firefly sentences.

_doll.

She has her smile sculpted to her face.
Blush painted in pigments on her cheeks
And eyes wide even when she was staring at the sun.
See this doll was the definition of dolled up
But you could never guess this toy’s stories.

At first she was a gift.
But the giving was a curse
When what they had passed away.
She was passed on. 
Then passed on.
Made passes to.
From a boy that just didn’t know what she was worth.

Just because she doesn’t have her price tag
Doesn’t mean she’s worthless
So he threw her around.
But she had no choice.
Powerless as a piece of property.
Had her strings pulled
But not the string in her back
That let her speak and say “No.”
She was a rape victim.

Now she’s all out of sunshine
So she carries a pocketful of sorrows
In the dress they gave to her in the factory.
But what you don’t know is that she’s mass produced
So there’s thousands of girls just like her.

So she looks for an escape.
Just trying to find a place to hide
Everything she’s gone through
But can’t find solace in the silence
That torments her at night.
Every touch reminds her of him.
And all she wants is a place to belong and be loved.
Not just played with. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

_mothers.

There is something breathtaking
In the way a mother holds her child.
Cradles him like a shotgun to her breast.
Clutches her like change and possibility.
Counts their blessings like seconds to infinity.
Holds their hand like it was the only dream
She’s ever had and she’s too proud to let go.

Teaches them to embrace life
And weave their lives in thread with others
Before they try carving their mistakes
Into stone monuments.

Shows them the jazz in their voices.
The hip hop in their demeanour.
The soul in their walk.

Teaches them to listen closely enough
So they can hear the ocean waves
Cracking inside their chests
Before convincing themselves
That they can stand them break
Against the rocks in their throats.
Because their heart used to be full
But now they’ve moved out
The trucks have already left
And that was once upon a time.

Protects her children like eggshells
So they’ll never have to cut their feet
From walking on broken pieces of themselves
Or spill their yolk without her cleaning it up
And telling them everything is going to be okay.

And no woman will ever love them
As much as her.

While some will never realize
That the womb they were birthed in
Is more divine than anywhere
That they will ever call home again.

Never ask her if it hurt
To give them life and tear the universe apart
To make sure nothing will ever harm her baby.
Just to stay up a thousand sleepless nights
To soothe your siren cry enough to sleep.

Will never fade away into nothingness in her arms
Looking for a way to embrace God
And finding somewhere gorgeous instead. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

30/30: “29 Things I Should Have Said.”

1. I’m sorry.
2. You’re amazing in ways I’ve never been able to imagine before.
3. I’m jealous of my father. Because he found someone as amazing as my mother.
4. My mother is patient in all the ways I never was. She barely laughs but she smiles like it’s never going out of style. I’ve never seen her angry and she is probably everything I want to be when I grow up.
5. Everyday, I want to melt into her arms and tell her how much she means to me until the world knows that I came from somewhere divine.
6. I’ve always wanted to write an honest poem. But I haven’t been able to look at myself in the mirror with enough honesty to be able to.
7. They said a poem doesn’t start until you’ve started telling the truth. That is why I can never write a poem about politics.
8. Sometimes, I think words are meaningless because of how someone can say so little, yet speak so much.
9. But I think words are beautiful because of how someone can say so much, yet so little.
10. I would probably forgive you for things I wouldn’t forgive myself for. Or anyone else.
11. I’d like to be everything you want. Hey girl, let me talk to you. If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go. Keep you on my arm girl, you’ll never be alone. And I can be a gentleman, anything you want. If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go.
12. I have friends that I trust more than I trust myself. And I get the feeling that there are more just waiting to convince me to. 
13. I used to be scared of having dreams, because everyone has to wake up sometime.
14. I still dream. Bigger than before.
15. I think you’re beautiful and I’m too scared to tell you.
16. If I gave you my heart, would I recognize it when you give it back to me? But I pray that never happens because I want you to keep it.
17. There are days when I feel alone is much more pleasurable than company. There is just something beautiful in the conversations your brain has with your heart.
18. I was a last minute dislocated ankle from competing in Brave New Voices. At first I was angry. But then I convinced myself to see it as a blessing. Because what else would there have been for me to aim for after that?
19. I get the feeling that some poetry slams are popularity contests. These days, you’re more likely to find me performing for charity or for students, because a good cause and a inspiration are worth more than competition to me.
20. I have a weakness for you, and I’ve never given a thought to fixing it.
21. You reproach me every time I sacrifice sleep to hear your voice. But if I didn’t, that’s all I’d be hoping to dream of every time I convince my eyelids to zip themselves closed and my mind to take a few hours off. 
22. I still can’t believe you see me that way. That a person could strip the shield I’ve found solace behind and tell me all the beauty I have never seen inside it. That it only took you that long to see something a little like treasure in a graveyard of imperfections.
23. There is not enough honesty in people these days. Not enough smiling and laughing. Not enough “Here you can have my seat.” and definitely not enough love because there is too much lust.
24. I never want to know what a one night stand feels like. I’m too caught up in believing that things like that should actually mean something.
25. I’ve never understood what people meant by a “guilty pleasure”. If you enjoy something, you should sing it at the top of your fingertips every time the fireflies in your veins burst into fireworks.
26. I know too many bitter men and broken women. I constantly wish I could jigsaw their smiles and hopes back together, but I’m clumsy. The last time I tried to do that with myself, I’m pretty sure I did it wrong.
27. I fear living in a world without physical books.
28. Courage is not always found in a lion’s roar. Sometimes it is silence. And sometimes, it is the words you hide in your throat while you tell yourself that things get better.
29. I sincerely thank you for listening.

(Source: wordsinajar)

29/30: “The World.”

I remember that one time…
It felt like I had the world sitting silently in the palm of my hand.
I confessed my secrets
Like I could shout them to the edges of my fingertips
And turned it on its ear just to see another day rise.
Peeled the sky’s skin just to whisper into its spine
While the cumulus clouds curl themselves into a crescendo
Splattering the oceans’ currents and the earth’s colour
All over the universe’s blueprints.

And then I asked it to read me one last poem before I go.

To sing me a lullaby
Hum me a harmony for my thoughts
Pencil me a dream I can trace my future to
Paint me a sunset I can remember
Remind my smile that it is a sunrise
That my hopes are infinite
And my hands are change. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

28/30: “Tell Her.”

“If hearing her voice is one of your favourite things about being alive,
You should tell her.”

But I can’t help but think
That everything I could say
Would never be able to really tell her. 

That I couldn’t copy the penmanship of her soul
That I could only sculpt a shadow of her
No matter how hard I tried
To script the songs in her skin
And the stories in her scars.

That I could never write her a poem
Beautiful enough to bear the honesty
Of the butterflies she’s birthed in my stomach.
The most I could do
Would be to crack her lips apart
In a smile that said sunshine couldn’t shine like this.
Nor could the warm come close to her.

That I can bear to write you less
Because I live you more. 

So every time my thoughts copy the Sahara desert
And the only mirages are of her,
An oasis in her eyes
And shade in her embrace,
She jokes that I should write about her.

And all I can say is…
“I’m sorry but I can’t.”
And I don’t have the courage to tell you why either. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

27/30: “Beautiful.”

She’s a kind of beautiful.
She speaks in half heaven, half Holocaust.
Part English, part body language
Honesty laden with the echoes
Of breaking hearts and crashing teardrops.
She had a penchant for yelling
Over the rooftops at the top of her fingertips
And her silence could serenade songbirds.

Head to toe she seemed perfect.
Her toes were roots…
Dug deep into her history.
Toes curling around grains of sand
Like they were stars
And she had infinity in her palms,
Galaxies behind her eyes,
And constellations behind her eyes.
She has the stars at her fingertips
Spreads her fingers
Reaches through continents for a home
And she carries the generation gap
Of her ancestry like it was brand name.

She was a kind of beautiful.
Her steps could make the pavement
Jump for joy.
Scorching in the summer sun
But sweating in her shadow.

She shone with all the sunlight
That she held ransom in her skin
But never realized how bright she could burn.
Never explaining how badly she’d crashed before. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

26/30: “Lessons.”

I’m completely convinced
That every girl I’ve ever fallen for
Has two distinct parts to her.

One part was a handwritten letter from God.
Curves from his most beautiful handwriting
So sweet you would swear
That He had honey in his pen.
A linguistic masterpiece
Of every style and genre
But every story was beautiful in its own way.
A symphony in syntax
With punctuations in all the right places
Crossed every T
But lost as soon as I got to their eyes
Signed with a:

ps. I hope you learn something from this about yourself

And the other half was an avid student
That never missed a chance to sit in the front
Of every class taught by Satan.
Knowing exactly what to do
To make me feel alive
Just to kill me a little bit on the inside later.
I swear all of their notes
Were written on the inside of their throats.

If that’s the case then the devil
Is one hell of a teacher
Because he always managed to teach me something too.

(Source: wordsinajar)

25/30: “Arts and Crafts.”

Sometimes…
I feel like I’m nothing
But your favourite arts and crafts project.
Good intentions stapled to bits and pieces
Of all the daydreams I’ve had about you.
Papier-mache’d my hopes
To your reassurances.
That abstract painting
Hanging lopsidedly on the battered wall.
Suspended off the nails you dug into my back
Like you were trying to display
Your masterpiece from my shoulder blades.

Transforming my skeleton into your art gallery
Floors you’ve tried to plan
Into the blueprint of my bones.
Modelled my spine into the Tower of Babel
Standing straight until it touched the heavens. 

Then God decided to send me down a peg.
With you.

Angel in Lucifer’s honour roll.
Smiling like black was in season
Rejoicing at the bleeding of my ball-point
Because all it ever gives birth to these days
Are the blackest of love poems.
A black hole on paper
Just asking to be filled
For one more time. 

(Source: wordsinajar)

24/30: “11 Things I Find Attractive.”

1. A girl who’s not afraid to smile and laugh. Because there are days when the sun refuses to wake up and leave its covers.

2. A girl that can recommend a great book. Not good, but great. A girl who loses herself in words…and turns them into her own world. A girl who finds knowledge and lessons in her library, showing the value of words and how they can affect someone. How they can make someone feel. How they can make someone remember. How they can make someone forget.

3. A girl with a sense of style. One that can wear dresses. Because if a person’s image is their introduction to the world, then I want a girl that can say more than skinny jeans and Ugg boots.

4. A girl that knows and shares good music. A girl that lets her soul sing along to her favourite songs. Finds freedom in the high notes and finds pieces of herself in her music.

5. A girl with ambition. Because I can fall for who you are but what about who you’re trying to be?

6. A girl with a voice that can make songbirds jealous. Because I’ve spent too much time trying to tune out the fault lines in the cracking of vocal chords and the tides in their wavelengths that I’ve forgotten how to listen.

7. Honesty. Critical and encouraging, but never condescending or babying. Handle me with boxing gloves, makes me stronger. Makes me better. Makes me WANT to be better.

8. Smooth elbows.

9. A girl that thinks. Introspective. Has a throne in her mind and wears her thoughts like a wedding dress.

10. A girl with an open mind. Who will embrace ideas the way her arms open like a home for me. But will stand firm in her own…against the storms and the floods.

11. A girl that can cook. Because I will auction off a part of my heart for a girl that can cook rice and peas, jerk chicken, and is willing to enjoy food as much as I do.

(Source: wordsinajar)