And So You Gave Me This Book

And so you gave me this book
This journal that looks
Like some old fashioned piece
The kind that they read
In Jane Austin movies
In a package that read
Who I was in your head
Just some idea that you know
Jeremy the poet
And you told me
With such sweet clarity
That the first poem should be
About you and me
Written beautifully
And I thought at the time
That request was divine
I could just die
Rhyming
But the days that march on
Proved just how anonymous
I truly was in your eyes
Just some other guy
With his own shtick
A choice to be picked
There was the guy from the club
The guy who was ugly
But was packin’ the money
The kiss guy like honey
And then there was me
The man you don’t know
But can guess is a poet
Because you saw my show
Reading at an open
Mic night
Bringing a gift to ignite
The interest within
My starving artist skin
Just a number and an age
Just some misbehaved
Radical guy
A little surprising
At times
But that’s it
That’s the extent
Of what you know
About the poet
And so
You told me you loved me
After my show
And reminded me to write a poem
A poem
About what could have been
What happens when
Our hearts begin
Their journey within
One another
Well sadly I must say
That’s not quite the way
It went
With our begin
Came our ending
Because I can’t get stuck
In this fucking
Mess of a world you call home
Without nights alone
Or silent phones
Just texts and sex
And hot messes
You call lovers
Dirty covers
Dirty sheets
Dirty thoughts
About a dirty me
Pimp my world
Pimp my curling
Smoke dance thoughts
Pimp my name as often
As you can
I’m just the poet
And so it seems
The new young thing
No one has seen
Out on top of the scene
Just yet
And you can bet
It’s because I don’t play
The click clichés
And vapid games
You children play
How can it be
It’s up to me
At a ripe twenty
To tell you to grow up
When enough is enough
And it’s time to own up
To that what
Is mature and real
How does that feel
To be unable
To tell that the tables
Have turned
That the grasshopper these days
Gotta teach the sensei
To stare truth in the face
Don’t make me feel old
Like my life is over
The hill and I’m dull
Just because you are full
Of shit and nonsense
I can’t even drink
So why can I think
Before I act
This talent you lack
Despite the fact
That the odds are stacked
In your favor
Savor
This moment, because time’s fast
And I may be the first, but I aint the last
To realize the bullshit you play
And a poet is a bad
One to attack
To try and attract
For the wrong reasons
Because I read on stage
To an audience played
But the countless players
Like you
And as a crowd we all can agree
Aint shit you can do make you worthy
Of a poet like them; a poet like me
So here’s your poem
First in my book
A poem about that shit you pulled
Thinking you were gonna get
Me checked off you list
About how it could have been great
And what could have been made
But turned out to be just another cliché
And you’ll leave without that for which you came
Because I hate a player twice as much as the game
You could have had a poet whisper your name
In passionate sheets in a passionate way
You asked for a poem and a lover that day
But you missed out on love just trying to get laid

On The Streets

And so here’s a toast to the children I will never have from the womb I’ll never carry
Here’s to the war we’ll never win and the man I’ll never marry

I have sister back home
Just got a proposal
To be with a man who likes to use fists
Was a time when dad was like this
But he quit
All that shit
Now my sisters take turns
Learning from burns
They feel on stoves
That already told them no
Told them not to go
Down that road
But rednecks never listen
They get lost in their heads
See, Tupac once said
A thug is someone
Whose gotta overcome
An obstacle set up by society
And I just gotta say
If that is the case
Than you’re looking at some real thug life
I never had some sleepless night
In a urban ghetto hearing police
Breaking the knees
Of my boys in the streets
But I saw meth heads
Blow their houses to shreds
Just behind my shed
On the next block
I’ve seen women get beat
For walking bored on the streets
Just to escape the heat
Of the husbands that beat
Them in between sheets
And call it making love
When its actually a contract
To get money back
From the same government that
Shit on the black part of town
And just looked at us like we should know better
White Trash thug life is too damned bright
On a hot summer day
One garage sale away
From making the payments
On your payday loans
Your stomach groans
Because all you can eat
Is that damned Mickey Dees
For two square meals
A day. You got kids from your honey
And then kids for the money
And then aint it funny
To watch them do it again?
You got kids cause it’s nice
When you can bare ride
That stoned ass all night
Then he leaves you crying
But that’s alright
You got his ass despite
For the next 18 years
Of a life of tears
Because you fear
You have no idea
How to do this right
It’s too bright
This damned white
Trash life
And from where I’m from
That shit just gets dumb
And makes me wonder
How the poor black folks
And the poor white folks
Could just keep going
And never know
How much alike they are
Much less how far

We truly are

From understanding

So I'll say tonight

As the white

Pawn in the fight

That despite

What the two of us think

We are not the only two colors

While the whites and the blacks stand in the streets

And scream

And scream

At least 15

Other shades

Walk past us on days

When the words of hate

Are flying grenades

Sent to each other's neighborhoods

Perhaps if we could

Stop seeing this shit

Like we are opposites...

Black and white are not opposites.

It has led me to see
What else severely
Needs some help
See, we only care about ourselves
Got to let me show
Y’all so you know
The Jena Six get shit
And America’s pissed
But whose shows up
To protest
I’ll give you one guess
It was hardly anybody who looked like me
Out there in a sea
Of those personally
Affected by the ways
We have these days
Of treating ‘the norm’ deviations
Part two
Just for you
Who thought you were fine
With that last set of lines
Let me ask you this
The governments say
To all of them gays
That its not okay
To get married or pray
Or fight to serve
Because we must conserve
Our traditional values
Knowing very well
That’s the line used to sell
So much hate in our past
How many straights can I ask
Would protest on behalf of gay rights?
It’s not your war, right?
And I know some of you are straight and show up
And you are the ones that truly feel love
For the gays and our fight, but let’s be real
Most of you are women
So now, what’s the deal
With the struggles there
Even more evidence of what’s unfair
And selfish about who we’ve become
From the ashes of the bras our mothers burnt
Begging for their voices to be heard
Came a phoenix bird
That shut every one of you up
While you sell stuff
With those double Dee cups
And hurt one another
Just to get to the top
Of a pile that doesn’t even belong to you
Because that phoenix bird
Packs a lot of hurt
And a lot of power with him
The phoenix of chauvinism
Is most likely on your iPod right now
And her name is Ms. Hilton, Ms. Spears
Her name Ms. Hill, 22 years old
And shakin' her ass in a video rapping about skanks
And how nasty freak bitches think they is shit but they aint
Women can change
The world with their brains
But never if they
Are animals
And now I can keep on about how no one plays fair
About how gays are racist and we’re all unaware
Of the immigrant’s fight
Because we don’t think it’s right
To have to learn another language for someone else
Because they came to us, it was their ways that failed
The education of words we need to know
Is so far off that we can’t even show
Those from lands and words not of our own
That we might even feel the slightest remorse
And humanity towards them
And then theirs of course ageism and religion and that list could go on
But I’m just trying to say what’s really wrong
With this world is that my sister needs help
Seeing that she deserves more for herself
And when I think about what the future might hold
For children I will never help grow
But still yet shape their world
My toes curl
At how much we have left to do
Before the American village can speak the same truths
And together raise the American youth
Who realizes empathy, and helps others in need
Despite the fact that personally
Their problems don’t mean shit to that kid
And they’d know that the bigger point is
Injustice at all is not just unfair
Just one threat of it, is a threat everywhere
And then that kid could look up and answer me
When I ask them who said that originally

And say “I don’t know, I heard it on the streets”

Tappin' Feet

I try to make it seem okay
I try to pretend away
What I’m doing to him
When I act like this
When I walk in tight jeans
Down gay-friendly streets
Looks on me
Vanity
Knowing someone might drop some digits
Wanting some things far too vivid
To share with you right now
And don’t think I’m somehow
Going to forget myself and go there
But the thoughts bring some fuck up comfort
That somewhere is someone other
Than myself who sees the work I do
To prepare myself for whom
Ever it is finds his way
To my face
But it’s wrong to be
Impatiently
Waiting
For him to show
And letting this go
To the eyes of ill thoughts
I keep thinking with wish
That all this shit
Is for today
There’s gotta be a way
I can coast this ride
Right through life
On some Mr. Right
Nows
I keep hearing people say
All the different ways
They hope to meet
The one on the streets
Looking into eyes
And feeling realizations
That this is the one
That their search is done
Forever.
But I’m filled with fear
That he’s not here
And so I say
I don’t feel the same
That I’m not opposed
To a love that grows
From man to man through time
Lose one, find one
Until I die
Looking into eyes
To say
That’s the one…these days
Get to the end like you get to the start
Be that via dick, be that via heart
Fuck my way in, fuck my way out
Love my way in, leaving before the shouting
Rather than make it work
That’ll only hurt
The memories we had
Part ways with the past
Change the DVD
Don’t hit repeat
Keep the breaks clean
I found there are ways
In which to obtain
Only the main
Ideas of each love
Stay out of the mud
Love ‘em and leave ‘em soundin’ good to me
Just be sure to love, be sure to leave
But the reality
Is that I want the mud
I want to get stuck
On repeat
With the one for me
Whose perfectly
Shaped to fit
This heart of his
And when I share my kiss
I find I miss
His love
I long to touch
His brushes
I long to kiss the lips
Beautiful enough to send
That smile into the dreams
I see him in
But always forget
When I wake up next to
The man that’ll do
While I get through
Times untold
Flying solo.

Some Fuckin' Choice

And so let me say, without pause today

That this is the way I have been since the day

I came into this world, like a clog in a sink

The last of a body that can’t even think

About children anymore, my mother’s womb

This tired, removed, down-trodden wound

The first slaps of air hit me dead in the face

I feel like I knew then I was headed this way

I remember as a boy sitting down late one night

Realizing how beautiful it felt in Mom’s night-gown

She walked in to see her son in her dress

Taken back in denial, she did her fuckin best

To grab a shirt from my dad made of the same cloth

But a shirt is a shirt and the feeling was lost

We both went to bed that night with a little more age

It was a few years later when I hit the bars of my cage

While you were promised marriage, I was promised AIDS

Smacked my head and looked up to see God starring down

Singing songs with every other boy in my town

But with me he looked sad and he never said a word

So I vowed then and there to live life eternal

I accepted those truths and I sang those songs

I got up on Sunday and made sure to be on time

I wrote poems and stories about church and the lord

And when a nightgown came up I just turned and ignored

But some hair grew on my chest and my voice got real low

And when my balls dropped I tried not to show

The world when and what made my dick grow

I did my best dance around how sick I felt

At the very idea of what’d become of myself

And I never wanted to be the one that fell

From the lord

But I was never asked if that was okay

They saw my limp wrists, and they just shoved me away

But I can still remember those final days with a God even now

Watching his face slowly leave as that angry crowd

Pushed us further away every day

And I never asked for this

I never asked for this

I never wanted this shit

I never wanted this shit

I have loved women deep within my soul

And I’ve loved deep women and I can’t let that go

But I also know

What I can’t do

I am also aware of this glaring truth

No matter how funny this might sound to you

With all the hate I’ve been getting I get through

So you keep this in mind next time you wanna say

Some stupid shit ‘bout how you feel about gays

Some stupid shit ‘bout how you don’t agree

Some stupid shit ‘bout ‘that shit’s on me’

Some stupid shit ‘bout none is free of sin

Some stupid shit like I wanted this

I never wanted this

I don’t want this

But this

Is who I am

This is my face

This is my skin

This is my hair

This is essence

And no matter how you feel about this truth

This shit hurts me far more than it hurts you

I try to defend my brethren

My queers brothers and sisters out there dealin’

But the trouble is we are everywhere

And for us to join up is really unfair

For one group to attempt with ease

For the gays to join up would take world peace

And I aint seen anything looks like that to me

But I’m tired of this shield and my elbow hurts

And I’d rather take dick pills sleeping with girls

Than go on another decade as some topic debate

Who knows? Maybe this is simply the way

I feel because I was raised white

And I don’t know what it’s like in this life

Of living every day with at least some of a fight

Between the life that you lead and the one that’s around you

And I just have to get used to the what’s getting used to

But I must say it’s a whole new kind of hard

With very few struggling elders to call on

Because no one said Dr. King had a choice

No one refused to hear Fitzgerald’s voice

Because she could’ve chose to stop the color of her skin

Because black was her choice and dark was her sin

It was a whole different approach the white man took

Now the white man’s part of us writing this book

On hate in a way that’s invisibly strong

Telling our insides and inseams what they think is wrong

And every group of people gets their chance to deal

With coming to terms with the invisible feelings

Of their sons and daughters and what they can’t hold in

And seems like every fucking group gotta call it a sin

As we throw up our hands and sigh and just leave

Because we don’t have the breathe to explain exactly

Why it hurts before our eyes go moist

And our throats close up can’t make no more noise

I can’t take one more ignorant voice

Talking to me like it’s some fuckin choice

If I Were A Straight Man

If I were a straight man
I would take you in my arms and kiss your neck
Sniff your scent
And die knowing that your day went
Without me
And you survived
While
My insides
Were burning
And turning
Like a churning butter maid
Not just to get laid
But to unmake the made
Bed
Of your legs
But at the end of the day
I’m still man but gay
And so all I can say
Is how was your day
Without me
Carefree?
And clueless to what a world this would be
If you and me could be a we?
If I were a straight man I would die just to taste
Your lower back, and navel
I would paint you in sheets
And it would be shitty
But I would frame it anyway
Because that’s the real way
I see you from these eyes
I would color you with crayons
And sniff the ink
Making me think
Back to my childhood
When women could
Still love me knowing the falls
Watching me play with dolls
And making themselves happy
With the thoughts
If I were a straight man I would be your shield
From the worlds unfortunate reals
And the fakes
And the hate
And the shames
Of what straight boys actually are to straight women
Blind men given a Mark Rothko paintingand told it’s toilet paper
Told to beat and rape her
Told to lie and cheat her
Out of the man she deserves
That lives inside nervous
Too much to come out in any straight boy
Because coming out is for gay boys
Which just annoys
The real man inside of me
So now you can see
Perhaps what I live through
When you joke about the truth
That you wish I were straight
And how great
A couple we’d make
Knowing that what you say is real
Grab this scab and peel
Until you can see that your truth is my truth
And we must learn to deal
So sometimes when you call me
Asking why he
Would do such a thing
And I have to explain
The real worlds view of a man
Which is not what he can be
But what we let him be
To us
Just trust
That I cannot bare this phone call
For I’ve known all along
He would end it this way
And the only things I can say
Are “You’re so much better than what he makes you feel”
Wondering in fact what you really
Take to heart
And what you accept to be the truth
Simply because a gay man told you
We’ll you don’t quite see
That you are that to me
And I don’t have some violent images clouding my views
Of the phenomenal woman that is you
I sing your song I know the whole
Song and dance girl, cause that's my role
Too. I know how we do...
If I were to be rough with you
It would be the good way
Where you silently say
Dominate me
Unspoken permission
Into subtle submission
Overtoned with the knowing
That all this is a show
For you
But that’s if I were a straight man
So don’t ask me to explain
Why he left you this way
I’m learning the same
Symptoms each day
Of what happens when men behave this way
I may be a man when it comes down to brass tacks
But I’ve got the woman’s heart suffering the same attacks
And all I can do is laugh it off
A little girl lost
In a big boys shell
Knowing very well
I may treat some other gay man this way
One day
And someone somewhere will explain me away
To there friend
While I tell you
With some heartfelt reserve
That there was nothing you could have done to deserve this
It’s just the way it is
There’s only so much I can take
And I can
Heap it onto this man
Just if you can
Please understand
That I do what I can
To give you a safe landing
I just stop short of what it is that you need
Because the man in me
Is gay
Every night and every day
And that’s just the way
It goes
Just so
You know.