Neverwas

I broke a branch of my heart
tying knots around it
trying to staunch the beating when he came close
I broke it before his reasons for checking up
took it for a ride

kicking at the gourds
I've stubbed my feelings
for lack of words in the subtleties
of the vague shades of grey left for me to decipher
this puzzle has no edges
no matching colors nor shapes

he pinched himself awake
and left me dreaming
I guess I am prettier this way
surprised the sun has come back
to shine on me another day

us is ragged at the edges
and we’ve never worn it
I’m standing naked sewing together
words never said but always said
I’m still naked when I put them on

this is the last time I listen to
lips stuttering love
broken syllables help me understand
we don’t speak the same
and maybe we never did

Tumblr | 3EyesOpen | Neverwas
kalonia jennings 2016

Angry. Sassy. No!

Can't find my reflection anywhere.

I have to exist relating to chameleons mimicking me.

I once had to ask if being ghetto is a form of white-face.

How can I assimilate into myself?

I'm starting to wonder how far this appropriation goes. 

Did they steal the words from the mouths from my Griots
to write their way into significance? 

I'm coming for my images locked away in centuries of history. 

I'm told I don't belong in an Anywhere.

So, I'ma reach back and
slap the black back into the places between east vs west,
between continents which ignore my Mother,
between dialogues and discussions
that make her work at shaping existence insignificant.

We have progressed so far backwards.

Bragging about growing grass in the desert 

then complaining about being broke from bills.

We dig pools that grow stagnant without care
then slinging guilt for droughts.
I can't make sense of this thing I'm supposed to want to do

Those tied to the earth had their head and hearts in the cosmos.

They found healing in the weeds.
They never touched the same flowing waters twice.

I've noticed how natural living is enslaved

like those of the middle passage; they are

chained to greed, dehumanized, and made to fight for freedom.

My ancestor's magic locked in stores where her children can't reach. 

I have become my own conjurer.

And I invoke my reflection in these words. 

My ancestors never stepped into the same being twice. 

Seek Me

When my fingers are in your mouth
and you are
somewhere between hysteria and sleep
as the wetness of my tongue
makes hairs curl in the humidity
seek me

When your eyes can't break from me watching
the beautiful contortions and intricacies
of pleasure race across your face
when I can't concentrate anymore
when I no longer seem myself
seek me

When my face is lost under the heaviness
of sweat infested locs
and my breath won't calm itself
when my words come from a depth that
reverberates within you like a good baseline
seek me
because

When you are with me
entering me
tasting me
lost in me
I find you

and I call your name
when you have found my hiding place

Most of the Time

Lift up these words
and you would expose yourself to
the spaces in the realities of my mind
places I won't let just anybody into
but everyone gets to see

Look deeply at the gaps between the letters
and I can promise you
you can hear my happiness there
you can see my future in the white spaces on this page

I love deep
but not with feelings
I love like life expands
taking these words I attempt to dig into your chest
and press my cheek to green hues of your spirit
just to remind you
you love
you love like life expands

Moments like this I tempt myself to feel
to feel the lonely I often read about
But then I sit and type words like these
I imagine you reading them
and it fills me up because you wrote them with me

Most of the time I'm like this
and not ashamed
but you lifted up these words
and saw the secret raw places in me
I can't hide again

I Can Tell

Your embrace is like the sweetest melody, enveloping me till I close my eyes.
That kiss tells me you're ready to let the outside world tend to itself for awhile.
You walk away too soon.
I want to feel your hand on my face again.
I lost myself for a moment with my lips on your wrist.
Your pulse was saying something.

I allow you to walk away from me, and before you take the second step, your hand extends behind you.
I don't make you have to say it twice.
My hand is in yours before you take the next step.

I keep my eyes on yours as you peel off your clothes. They say to keep touching you.
Tugging the shirt over your head, my fingers find their way to your spine, my lips your chest. That exhale said I'm doing just what you want me to.

Looking down at you, I love to watch the way your hands taste my thighs. The way they gulp my skin to the rhythm of the ride.
The sound emanating from your chest speak for your closed eyes and open mouth. I answer by kissing you and following your guiding hands. They say you're close.

The adjustment of silence between our bodies before you descend over me, is shattered by the way my legs wrap around your waist.
A hand between us touching both bodies as my hands glide over your head. My breath and teeth against your neck speak more words than I can gather.

Your pace stops and I open my eyes to the feeling of hands gulping my thighs, once again.
 You have something else to say, I can tell by the way your tongue moves.

4D

It took some time to get here.
The metronome of silver stands tick off
the choices I still don't know how to make.
I'm far behind my mission.
But, I hear, I'm right on time.

Can't seem to speak kindly to my insides.
The guilt of making it rain with time.
I made amends with the wrong path.
My roots are wide but shallow.
Here, I speak the symptoms.
There, I find the cause.

Cold fingers reach for the wobbles of light
cutting through the shadows.
I know I'm already there. It's already done.
Why do I feel half of the whole?
I see myself through another set of eyes.
What am I doing?
What have done?

I've found myself in another space.
Picked up, like a child,
and carried to the door to another life.
I have opened the door.
Now, I'm trying to adjust
to the momentary blindness of my ignorance.

It took some time to get here.
Do you know the way?

Manners

Sitting next to each other,
I'm caressing the edges of your face,
absorbed in the way you look at me.
Our lips find different ways to touch.
I feel my heartbeat between crossed legs.
My appetite for you is forcing its way out with each kiss.

My hunger is for more than food.
My taste buds crave a type of sweet-salty only flesh
and veins can produce.
Ravenous to the point of sloppy salivation,
I leave all clothes on the floor along with my decorum.
I consume you with my hands.
I feast on your moans.

To lay you down is to spread a buffet
before a starving beast.
To straddle your thigh is to feed a deeper craving.
Your hands in my hair
showing the fastest ways to your pleasure.
I savor the guidance.
Lost in the aroma of musk and that missing ingredient,
lips and thighs open wider.

Your thigh is soaked.
My mouth so full,
I have to swallow before I ask for seconds.
I do have manners, after all.

All Mine

I've been waiting for a moment like this.
Where I can lay my hands on my head
and let my fingers slip through
the lines that were once kinks.
I remember the shame
of my beads not hanging long enough.
Now, it's all mine

I've been waiting for a moment when,
I could make something all about me,
all of me,
and not have to sanitize it for anyone
who might not be able to relate,
but I've had to.
I can finally look in the mirror
and not wish another was there.
Now, I'm all mine.

Been waiting for a moment to
look back and grab the beauty,
the power,
the grace,
the majesty
of my legacy, of my ancestry
and bring it forward.
Like I do when I put my hands on my head
and let my fingers slip through the lines
that were once kinks.

It's all mine.

The Moment

I feel you.
Your arm on my belly.
Secured, for sure, in ways I can't imagine.
I hear your voice inside of me.
The way the bass shakes the giggles from my chest.
Your tongue pushes and pulls my nipple.
The escaping giggles fall upon my swaying breasts,
and as your lips surround the little tip of darkness.

I open my eyes.
Stifled giggles hide behind my fingers
because I can still feel your voice inside me.
I lay my arm on my belly, close my eyes
to return to the moment of falling giggles
upon swaying breasts.

Artist Muha Bazila

Winter

It's cold and dark
and somewhere in my mind
I thought I was flowing
flowing towards something
but now I'm here

Into myself
although my humble-conceit is put aside
there are so many other things
reminding me how little I really am

Listening to the splatters of
what could be rain
my edges are cracking
and the sky is falling
which makes my face leak

Pieces of me are rearranged against my will
I pull out the dangling bits of fibers
falling from my guts
the pain is too real
the love too much
the touches too missing

And then I feel it
the heat
sapping away the soggy past
the heat
I know I will meet
as the light of Spring