empty eyes - original poem

("2 a.m. and i'm still awake writing this song. if i get it all down on paper it's no longer inside of me threatening the life it belongs to. and i feel like i'm naked in front of a crowd 'cause these words are my diary screaming out loud and i know that you'll use them however you want to..." - anna nalick)

he had empty eyes - hollow, naked -
and a forlorn type of smile.
he filled his cracks with anything pretty or hypnotizing:
words, work, intoxicants.
he wanted to love, but it's hard to show your feelings when you're leaking.
it's hard to give when all you've got is holes, empty spaces where your soul should be.

he married her because she was everything he wanted to be:
calm, stable, and solid.
solid of mind, heart, and body.
nothing seeped out of her unless she released it.
he thought she would save him,
instead he drained her.
she poured her blood into a skeleton
she poured until her supply started to run thin.
her pouring was futile because he had no skin to hold it in,
no veins to make the blood give life.

he left her when he saw that she could do nothing for his dry bones.
but he left her with a baby daughter who was just like him.
and when he left, he took the light in his daughter's eyes with him.

he left a wife who has always been mesmerized by the depth of her daughter's eyes:
always open, always watching, always looking for something,
for anything.
as the little girl grew, her mother learned to fear those large empty eyes,
portals to a soul she would never understand.
sometimes she felt as if she were drowning in them,
being thrown into a black hole, or sinking in a mire.
at those times she felt what her daughter felt,
she knew why her husband left.
at those times she was scared
because she knew she wouldn't be able to save her any better than she could have saved him.
so she learned to stop looking into those eyes.

my eyes.
i look at the world like a man just come from the desert drinks water.
what i see keeps me alive for brief moments at a time.
but as the body continues to need water to survive, my soul runs dry if there's nothing pouring into the black holes of my eyes.
i see everything.
“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!"*

he shared his darkness with me when he gave me his eyes.
or perhaps the darkness was in his seed.
either way, i've known since i was young that i needed to hide the darkness in me.
so i avert my eyes, let my soul run dry,
because i don't want you to see
that just like him, i'm empty.
i've tried everything.
the world pours itself into my hollow eyes and my heart remains empty.
the floodgates of heaven are open, and i'm ready to receive,
but, like him,
the blessing pours in like water and comes out like tears,
never staying in me long enough to make my dry bones live.

my eyes are tired of seeing everything.
now i pray to be blind like a skeleton should be.
if i forget what life looks like maybe i won't feel the void so intensely.
or at least i won't be able to see the sadness in my mother's eyes when she looks askance at me,
or the pity in his eyes when he doesn't look at all.

i wonder if my father ever felt that the more life a room contained
the less life was available to him.
i wonder if he ever felt other people's eyes picking at his bones to make sure they were clean.
he was lucky.
i pray to be beautiful; he just wanted to be seen.
i pray for abundant life; he just wanted to be free.
i have seen the fatted calf; he didn't know what he was missing.
i've stood at the threshold of the veil; he has never seen the anointing.

i have my father's eyes
and the only other thing he left with me is the emptiness behind them.

*the gospel according to matthew chapter 6 verses 22 aand 23. the words of Christ in red.

This Is The Way I Live

My boyfriend doesn’t really like poetry
My grandma hates my tattoos
My cousins are too old to believe in the change I see
And my mom won’t really listen to my views.
My white friends don’t understand how my Black is beautiful.
My Black friends don’t know why I refuse to see color.

So I find myself always trying to defend my way of life
Always trying to define it so that when they ask I have an answer
Always trying to prove that I’m not just following whims
I’m making conscious decisions.

I am not a rebel just for obstinance’s sake.
I have to stay outside the box in order to stay in the game.
Everyday I need to push a new limit
Start a new project and find a way to finish it.
Because when I’m playing by your rules and living your decrees
I feel like my soul is seeping out of me
And what, like you said, does it profit me
To gain the whole world, or your blessing,
If I forfeit my soul in the gaining?

I don’t get tattoos to mark my body for the dead
I do it because sometimes there’s an image
that expresses more than I could have said
Sometimes I need you see without me opening my mouth
Sometimes I need to know that if I lose my voice,
My skin will still speak out.

I don’t curse just to make you angry
Sometimes I have to throw in a shit, a damn, or a fuck
Because if I keep my tone neutral and words G-rated
The bangers can’t hear me because I’m not speaking their language
A poem is a picture and sometimes we use expletives to frame it.

I don’t argue with you about religion just to see what you’ll say
I really believe there’s more than one entity that saves.
Even Jesus didn’t speak to everyone alike
So I think maybe with all our new technology,
God’s portfolio has diversified

I don’t argue with you because I think your views invalid
I just want to make sure you can fight for how you live
If I can change your mind,
It means you were really that convinced
So make sure you know who you are before you step to this.
I do it my way.
I wouldn’t call it obstinance; it’s grit
I love you for caring,
But this is me…and I need you to accept it.