Vision+Voice

Old Man Johnson is the worst, the children sing.
His pockmarked skin creases as
He yells at a butterfly that landed on his azalea bush.
Wiry grey hair sticking out in all directions,
He slams the door in the face of a nun.
His inflamed eyes dart around wildly,
Searching for his next victim.
“Mr. Johnson, could you spare some flour for a neighbor?”
He smiles a terrible smile
As he pours the last of his flour into the wastebin.
But, as the daylight wanes and the moon starts to show her face,
His smile drops.
He retreats to his favorite mantle in his favorite room
And stares at the woman in the picture.
A whisper of a tear falls from his eye;
He just misses his wife.

Let me give some background on myself.
I come from creole and native american descent.
My mother and father worked very hard and,
me and my brother are the first in the family born into something.
Opportunity.
The American Dream.
Being the first, I have a different perspective.
I know this shit aint guaranteed unlike a lot of my peers.
I’ve seen my uncles go to jail
cousins in foster care and having babies too young.
I’ve seen the grandmas cry and struggle.
Yet what do they all claim?
Christ.
Jesus.
The lord.
There was no religion pushed on me as a child,
My mother believing in the spirit and my father believing in nothing.
As I see the cycles of self destruction in my family,
I began to resent God.
Thinking these people just need something.
Me in my 14 year old all knowing wisdom
is stronger than all of them,
I don’t need shit
I’m okay with the fact that nobody knows after death.
Fool.
What I’m leaning in my years is for so long,
I thought of religion and especially christ,
as a crutch for people with a fear of the unknown,
but now with years of experience in this world,
seeing a little more,
motherfuckers need the lord.
This world is so damn cold.
Boys younger than me killed in the street.
If I’m a mother to one of these massacres
I would pray day and night that there is a god.
Just in the hopes of seeing my child again.
People need god,
this doesn’t really change my original theory,
but I understand now,
humans can’t handle all of this,
the evils,
the hate,
the killing.
As human beings people have to believe in something,
just to continue living in this world of great evil.
Of course with great evil there is great good.
When you come from nothing,
how are you suppost to give a fuck about a sonnet
Or fucking Shakespeare.
White men been trying kill us forever,
how can you ask me to give a fuck now,when i’m just trying to survive.
How in the world do I care about a sonnet?
At the same time.
Education is the only escape from poverty.
The only constant escape.
It’s a paradox
So what the fuck are these kids suppoed to do?
Shit I don’t know, maybe pray?

To me, she was one in a million
An incomparable glowing star
Her smile was worth every sacrifice
Her eyes were pure sapphire blue
I would’ve given anything for a second of her time
To gaze upon her and call her my own

To her, I was something to own
A boy who was one of one million
Not quite a waste of her time
I was a dead glow, a never-blooming star
Her gaze was purely blue
Her public image for me was not worth her sacrifice

Her friends made a dare for her sacrifice
Actions like this were not ones she made on her own
Her goal was to turn my emotions blue
I spray on my cologne One Million
For tonight I felt like a star
This was my chance, it was my time

The first sign should’ve been her checking the time
My money wouldn’t be my only sacrifice
Tonight she was to be my star
The only effort of conversation was my own
The place was crowded, but far from a million
I couldn’t help it but some of my feelings were blue

Her harsh words turned my mind blue
It was clear I had wasted my time
She wanted a man who had a few million
She wanted someone with too much to sacrifice
Her joy in destroying me was enough on its own
She crushed my heart like a collapsing star

Her performance should’ve earned a Hollywood star
My world became like ice, cold and blue
Her hurtful words “You didn’t have a chance with me, I’m on a level of my own”
This was a scar that wouldn’t fade with time
To feed her ego and the humor of her friends I was the sacrifice
Still to me, she was one in a million

A star may burn out over time
Those eyes like blue giants, may collapse in sacrifice
Even so, she will always be one in a million, and this love and sadness is my own

Winter depression is just a saying,
but it is true for those who speak it.
With each season, a tree grows taller and stronger,
roots digging deep and branches reaching out.
This tree, once small and fragile,
now stands as a symbol of growth and resilience,
whispering her story to the wind
leaves began to fall in preparation for winter.
Winter passes and spring rolls around,
the tree is making memories
Her leaves grow back
Symbolizing change
To grow
To run deep
And to be brave enough to repeat the cycle.

She could paint the way she dreamt

You’d watch her slowly drown
She’d sink below the surface
And float among the downed
Those who became their paintings
Their statues and their art
Would gladly help her anchor
Her ever beating heart
She’d never break the surface
Because her paintings were her breath
She made strokes at every second
She saw stillness as her death

To some
She looked like she was gone
Taken by the water
And dragged beneath at dawn
To them
It was a curse
To her
It was a gift
But to me it meant much more
When I had nothing left

I’d sit there by the water
From the morning to the night
Just to watch the altar
Her brushes left behind
The paints she spilled formed waves
That sparkled for the blind
Her creations in all their glory
Danced with every glow
Every stroke told a story
That she grew from down below

My journey to the shore
Still follows me today
It’s in my stokes
It’s in my lines
It’s in the words I say
The water will be there
To pull gently at my feet
Urging me to join her
Far within the deep

Maybe I’ll find a shore
To someday make my own
I’ll see her face like never before
She’ll see how much I’ve grown
Then gladly help me anchor
My ever beating heart
I’ll never break the surface
Because my paintings are my breath
I’ll make strokes at every second
And see stillness as my death
Blessed to float among the downed
I’ll sink below the surface
You’ll watch me slowly drown

If I could paint the way I dream

So we wear gloves on our left hands and tell each other that we’re infinitely warmer.
Look: almost all of us were born where the heat rains down and blocks you in,
dirt swimming on the edges of our porches.
And we all keep turning to each other and saying at least it’s not summer
‘cause Chloe’s not seeing spots and Haley’s not sitting out
and everybody’s anger froze in their throats in the morning
So nobody’s yelling at Navarro high and we can all still shake gloved hands: good match.
And anyone who wasn’t born here figured out the heat quick,
that its better to wait out a tournament with backs facing the wind
than to have anyone’s face in the sun.
We take a break to take our right hands off the racquets and put them in our pockets and
breathe hot air on cracking knuckles and reddened thumbs.
It’s 43, but we don’t actually know freezing
so William puts on a jacket and Kalen curses at each gust of wind and
we readjust our gloves, pick up balls with our other hands. And
all of us thinking about leaving here take off layers
to prove that we could make it anywhere else, where
heat stays in the sky and doesn’t settle on the courts, Where
All of us who know all of us don’t know anyone at all and
someone eventually says it’s really not that cold.
It’s 17 in Boston like they’ve ever lived another life but this one.

I’ve stood within this room for as long as I have known
This box is my earth, my world, my reality alone
I will be, forever be, content to man this throne
Throne of chilling, uneven, and unfriendly stone
Although to me it was the greatest friend to know
Just me and the chamber, ah, my chamber. My own.

But yesterday I heard this, knocking
Ignoring it, I end up chalking
Possibilities up to my half-woken mind
After all, I’m the only of my kind
Maybe I couldn’t comprehend that I was blind
Bear in mind, I’d spend eons here
The texture of the surface clear
Or clearer than my hand of which I used to feel it.

Today my world ends, it seems it never did at all
See, today a penetration greeted me this morning on the wall
An aperture that so shamefully appeared upon the wall
Reject, Reject! I mustn’t look through, I must ignore its call!
The pinhole rings
No, It stings, it stings!
It pulls me to its thrall.

Now as I look into the vent, this passage into the void, I realize
I was the one in nothingness; a tear runs from my eye.