My eyes map out the lines of life on your face as my fingers forge paths in the valleys that span your chest and back. My tongue explores the rapids of your kiss.. I only know your shallow. The white capped waves atop deep, deep rivers. I want to know the words and thoughts that lie on the banks. Secrets never spoken. I want to swim upstream to your earliest memories so I know where you have been, and race downstream, so I may find where you are headed. I want to dive deep into your eyes where your soul lies and your dreams fly. As I ascend my legs scale cliffs and hold onto you for dear life. I want to fill every space between your fingers with my own so that I know we're both whole. I want to be the one to make you the happiest and have the potential to make you hurt the most. I want to be the one to make you the most vulnerable, and provide you the greatest refuge from the storm. I want my insecurites to embrace your vulerabilities so that we may both be... Open.

I have only five minutes to express to you what it would take ten millenniums to verbalize, so look into my eyes and take my hand. Follow my lead and wrap your arms around me. Feel secure to rest your bones, and I promise you will never be left alone. And if you ever find yourself losing count of the stars in the sky, close your eyes and imagine me with you, that I may help you find where you left off. That I may help you find where you left. So that I may help you find... My mind travels miles to find you again.

i don't know what to say to you. from the first time i read your words i was intrigued, but i was in an unknown land, never before have i experienced something like that. that... as time went by and i continued to crawl through the loopholes of your metaphors that are to me so real and upfront they couldn't get much closer to the truth, and the fact that they capture every bit of emotion and air from me and leave me breathless, i began to dig deeper and deeper into the jungle of your mind and somewhere in the darkest most desolate place sat the epitome of what was wrapped up in your words all along, the part of me that took what seemed like centuries to show you, was in front of me all along. as i sit and think about how your words speak volumes, they need not be told with volume in your voice, just a simple whisper in my ear will do and a gentle hand on my neck but i haven't even gotten to the lips yet... let your index finger reference the indents of my smile and your fingertips run across my lips so that part of you will stay for me to taste while my leg goes from crossed over me to encompassing you, wrapped with judgment and insecurities, it finds the safest place possible, on your lap to rest with your bones while the rest of me still filled with judgment and insecurities runs free cause that's what your words do to me and for me all while at the same time embracing my mind with the thought of you embracing me i somehow get lost in the space between our two bodies so make it disappear, hold me tight no longer with just your words but with your arms around my waist and my arms around your shoulders we'll find a way through this night of our lives that is set so gently on the city skyline by the setting sun.. the sight that i find myself gazing upon like i was gazing into your eyes feeling every emotion and transmitting them when my lips find refuge from the darkness of the sun dipped in horizon, in a reflection of my life and what my eyes cannot see, ears cannot hear, nose cannot smell nor can the voice speak.. only the touch of skin can comprehend.. but at the same time let me breathe you in, see how perfect it can look, hear your whispers or our echoed scream, those of pain and pleasure, in the moments of tribulation and ecstasy... wrap your mind in my words and my thoughts.. then you will see me in my barest form...

"Just once before I die
I want to climb up on a tenement sky
Dream my lungs out till I cry
Then scatter my ashes through the Lower East Side."

Where babies cry and hands collide
Whether givin dap or throwin die.
We are the first in a line of many
Who made something out of nothing: a dream and a penny.
Like a phoenix, they rose from the dust of defeat
And brought the rhythm of their home back to the streets.
The scraps of culture that America ignored
Became the boat of what got us ashore.
Jazz from Harlem mixed with Rhythm and Blues
Became acquainted with the drums that Tito Puente used
To create a music that refused to die
Salsa: established on the Lower East Side.
So many legends and have come and gone until today
But we will always remember “Aguanile.”
The music that played through the day and night
Can still be heard on the Lower East Side.
Lavoe and Puente, Palmeri and Colón
Celia Crúz made her voyage alone.
As a platinum selling Latina in a white man’s world
She kept singing with her head up and her tongue curled.

The same blocks that gave us beats to abide
Also have a darker side.
With gunshots and sirens- like Piñero said:
“The streets are hot and feed off those who bleed to death.”
We took our own lives when violence was brought upon us
Too many children grew up fatherless.
If walls could talk they would tell you
Of all the pain that they’ve been though.
Boys and men who were smashed against the pavement
Ones that screamed and others that will never breathe again.
Hot like ice and cold like fire
Signs that read “gunman for hire.”
Read between the lines of a “Help Wanted” sign
Outside a legit business with a ringleader inside.
Kids stopping by on a daily basis
Lookin for work as a foot soldier in case this
Thing that they call school don’t get them nowhere
Cause remember- they’re not from around here.
But they makin their way on the Lower East Side
Where all eyes on you- can’t even the rats hide.
Cause its survival of the fittest just see another day
And in order to get in good you gotta play the game.
Your mothers and aunts are worried to death
But you gotta eat- so forget about the stress.
You gotta play the game whether you like it or not,
But there’s gotta be a breaking point where this all needs to STOP.

If you go down to Third street, between avenues B and C
People walk to a different beat.
A place that’s an escape from the world outside
Where fingers snap and words collide.
It was in the year 1975
Where you could see a generation strive
To find their souls on the city skyline
Amidst the smallest of confines.
Tongues spit metaphors and air filled the lungs
Of the poets that paved the way for many more to come.
The stage that was built by (Miguel) Piñero and (*****) Rivas
Was blessed decades later by Lemon Andersen and Beau Sia.
The place filled to capacity, bodies filling every space
Not an empty seat in the house, yet even more people found their place
Posted up against the wall all eyes fixed forward
Because when a poet raised their hands, no eyes were lowered.
They were free to clap, snap fingers and call out
In accordance with what a poet spoke about.
The Utopia that I speak of exists until this day
We call it the NuyoRican Poets Cafe.
Where all are welcome bring yourself and your freedom
A dream and a wish and the desire to achieve them.

Let us be the first in a line of many
To remember out culture and give it to our babies.
The English and the Spanish
As much as their tongues can manage.
Let's not be so quick to go against one another
Because in order to survive, we all need each other.
I want to live in a world where we all from the block
And we gotta support each other whether we like it or not.

"So please when I die
Don't take me far away
Keep me nearby
take my ashes and scatter them thru out
the Lower East Side."


In memory of Piñero, and all the pioneers of the time...

I wish that you believed in love, so then maybe you could see the love I have to give. Like a trap star, I got so much I sell the ****. But nobody wants it, all having been scorned by the one before. So I'm sellin mine in bulk at a discounted rate- lacking conversation and maybe a second date. Always only half invested, I keep having to get myself tested to see if something's love or lust, and always saying "In God I trust" but trust less in the dollar bills that are leaving people unfulfilled like a bad trip on a half *** stash. Like a ****** out of rehab, you swore off love because her lies tied the belt around your arm as her breath fueled the fire of her kisses that cooked and were injected into you veins, that was the only pain you knew of love. Left strung out on the bathroom floor your hopes and dreams went down the drain along with your hope that you'd get another hit of her. Her love was your drug and it turned into addiction- a daily procedure, she'd tell you lies of pride and leave you alone to seizure. You checked yourself in to the nearest center for rehabilitation and you made gettin clean your obligation..
I'm sitting here wondering if there's any hope for a relapse cause you've seemed to have swept off my feet and I'm standing on my kneecaps. I'm not saying I want you to fall back to the track of what backtracked you, but the feeling that comes when something you're in is the truth. I want to be your natural high. Trippin off life and all the little things. Let me hold your hand so can feel the beat of my heart pulsing through your veins. I don't wanna make you blind, I just want to open your heart so you don't see the end before the **** ever starts. That was my problem too, but I had to live in the moment. I knew that they'd be gone, I just couldn't have shown it. I just want to make you breathless, remove your fear like articles of clothing and shed this...
They say if you want to stay alive, don't get high on your own supply... unless of course you sharin- that's better, then you can get high together. John Legend said we on cloud 9 together. Let my kiss send you to another place while my hair that falls around you is the only way to find your way back. Lay me on my back and rest your head on my chest and exhale your stress. I'll inhale the lies and believe me when I tell you "everything's going to be aright". Everything's going to be alright.

Beautiful women and beautiful girls,
Your hips were made to rule the world
To knock it off center with one switch in your step
The power you possess many people forget
Including yourself, other women and too many times men
We build ourselves up, they try to break us down again
I just got one question for them:
What happened to chivalry?
To women of the 21st century
You were their heart always worn on their sleeve
And a man that cheated but he didn't leave
To many young girls you were nothing more
Than a broken frame on a kitchen floor
Mixed with their mothers tears
Because that's the only form that their fathers appeared...

Tear down the walls that make your word night
And look to the sun and make darkness into light
All you need in your life is a beautiful smile
Only to know that you're worthwhile
You're so much more than your *** and your *******
You are defined by your intellect
You are not the measurements that lyricists impose
You are not correlated with the amount of skin you show.
But rather when you show what you know.

Beautiful Women and Beautiful Girls
Your hips are made to rule the world.
Challenge the world with your beautiful mind
Words of wisdom as numerous as stars that shine.

Forgive me for falling asleep on you last night
I just want to fall asleep on you at night.
Rest my head on you chest
As your fingers run through my hair...
Or maybe we could just talk until the sun comes up
And our minds and hearts are bare.
I just know I wanna know you-
Inside and out.
I wanna know your body and mind
The way I do your heart.
I want to run my hands
Up the backbone of your intellect.
Wrap my arms around your shoulders
and show you what I really meant,
When I said its been forever
Since I actually felt this close
And when you tell me what's on your mind
That it will always mean the most.


Now that I've had my fix of you
I don't know where to go.
Words from more than a year ago
echo louder than before, so here you go:
The unbearably beautiful truth
Of what I think of you...
I'm scared of what you mean to me,
Terrified that maybe we're meant to be.
I don't want to feel you next to me
because it's so good it hurts.
But I get so lonely when you're not next to me
Cause my heart wants you as more than just a friend to me.
Because no matter what, my heart will love unconditionally.
But my mind has to protect me from reality
Of what I see that's happening around me.
Even when I want to say everything, I hesitate
I just want to let you know as much as I can
Before it's too late.