December Revolutions.

Like snowflakes on the tips of outstretched tongues,

My past memories are disolving

Resolving resolutions; revolving revolutions.

This is how the beginning tastes.

Dance with open thoughts

And dream with doors unlocked.

We are the fearless.

And we're creating worlds with our words,

Painting universes with our verses.

Reversing the curses.

We're writing it in bloody cursive.

We're typing away the scars and erasing the pencil marks,

Bleeding away the broken hearts.

This is the start of something beautiful.

All this gorgeous ugliness blinded by ignorance.

We are the limitless.

They could have never written this.

Bliss enlaced with twisted minds;

There was never enough time to say hello

So we said goodbye and let our souls die.

Blind and deaf; our senses were out of tune.

Immune to cold nights, missing the chills that

Went up hopeful spines.

We discovered realms unknown.

We hold the dreams that deferred in Langston's poem.

Blown by winds that hummed us to sleep

During the nights when the wars kept our heads

Spinning like the worlds axis.

Taking the time off to sit and relax

It's important to understand our purpose.

We did not resurrect to conspire;

We're here to inspire.

Build pathways to minds that have seemed to retire.

Tired of the mainstreams; we're creating oceans to

Open dreams.

We're here to sew back the ripped seams

No more sympathy for those who play innocent like symphonies.

We are the epiphanies of your broken records.

And we stopped listening to your sad songs when

You got our characters all wrong.

We're the strong and the weak.

We're arteests

Speak new languages that we earned painfully.

We hold keys.

And you would not imagine the magic our

Pen's have.

This is the revenge of poetry.

And we're coming with pages filled

With melancholy ink.

This is what we have always wished to be.

Spilling pennies into waterfalls.

These childhood memories are

Beginning to fall.

Calling all poets; we will survive.

And will not compromise with the illiterate.

This is for the musicians. And the struggle.

This is for Lauryn Hill, and the rebirth of souls.

This is for tears never mentioned

This is for the overlooked and the taken advange of.

This is the virgins who's blood has been shunned

By men who thought sex was fun.

This is for the beginning.

And we are standing with our arms in the air

And our fists clenched.

We are the believers.

And even if the sun never shines again,

We know this is not the end.

This is for the beginning.

Because every war has a victory

And we are the epitome of a lesson learned.

And we have earned every single scar

We've ever written about.

We are not just crying.

We are spilling our souls because we know

Someone out there is listening.

And please understand that we hear you.

This is for Ashton.

The pure soul with wounds that have never recognized.

I will wrap my words around yours and we

Will change history.

This is poetry in it's purest form.

Sworn to secrecy; i'm spilling all my ingredients into your lap.

This is for those who's voices have been choked

By hands who provoked love but never showed love.

This is for the dirty and pure.

The confident and unsure.

We will soar.

Past the imperfections, past the accusations, past the mistakes and we

Will fly.

Love, Tianamonique.

November Rebirth.

My wings are growing back from being clipped.

My heart is rich and full of summer.

There are roses all over this place.

I'm finding that even in this cold space

And heartless world, there are still

Beings that make me believe in the seasons.

Makes me believe that change is not far from reason.

I was bleeding for so long but the wounds

Are not as apparent as they used to be.

I told you I would grow and this garden is blooming.

They doomed me.

And they cursed me with crosses wrapped

Around their neck's.

Pretending to be religious.

I was the prey.

And I lifted hands to sing them hymns

Only to be filled with sin.

They forgot how to pray.

This is where the resurrection inside of me took place.

I chanted prayers into myself begging a God to take me away.

And I know they feel the plague now.

They stole the sun from me, and they can't see the light of day now.

I hope my name whispers in the winter winds.

These days are lighter and I can feel

Sunshine in my skin.

I can taste summer's scent again.

And here it goes.

I'm running back to the the mouth of the ocean.

Heading towards the start.

I'm advancing to go.

Always shielding my heart, but open to fill it with

Autumns and springs.

There are things my psalms were holding onto.

Memories and venomous secrets

I always hid them well.

And only time will tell, if they were worth it.

I can't recite you any bible verses,

I don't attend any church,

And on Sunday's, I try not to curse.

But shit, sometimes my heart hurts.

And I can't tell you if God is a man or woman,

But I can tell you he or she exists in me.

And I was reborn because of the fear that they don't.

I reverted back to my methodist baptism.

Closed my eyes and felt purified.

This isn't religious, this is spirtitual.

You won't find any written rituals on these walls.

Tear them down and you'll see tears

Of unheard prayers and sinful years.

They called me a martyr.

Because I refused to beg for forgiveness; I was slaughtered.

I was running away from the fragrant memories of

Bloodied wrists and toxic kisses.

The hisses of yesterday's repent hung heavy

Around my fingertips;

Pushing it's winds in my clenched fists.

I'm fighting for myself even if that mean I have to reminisce.

It's creating a war.

Between my past and my sanity.

Insatiably melancholy; I was never the gospel type.

But these days my laughter is filling with church bells

And I'm remembering how to sing.

This is more than medallions enlaced with jesus' face

And this is more than rosaries as fashion emblems.

And this is more than tattooed ohm symbols.

This is the beginning.

And a journey of finding a self love that was locked

Away for a love scathed.

These bruises will fade I know, and

The rebirth of my soul will be biblical.

I move in yellow movements, no longer living indigo.

Those criminals are evil.

Sneaking fruit from forbidden tree's, still thinking they're holy,

So many adam's and eve's; these thieves may be the death of me.

Moving through streams of expectations and

Blind hallucinations,

Drinking wine and bread; forgetting what the pastor said.

Creating sin's in unwedded beds.

Isn't this what satan fed?

Feeling like i'm getting lost in a bible verse I once read.

All of these holy ghosts are following me and living in my head.

Tried to stay pure; sinned some more instead.

But i'm getting older now.

And it's amazing how far i've come from

Youthful insecurities, and chasing lovesick remedies,

I should have know then someone higher was defending me.

This is about believing in something, everyday.

And there is a power in me that I've missed.

I'm alive because Buddha, Allah, and Jesus exist.

I know i'm breathing for a reason,

How dare you call me atheist.

Amen.

Love, Tianamonique.

October Remedy.

Feeling a little less than empty

My heart is a catastrophe

Written in bloody ink.

And my words are heavy.

So if you don't mind the weight

Please continue reading,

If not, you won't find any apologies.

All i've ever wanted was validation.

That all this humiliation wasn't being wasted.

I'm getting lost in the basis of eternity,

Spilling my soul to make heartsick remedies.

You're killing me, internally.

And this is a love thing.

Sunken cheeks and distant eyes;

The result of being shunned and embarrassed of.

The fact that I wasn't good enough.

Too many questions unanswered.

The why's and why not's never faded

Untying the knots my heart strings created.

I need a change of scenery.

I need a change a pace.

Tired of these familiar places

I've been rearranged and no one has been able

To recognize my face

Or maybe it's them who have become the strangers.

All I know is that i've stepped out of my element,

My zodiac, my morals

To make other's feel comfortable.

And where does that leave me?

On a bridge ready to become a tom petty song.

You're trying to do right but you're already wrong.

You left me alone for to long with thoughts

That my heart wasn't strong enough to decipher.

The old me has died, you will never find her.

I've become the story you never want to tell.

I'm the shadow's, i'm a detailed farewell.

You'll see me in seasons.

You'll remember as a time of the day.

My smile lingers somewhere in a previous decade.

My spirit lays somewhere in an ex lover's bed.

I was massacred.

I was an experiment.

I was the lesson of what not to be.

And i've been taught many times, to women

Who now stand where I was next to men

Who were suppose to love me.

They shoved me into closets webbed with

Promises that were haunting.

Suffocating in loneliness and regret.

Feeling a little less than worthless,

[Yes, these words have been said before]

I've been tainted and jaded.

Picking up old habits,

Blood on my hands it's

Becoming a problem.

I drew you a picture on my skin

Using your razor blade lies,

Your sharp edged eyes,

I drew the demise you so brutally devised.

I'll show you the scars, my love.

They are deep, and unpleasant.

And please don't take this metaphorically

When I say that i've been bleeding horribly.

I've torn through every inch of my skin

Hoping to find the cure.

The reason, that you refuse to love me anymore.

Your rejection is like getting my fingers

Jammed in a thousand doors.

"But I don't love you anymore, I'm so insecure, never knew that love did this"

Badu sings my soul, lost control of my heart.

Unscrewed the hinges and fell loose.

But, I refuse to let this become a catch 22.

You will not be the disease and the cure.

My heart was pure before it met yours.

Corrupted it with unlikely dreams that always left me unsure.

Unsecured and immature, I was blinded

By my thoughts of what it was, went is wasn't.

I was misguided and a little used, love is so deceiving and he was confused.

He was caught in that small space where he realized that

How much he loved me wasn't has much as his want to be free,

So I untied him.

I guess I had confined him.

But we weren't living in the same box

Mine was filled with happiness, he only saw his as locked.

It's still a mystery.

Now i'm a mistress to his/tory.

Because it seem's like everyone's moved on

Except and without me.

Caught up in miser

Love is killing me,

But this is not it for me

I'm pulling apart ever fiber,

Every molecule, every atom.

I'm sciencing my way back to normalcy.

Because these thieves are not sparing me any sanity.

I said I wanted clarity; they left me darkness.

How could I not be exhausted?

He speaks so coldly; i'm frostbit.

We lost it.

But still I'll blossom.

And although my branches have been bent,

And my leaves have been crumbled,

And my pedals have been picked,

The seed's continue to take root

And I hope someday it clicks.

I've been wounded,

And I'm on the path to finding remedies,

He won't be the end of me.

I am still growing.

Without the sun, and without love.

September Indigo.

I'm living but I'm not alive.

Where's the sunshine?

Did the run rise?

I feel it in my thighs.

The burning sighs in

The hallows of my throat

The deadened silence

Of my poetry ridden notes

Always coped well with loneliness,

No surprise that i'm alone in this.

Writing to get rid of this.

I hear the lies they hiss,

Blaming me for the missing sun,

Look at what love's become.

A chase around moon's and

Nights filled with doom

Misused and cold

Shivering bones, frozen like stone

And I can play guilty for only so long.

Bliss is what I seek,

Uncertainty is what I find.

A kiss upon my cheek,

It wasn't real so never mind.

Love and reality never intertwined,

Vines of self hatred, and cursed manipulations,

Tattooed vibrations, rehearsed defamation.

It was a brutal assassination.

Slaughtered dreams with no investigation.

You are the thieves; not me.

Stealing sunshines, and moon beams,

Left in darkness to get lost in.

I'm being held hostage

And they call me anonymous.

They say i'm their enemy,

An unknown rival,

Now i'm fighting for survival

Praying for revival.

They say i'm guilty,

When all I did was love.

The weight of feeling

As insignificant as humanly

Possible is so heavy on my tongue

That i'm biting the inside

Of my cheeks just to keep from

Going numb.

I have a poem written in my veins

Screaming to be read,

Feigning to be bled.

The bruised words left unsaid

Remain in liquid form

Spilling onto transparent floors

Is my heart still beating?

I can't tell anymore.

Intoxicated thoughts

And mindless dreams

Floating through

Insatiable seams.

Sewing together

Blank tears and

Hoarse screams.

Inconsistent means never

Following through.

And i'm through.

With wishing things from you

And them, and her and he

And we will remain strangers

Until I find some familiarity.

They say they hate me.

But the ones hated are the most sacred

And almost always underestimated.

Count our scars and you'll have

Memorized the constellations,

We deserve stars.

I'm going through these phases

Making drastic changes

I'm learning how to save this.

Keep them in my archives,

To look back on when I forget

How to be alive.

When the seasons start feeling like suicides

And hello's feel like genocides

I've been kissing black roses

Exposing my heart

To thorns and love potions

Bled devine devotion

Insignificant emotions

Flooded oceans of

Crumbling tears.

It is here that I realize

How incredibly beautiful lonesome can be.

Eyes swell like bee stings,

And mosquito bites,

And bruised lips.

But swelling is just a healing process.

A form of protection.

And i'm in need of body guards.

So my heart's building an army

Kill your sorry's; you're my quarry.

Murdering lies with no warning.

Because i'm tired of being disposable

People get close to you, then dispose of you,

What do you suppose I do?

I lust for some truth; some proof

That i'm not crazy.

That the sun was stolen from behind enemy lines.

They made me think that for one moment

I went that blind.

They thieved their way into making me

Believe that it was me.

My fault that my heart was shattered.

That my memories were fables

That the songs in my head

Were lies.

They made me suffer.

They told me I asked for this.

To live in darkness.

To be blind of reality.

And maybe that holds some truth

I may have said I wanted serenity

And quiet

And a little peace of mind.

I may have said that I was exhausted

From pretending to not be as broken as I am,

But never did I say it was okay for anyone

To steal my light.

To steal my fire.

They are liars.

Playing innocent because they don't know any better.

They twisted the story.

Became victims.

They said I was filthy.

Put me on trial.

They pleaded not guilty

So convincing, they played their roles well.

It's amazing the lies they so easily tell.

They won; succeeded in stealing the sun.

Now they think they shine so brightly.

Casting shade on my name.

They stole my warmth.

My heat.

Forgetting it was me who put out the rain

In the first place.

That it was me who broke open the clouds

In order for them to breathe.

I thought it was a dream,

But still I awoke cold and alone.

There are no happy endings to sad stories

And this scripture cried in me,

Left in a world of darkness,

This poem will die with me.

And it will be unremembered.

Like the last words of a forgotten soldier.

And while they beam,

And glow,

And smile with sunshine,

They'll know.

When they lay their heads at night

They too will cry and remember

That they used to love me.

Love, Tianamonique.

Storytellers.

I could miss you in lifetimes.

Daydream in decades.

Love in seconds.

Your memory still haunts

Like childhood insecurities.

You are the scars on my wrists.

The blood in my veins

The insanity that keeps my thoughts sane.

Let me relive the stories

And tell them in my sleep

I could write them

Across your tongue

And pretend that

We never kept secrets

And pretend that we didn't lie.

I could travel back in time

And hug you stronger

Kiss you longer

We could revive these stories

They're as alive as we.

As along as we keep them breathing

We can still laugh

And dance

In the middle of rooms

For no reason

And we can love each other

For reasons unknown

And it wont matter

Or make a difference

Because it will be real

And we won't be afraid of being

Honest

And in love

Feed off of your brilliance

You are the inspiration

Behind everything

That i make

And i will honor your existence through poetry

And love you through words

Close my eyes

And imagine you

Standing there

In all of your beauty

Smiling

And touching my face

Like you used to

These stories will not fade

We made them ours

And will never be replaced.

You will be the story

I retell to myself

Recite it until i fall asleep

Rewrite it on blank pillows.

Find my way back to your memory

Like I never left.

Pass them down and let them

Make their own history.

Create oral traditions,

Maybe we could become

Classics.

Love has it written in your eyes

Sad to know that the words

That used to describe me and you

Are bruised.

Infused with lies and tall tales

That we told.

Sold millions of stories to each other,

And bought thousands more.

And now all I wish do is write you

Love letters, and

Happily ever afters,

And lyrics and

Poems.

And remember, that not all of the

Stories ended badly.

Bye You.

We met in shallow waters.

Under silly circumstances.

Swimming was never an option,

But floating was effortless

In your rivers, and streams.

I drank from your thoughts

And lived off of the idea of love.

I jumped off diving boards to reach you.

Penetrating through currents

I knew my small frame could not handle

But your face

Always kept my heart at a steady pace

Lacing rocks with your smile,

Until you were a blur.

A melody that I held my breath for

You were the air that I always ran out of.

Gasping for a piece of sanity.

Raising my head above water

Only to find out that I

Was still drowning in your memory.

We hit rock bottom.

Plummeted to the deep end.

You never taught me how to swim.

I attempted but failed.

Sailed alone.

Cold, I shivered my way through love

Pretended you were the beach,

I dreamed of.

Palm trees and coconuts and open blue skies.

Seas painted with

Picassos's brush; The rush of waves

Against our skin.

I imagined sand between my fingers

And you holding shells up to my ears

Asking if I could hear the ocean yet.

I thought

That if we could just make it.

If we could surf the waves,

If we could survive the currents,

We would come out alive

And in love.

But instead; I bled.

And you were the shark.

And you bit me till I fell apart.

Nothing left but bruises and

Half a heart.

So i'm back at the start.

In these shallows waters.

Too afraid of the deep end;

Because I was never taught how to swim.

Catching my breath from the currents

That rocked me to sleep.

Here I am; heart locked

Sitting with my feet dangling from the dock.

Skimming emerald rocks,

Tears flooding as I watch

You fade away; because we got lost.

And Im on a mission to find me again,

So as we say farewell my friend.

I say hello to me at the bayou.

Love, Tianamonique.

Secrets.

I've been holding secrets.

Placing them in boxes

And locking them with

Poison filled kisses.

Hiding from the truths

That my tongue shuns.

We speak, only through memory.

Stilled moments of

Yesterday's grin are dim,

But lively.

They sing with tomorrow's hope.

Tying my thoughts with rope

Stringing them together

Until they make sense.

I'm not looking for answers.

I'm just searching for progress.

Trying to untangle this mess.

Suppress these feelings of being useless.

Jumping through hoops of regret

Running on heated coals

Forgetting my mission,

Misplacing my goals.

Unfold my heart and you'll find

A beaten soul.

Misery loves company,

But I prefer to be alone.

So I build walls around

Secrets.

Chained emotions.

Prisoned tears that flow

From my heart's ocean.

Days run wild.

Moments move in slow motion.

Anything I thought I remembered,

I've forgotten.

But I find myself reliving moments

That make their way back

To my silent hours.

Moments of slow breathing.

And love dealings.

And scars healing.

I know they existed as much as

I know my heart's beating.

And I am tired of these ill feelings.

Creeping from the ceilings of

My past.

Casting shade on my reflection.

Causing me to avoid mirrors.

But I am ready to face myself now because

I know that love is not doomed forever.

And I know that life moves on.

And I know time is not promised.

And days are no guarantee.

I am washing away

These dark ashes from my palms

And folding them together to pray

Onto someone, anyone willing to listen.

I will not ask for a miracle.

But I will ask for forgiveness and wisdom.

I'm awake

Fully aware of my mistakes

Taking small steps back to happiness.

Taking back the pieces that

I naively gave away

Rearranging the puzzle.

Solving the riddle.

Find the missing key.

Untying the knots.

Exposing the thoughts

That i've held captive.

Letting them go and

Catching up to the life i've missed.

Avoiding those

With a vendetta against getting better.

Moving forward.

Pressing play.

Pausing only to catch my breath.

Remember love in it's purity.

Sing songs, and write poetry.

I will begin to live and I promise

There will be no more secrets.

Love, Tianamonique.

MIYM #22

There was a once upon a time.

There was a prince charming.

There was a damsel in distress.

There was a villain.

There was magic.

There was a climax.

There was an ending.

We had all the contents.

But there was no fairy tale.

There was no moral to the story.

They don't tell us what happens

When happily ever after

Never comes.

Love, Tianamonique.

Nobody Is Bulletproof.

We hide our scars to keep from looking weak.

Quickly stuff them in our pockets when we hear our names called.

Keep them in the closet when going out.

The ability to bleed is a curse, and when love comes around,

We hide them in our purse.

We are the wounded.

The ones with damages; with caution tape around our mouth's.

We are the fragile.

Shattered bones lined within burned notebook pages and

Memories stained with bloodied scars.
The cuts and the bruises that we don't allow to be shown because we are too embarrassed

To admit that we bled.

Piles of regrets have been pushed under the rug,
We walk by them with our eyes swelling; but they never notice.
They never see this.
They can never see the light dimming from our smiles.
Never take the time to realize they are the ones that made us this way.
Words spilling from venomous teeth,
Gripping onto the tip of my tongue,
Hanging by poisonous thread.
Eyes that tell a million lies.
Crying in the middle of the night.
Awakened by dreams that have turned into nightmares.
Bare skin cut to the core.
The pieces remain cold on the floor.

I thought by now these bullet holes would close.
But no.
They cease to heal; refusing to remove the burning feel.
I can't cry because the salty tears would trickle down my face and
Leak into the bullet wounds.

I'll scream out names that I know will never be heard.
I will scream in pain until I find a cure.
This frame has been unsecured for many moons.
I lose the battle with myself every time I say that I am ok.
That this is just a phase.
These are just moments.
Temporary lack of strength.
The words linger within every inhale and exhale I take.
And with every dying heartbeat; my rib cage is beginning to break.

Creating a war in my bed; fighting battles in my head

Me against everything I believed in; I have yet to win.

But this is not about love.

This is about being unloved.

And this is not about heartbreak.

This is about broken souls, broken promises, and broken faith.

And this is not about you.

This is about me.

This is about the unforgettable and the unforgivable.

And this is not about hate.

This is about resent. This is about regret.

We are not victims. We are wounded.

We are the evidence that there are silent murders. Quiet assassins.

I will not blame. I will confess.

I am waiting for my bulletproof vest.

Waiting for the moment where I can walk these streets without taking bullets to my chest.

And I can, at last, put these tears to rest.

Love, Tianamonique.

MIYM #21

You go around looking for similes that may spell your name.

You look to see if i've hidden your eyes within

Metaphoric meanings.

But my dear, stop searching.

For if it is about love, it is about you.

And that is how it has always been.

Love, Tianamonique.

Beautiful Feat. Jill Scott.

You love me especially different.

Every time you keep me on my feet

Happily excited bout..

It was your voice that I fell in love with.

That first phone call made me sing notes that I didn't know I could reach.

It was like heaven saying hello.

It was like my body completely filled with your harmonic tongue

And I hung onto every word.

Swinging like church bells.

Yes, there was something biblical about

The way you pronounced my name.

As if it was made for your mouth.

As if it was a perfect fit.

As if it had never been said before.

I closed my eyes and pictured myself

Dancing alone with your voice,

Opened them and saw you..

And your cologne, your hands, your smile, your intelligence

Caught me off guard

Completely losing my balance

Falling into your smile

Amazed by how well your hands fit into mine

Getting lost in what blue and yellow had birthed in your eyes

It was lovely.

Your stole away every ex boyfriends name from my vocabulary

Just so I wouldn't compare them to you

Built bridges across your tongue

So every time we kissed it was like walking towards the sun

Bee's could not have stung me harder than your love did.

My love.

You woo me, Your court me, You tease me, You please me

You school me, Give me things to think about..

You were a compilation of composition books.

Rhymes entangled in a genius mind.

Musically inclined to the beat your heart chimed.

Perfectly undefined.

I had gotten to used to found, that I had forgotten what it felt like to find.

You were present tense

First person

Opening sentence

Thesis statement

Parentheses Love close parentheses

Quote I love you end quote

Citation you

Page us

Period.

Myriad times infinity could not equal my love for you.

Cruelly head over heels.

Madly infatuated

Intoxicatingly in love with every part of you

And everything I do not know I swear I will learn to love too..

Cuz you invite me, you cowrite me, you love me, you like me

For everything that I was and wasn't.

Flawlessly loved my flaws because you understood me.

Recognized my lyrics because they fit perfectly with your melody

We sang in perfect tune; harmonious kisses in June; in tune with your soul

I had no control over these feelings.

You filled me like a poem full of similes.

Silly of me to try to compare you because

You're such an incomparable thing.

Incite me to chorus...

Sing away my past because you are now.

And you are beautiful.

Like afros

Like hip hop

Like Billie Holiday

Like the middle of spring

Like Lauryn Hill

Like green eyes

Like palms

Like melancholy love songs

Like photography

Like poetry

Like art

You are beautiful like beauty never existed until you created it.

You are beautiful.

Love, Tianamonique