it came — as it went
through the crossroads. We did not know,
our own separate, distant destinations,. Our own
rail-less wild paths cut into unimagined mountainsides
You to the west, me to the east.
Remember the station that day as
the train, conducted our last kiss?
That gaping wound where our lips met. Where
we learned cruel fate is hot love and all love is
the calamity of UN-armored battle. We all go under
wrong or right. Each of us blankets miles and the ground
is nothing but a shifting litter with irascible iridescent hope
and hurt-dulled dreams, unfulfilled plans and schemes.
Remember the station that day, waiting
in twilight until we forgot and traveled on, and on
alone, with only prayers of new Twilight to set
in stony slumber with hard solace of old loves loss
then found again.
-Tosha Michelle
by Tosha Michelle
Sunshine paints the canvas of my mind.
Blinding me to heartache,
Bleaching away decay,
Shadows fade away.
Grief passes on to where it came.
Vivid shades of orange and blues.
Replace the bleak gray hues.
Basking in the light of love,
Dinning with cheery trees,
I live again.
The rip current consumes me.
Dragging me under in a rage,
I struggle against the tide.
Battling the demons of a water drenched mind.
Caught in a vortex of time,
Sun and dry land mock me.
I refuse to be destroyed by the elements.
My arms reach out to the trees.
Their branches sway toward me
But it’s not enough.
In desperation I turn to the earth.
The substance of life,
Hatred and failure taunt me.
With bloody hands and bruise knuckles.
I dig through a wasteland of hopelessness.
Wondering why God has forsaken me.
As the ground beneath continues to break,
I’m free falling into the labyrinth of chaos,
And underworld of isolation,
Night falls.
I lift my head to cry out.
Suddenly overcome by the beauty and magnitude of the stars.
I’m consumed by the will to live and be…
The struggle only amplifies my resolve.
Solace and hope are elemental.
An alive in me.
Words in a book,
Call to me like the daughters of the river god
Getting lost between the pages.
I hide between the lines.
Finding comfort
Cover to cover.
Submerging myself in prose
Drowning in poetic metaphors.
An Odyssey of an open mind.
Lost in an endless wasteland of insipidness.
Not knowing who to trust.
Groping around in the darkness.
Seeking light and renewal.
Lost with no direction.
With no compass to guide me.
Lost in my thoughts,
A labyrinth of confusion
Lost in the past, with an uncertain future
What will be my path?
Lost in worry, endless drifting.
With so many decisions still left to be made.
Lost yet not forgotten
Hope‘s flame still burns.
Knowing somehow, someday, the tables will turn.
Removing my rose colored glasses.
Stepping down from my Ivory Tower.
Into a broken world.
Kicking Pollyanna to the curb.
Yesterday everything was disposable.
Self pity was my guide.
Always crying wolf.
For the suffering I had known.
Today the bubble burst.
Choking on my own callous disregard.
Slapping me out of my apathetic slumber.
To hell with selfishness and pride.
Eyes wide open. The blinders off
My heart cries..my soul aches
For the child who’s never known love.
Only abuse and neglect.
For man in need of a home.
Making a bed out of concrete and stone.
For the drug addict who fallen through the cracks.
Who can’t find her way back.
For empty bellies and a cruel world.
The sex slave being pimped on the street.
Only 15 years old her body bought and sold.
For war torn countries, surrounded by senseless death.
Genocide, mutilated figures, horrific acts..all in the name of hate.
Smashing my rose colored glasses against the wall of apathy.
Tearing down the Ivory Tower.
I live n the light of grace
Vowing to be a voice for change.
To take a stand, to never lie down in complacency again.
My shield hope. My sword compassion.
Eyes wide open in clarity and love.
-Tosha Michelle
Mr. Elite
Mr. Elite with a rose in his lapel,
Wearing a condescending smile,.
A mask of civility and refinement,
Underneath he is repelled.
A girl in a vintage dress, demure and shy,
Humble visage, wanting only to impress.
A heartfelt smile, a beguiling sigh.
She briefly catches his eye.
Her apprehended affections,
Cast aside like bad tasting wine.
Mr. Elite with the rose in his lapel.
Slowly watched as the flower fell.
And upon descending left a black spot
a permanent mark.
The proud flower,
in all its bold and illustrious wonder.
The sheen of propriety. Gone.
Tarnish by a callous disregard.
Mr. Elite for a second wavered in his shallow ways.
But for the girl the rose had lost it luster.
Everything I Never Told You 