My Name

In your mouth , my name sounds
ugly
Spoken with a twisted face and squinted eyes
Tasting foreign and frightening on your Anglo-Saxon tongue
you stumble
Over it and wonder where such a strange name came from
It's a scary name, you think, as sweat
Beads on your forehead like oil droplets in a glass of
water
Ethiopia?
Ethiopia.
Some little place in Africa you never cared to learn of.
My name is Ethiopia
I am my name
A foreign, scary place
I am my name
I am Ethiopia

Unspoken Words

Sweet words
Dribble from your lips like honey
They're so hard to hear because they've never been
Said

Like an unplayed symphony
The silent notes blend together in my mind
Losing each other in this grand and terrifying
Chaos

You never play my symphony
No, you never sing my song
It just lingers in the air waiting to be
Heard

Sweet words
Dribble from your bitter mouth
The aftertaste is undesirable but remains
Unspoken

Sexually Transmitted Desperation

An empty room
Just me and you
My lips and nails are painted
And you seem so frustrated
Relax, tell me your name
Baby, don't be so ashamed
It's just a way to keep us entertained

Uneasy silence, hollow motions
Sweeping through us
Like shallow oceans
A sudden stop; yes, that's the end
I ain't your lover
And I ain't your friend

But I'm lonely
I'm the only
One I can trust, so stay
If you must...

If I show you cleavage and a fake smile
Will it be enough to make you stay for a while?
If I listen to your stories and sing you a song
Can we stay like this all night long?
Oh, I'm just a desperate girl
And this is cheap entertainment

Go back to your wife, go back to your life
Don't give me a thought, don't give this a thought
Just cheap entertainment, just a cheap thrill
I never gave a damn and I never will...

Best Friends

I'm only your friend when you want something
But it's okay because I stick around
You only need me when you wanna be a bitch
When you need someone whose life is more pathetic than yours
When you need to stand next to someone who makes you feel better about yourself
I'm tired of your ugly heart and your ugly words
I'm tired of how toxic you are, so fuck off
Until I'm lonely and I need reassurance that someone cares about me
And I come crawling back to this hazardous "friendship"
Just so you can tear me down.

Great Expectations

Good girls write about roses and
Butterflies and love

I guess I've always been
A little (dis)obedient

Raw emotion stains
My pages and (de)flowers them

But good girls write about other things
I guess that's why the best poets are men

Black Girl's Lament

I open up a magazine and see pretty white faces

With pretty straight hair

Blonde and brown and red

And pretty, thin lips

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

But only if you're white

I know I'll never be that kind of beautiful

So I cry and I cry and I will for my hair to turn straight

And my skin to turn white

I pray everyday that I'll wake up tomorrow

Looking like those smiling faces

In the magazines

Your Heart, Hourglass

Your Heart

You see the world through your pretty pink glasses

I wish I could try them on

So that maybe the world wouldn't seem so dark

Stay here beside me

Be my sunlight

All the goodness of the world lies within your heart

Hourglass

I feel you in my hands like

Sand in an hourglass

Our time is up

The American Dream

We are the people who own this land

With our pale white skin

And our pink fleshy hands

We are the people who brought the world

Across the ocean on the back of a Great

Plague us with guilt of the sins we have committed

We will pay no mind, we will pay no mind

The historical facts that our textbooks have omitted

All is pure and white and kind

Speak our language

Ignore the cries of your ancient people

Who brought us across the ocean on their

Back to the issue at hand

You talk with your gibberish in words no one can under--

Stand here, here in our home and forget every story

That your grandmother told

Join us in our purity

Join us in our unity

And this can be your land, too

Blessed is the fruit of thy lips

I poured out my heart to you

You said just three small words:

'Just walk away, just walk away...'

Repeating them over and over like

Hail Marys in your final days

Words with no meaning just

Falling out like water from

A stream of consciousness

With no destination in

Sight-seeing in a plastic city

The sky is falling, falling, falling

A perfect shade of blue

Like Hail Marys in my final days

I whisper in my desperation:

'I love you, I love you, I love you'.