February Celebration .

They said they would let me go for good behavior.

Said I've endured the worst and it was almost over.

So I got to inhale sweet breezes.

And break through the stone my cheeks were in and

Form a somewhat decent smile.

I was free.

They untied me.

And I thought I deserved it.

Deserved star lit skies, and

Sun beamed mornings and nights filled with gold.

I deserved ruby slippers and yellow brick roads.

I put on my pretty dress, slid the straps

Over my heavy shoulders.

I painted my nails.

A pretty lilac color.

Reminded me of Minnesota summers

And my great grandmother.

I applied my makeup, slowly.

Filling in every line.

I was a queen.

Crowned myself with good intentions

And I overruled their evil one's.

I screamed in the happiest voice I've ever known.

Released the linked chains they

Kept on my ankles.

I was no longer their prisoner

And it was a celebration.

I placed pretty curls in my hair

And let the wind blow through the strands

Untied my hands and bent my fingers,

Dusted the dirt off my palms with a smile

They told me I was beautiful.

This coming from those who had made

Me feel internally ugly for months.

This coming from men who forgot our history.

This coming from women who once

Despised my name.

This coming from the one's I blamed

For my misfortune.

I've been trapped inside my own head.

The tears were bled;

Red and cold; I had become only skin and bone.

But now, there is a familiar warmth

A reminiscent glow from a place

I place I thought had disappeared.

The fear they placed in my eyes

Will never fade,

And neither will the scars that they placed on name

But it would be a shame to waste a day

Thinking I didn't deserve a say in my own happiness.

So i'm writing my own fairytale.

Creating my own happily ever after

Instead of chasing men that will end in disaster .

All of these inconsistent happinesses

Broken promises

I've heard a lot of this

The darkness is only what the light looks like

When it's sleeping.

But it's my turn to wake up.

These sleeping eyelids are heavy

But i'm ready and willing

To be happy.

There are things people have taken from me.

Emotions, and memories combined.

But I have never been left empty handed.

What they think they have taken from me

Is only a small fragment of what I've stolen from them.

And it may take a while until they realize

What is really missing; and it won't be me,

It will be their common sense.

For thinking they could keep in cages,

The thought enrages me

I'm now living dangerously.

Taking chances and forgetting about the past

It's a beautiful moment to see.

You could have loved me.

But you chose not to, and that is okay.

Because although your rejection was brutal

I know it wasn't truthful.

Lying to yourself to make you believe you don't need me.

And I hope for your sake you do not,

Because i'm leaving.

After months of putting myself through hell,

And being locked in that horrible darkness,

The sun is slowly making it's way back to me.

I'm putting my melancholy mask on the shelf.

And for the first time in my life, i'd like to make a toast

To my damn self.

CHEERS !

Love, Tianamonique.

January Whatever.

II guess they call this a new beginning.

And I guess I'm supposed to dry my tears

With last years handkerchief, throw it away

And pretend like the bruises on my heart

Don't exist and that the evil words that were spoken

Aren't still rotting in my minds closet.

Pretend like i'm not exhausted from running around

Stereotypes, and expectations, and love affairs,

This is unfair.

With the truth comes despair,

And i'm living in a constant state of misery.

It's filling me to the brim; even though the light is dim,

I can still feel him.

Breathing poison down my throat as he fucks and chokes.

Trying to cover up sins with jokes, blowing smoke to fog my vision.

It used to be so clear.

[I feel like i'm just rewriting the same thing

With new words and it's becoming redundant.]

I guess I was supposed to write something

That blossomed.

I suppose it would be nice to read something

Less dark.

Less dramatic.

Maybe some romantic shit.

Spit something light so your conscience

Doesn't ache when you read these lines.

I'm fine; I just have wounds that haven't been addressed yet.

Do you know what it's like

To have your scars on display?

I guess they say its pathetic and not poetic.

And I guess being yourself isn't what they're looking for.

And I guess that when you try to argue

Your way out of the truth then you're just a lie.

And why is that every time I try and convince myself

That this is how it's supposed to be, I cry.

I always wonder how many times you can die.

I guess heaven is supposed to be where it ends,

And I guess being a saint ain't as easy as the bible said,

So HELLo to lucifer, and the goblins, and walking dead.

Words are poisonous.

And they will eat away at your memories until

They are engraved into your skin.

Because they don't ever want you to forget.

So they leave reminders.

The shadows that we call love never fade.

You're never quite the same after you've

Experienced high volumes of pain.

So blame the boys with the pretty eyes,

And the ones with the cool disguise.

Blame the pretty girls who make funny faces

And blame the crazy chicks with tattoos; the nut cases.

Blame the photo's and memories.

Blame the rebirth and the remedies.

Blame music and the quotes.

Blame the self medications and home grown antidotes.

Because I said this was for the beginning.

But it's not.

It's just the same thing.

The same poem.

The same words.

And the same damn darkness i've been living in.

Breathing the love I guess I never earned.

I'm starting to doubt whether or not the sun was stolen from me,

Or maybe it just walked away.

Time is supposed to heal all wounds

And I'm becoming impatient.

I'm not saying my smile is fake

But these frowns have never faded.

These jaded thoughts are taking over

And love just isn't the same.

And where did the passion go?

Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be touched.

I feel violated by hugs and kisses, because i've witnessed

The ugliest relationships by touching.

Fucking is just rape with class.

Sex is shit to do to make time pass.

And making love is a thing of the past.

Because love never lasts.

Never will; never has.

Love, Tianamonique

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.