Tag: style

I Love the Broken Ones

Published on by Tosha Michelle52 Comments

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Because I am scarred .
I find comfort in the broken ones
The flowers out of season.
The dark mornings.
The delinquent library books.
The residue that slips through.

The ones not half full but fully
shattered. The ones scarred by
bramble.

I fall toward them with open arms .

For those who are lonely, those
wandering city streets, lost.

I pack kindness in a carry on with
imperfections. The bag so full
it’s spilling over.

The challenge of life, making everything fit.

My back aches for all I tote. There
are exits all around me. The gift shop is giving away apathy.

But I’ve purchase humanity’s ticket and I’m not going back.

Realizing life is more than chiffon pie and summer afternoons.

Knowing it isn’t the sky that matters but how we fly through it.

Navigating with a fractured flight map of scars,
counter winds and all.

Compassion our wings
The destination, love.

-Tosha Michelle

She’s

Published on by Tosha Michelle53 Comments

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She ‘s Beatrice and Delilah.
an illusion, a crime

She’s a skyscape that slips
from blue, to grey, to red.

She’s a spider web over
a bank vault.

She’s the pull swirling
in his chest.

She’s a whisper of longing
stuck in his ear.

She’s a wilder life, the sweet
seed, his heart’s core.

She’s a sigh, ragged and
melancholy.

She’s a crushing need
a helix of yearning.

She’s chemistry and anatomy.

She’s the witching hour’s
pleasures of bourbon and sin.

She’s soaked in summer,
spun in contradictions.

She’s a flame grabbing what
it wants, a tumultuous embrace.

She’s a thousand lips bruising
his skin.

She’s a back arching, guttural
moan.

She’s rhythm and release.

She’s as intrusive as a power
outage

She’s as frustrating as a
misstep.

She’s as elusive as spindrift
night.

She’s a woman set in his type,
born in ink, language spilling out.

She’s what he conjugates.
The artistry of his craft

-Tosha Michelle

If I Were King of The World

Published on by Tosha Michelle35 Comments

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This isn’t my most eloquent poem. I’m aware. My silly and playful side needs an outlet, too. For now, I’ve locked angst in the closet.

If I were king of the
world. For this poem
let’s suppose that
this is a thing.

I would never lose
touch with the details.
I would answer all
your calls.

I would be a regular
at the Starbucks you
hang out in.

There would be laugher
in thunder. I wouldn’t
pretend to be bigger
than you.

Salvation would be
found in art and folly.

The mourning doves
would learn jazz and
how to wing it.

The livable life would
be embraced. Slow on
recliners and TV viewing.

Everyone would have
a place at my table.
I would dispense milk
and clothes, but never
unsolicited advice.

Good sex and good
manners would be
cultivated.

Love would come
without conditions.
I would lay my kisses
on imperfections
and celebrate the
different and strange.

I would do my best to
catch hearts falling
from pine trees.

Everyone would be
required to read Henry
Miller and Fitzgerald.

The Karxashians and E
would be banned to their
own island. Egos and
ignorance too.

Like any king, I would
contradict myself, but
mostly, with humor and
nonsensical poetry.

Water would be
plentiful. Wine too.

I wouldn’t take away
all your burden, some
are needed. How flimsy
our characters would be
without them.

Earth would be spun
in hope. There would
be 7 days of fun. The
8th day, chocolate.

Instead of a robe
and crown, I would
wear yoga pants
and a T-shirt with
James Purefoy face
on it. Everyone would
know who James
Purefoy is.

Words would live in
evey home. Love
would hang out in
the kitchen.

The inner world would
would trump the outer,
which reminds me,
there would be no
Donald Trump.

-Tosha Michelle

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Little Boy Blue and Mary Quite Contrary

Published on by Tosha Michelle58 Comments

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Dear Past,

It’s been awhile. I come waving a
flag of peace and unarmed.
My arsenal is depleted.
I have no time for hate or malice
laced air.
I imagine like me
you want to live in peace without
the threat of guns and
claws. To awaken to the sound
of serenity, not bombs going off
in the distance.

I hope hearing from me doesn’t cause you pain.
Frankly, I miss you. Your theatrical ways,
always leaning toward a Shakespearean tragedy.
No time for much ado about nothing.
Although, everything had to be as you like it.
How you were
a master at parlor games and word play.
Your eyes a depletion
of fallen leaves and green tea.
Hair as dark as a grackle.
Arch so charming, fencing with
unseen stars. Little boy blue,
and Mary. Mary, oh, so contrary.
How our garden did grow.
Shells that pelted the ground,
causing wreckage and carnage.
It wasn’t all welts and hell.
There were days when light swelled
and sliver bells grew.

But i digress, as I climb a slide of memories,
backwards with slippery hands.
My legs lose traction,
my lungs clog with dust.

I end up on the ground negotiating
with my untapped toe.
Trying to reclaim the beat with
half recounted facts
and nostalgia’s false sense of rhythm.
Holding a few cards in the hand you deftly dealt me.
Beside me lies a map, marred
by revisions.
that reads let it go. Let it go.

I stand up, and realizes there’s a
tear in my heart, that I
mistook for my sleeve. I walk through the open gate,
ignoring the stained alleyways,
cobble stone,
and street lights shaped like a question marks.
The scent of orchids lingers in
the tired air.
My soul fighting off bees and
the counter winds.
You, dear past, will always sting.

-Tosha Michelle

Call. Don’t Answer.

Published on by Tosha Michelle35 Comments

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I sometimes long to be a

name no one answers, a

name that no longer

tolerates humanity. I yearn

to take the wintery chill

of my mind and go off by

myself, to live in a great

empty space, where

the breath of solitude can

falls on me like clouds,

-The only greeting needed

the green grass. I long

to belong to none, to be

elusive as residue.

The sun in my arms,

the only embrace I

need.

Then (as it always is)

Someone asked

“so how you been?”

How quickly the name

answers.

-Tosha Michelle