I'm Not Sure I Ever Really Knew Her

 

Addictive melancholy

Stained in black rose water

Angel City digests pieces of her

A pot of soup from someone's kitchen

I have made up stories of her

in a diary that stretches the truth.

~Tina Meeks

Vanilla

 

Her vanilla scent lingered on my shoulders like how
it captured me at the beach
Captured me in my wind
My breathing, hard and pushed
We pushed ourselves into the sand
Her vanilla scent called up my nasal passageways

I tried to breathe deeper and
slower to allow myself to seep into the seconds
that raced behind us
I questioned why, before,
I never enjoyed the smell of vanilla much
Today, I sink further into the crevice
that has kept me warm during the loneliest moments

When my breathing becomes shallow
I fall into old habits and laugh to keep from sobbing
Eventually, I wallow, so what's even the point?
A disappointing reality when my own tricks
think they can still trick me into thinking
I'm thinking so deeply in circles and the pain hits home

Melancholy sits on the floor with me at home
that doesn't sit well in my gut
and I let myself go into the same cycle, and thought for just a moment,
I got another whiff of vanilla

~Tina Meeks

I'm on Board the Astrobus

He speaks like he has a thick tongue

Hands never at the hips

Hands, at a ballet

and fluctuating

- I want him to gesture me this way,

as if there is something that his fingertips

just lingering to get me to tingle and giggle

- just look at him

Watch how he feels words

by closing his eyes and accepting vibrations

to tell the stories

and following fingertips on pages

and mistakenly saying words aloud

and playing with dissonance 

~Tina Meeks

9/28/21

 

Delving into an abundance of colors and flowers
feelings are not "just"
can we take each other home?

~Tina Meeks

The Beginning

 Jonathan was the youngest of his friend group
He was also the tallest
and the only black man
His small group played Back Alley Bridge,
a card game that has traveled as far
and wide as you can shuffle a deck

Bill needed one year person to complete the teams
for the game

and what better person than his little sister, Mar?

Mar had an apartment on Gladys Avenue next
to the Catacombs Club

She had two young sons and
their father, under a separate roof

When Bill and Jonathan arrived to play cards
and Mar opened the door,

they all greeted and Jonathan exclaimed,

" Bill, you didn't tell me you had a sister this fine"

They proceeded to play cards and little did anyone know that
that would be the first of many card games
between them and Back Alley Bridge would
continue to travel down the generational line 

~Tina Meeks

I Think I'm Falling

 

Questions, placed on the back burner to marinate in 

what has been made 

and these moments contain 

the many layers of magnitude portrayed

from your eyes in the sun

That must have been a ripple in attraction and 

a tall tale that has stained the inner eyelids of 

every complicated hesitation within my complexion,

like the perplexed grieving boy we, for some reason, cherish

~Tina Meeks

Another Beautiful Day

 

The stage is set at sunset, marrying dusk
The colors of the sky are the colors of a blood orange
and faded denim jeans
Telling a story of how the colors bleed
peacefully and melt into the sea
Pleading to see each other for a moment more
and little do they know that for as long as they want,
they create this moment again day after day
They will modestly liquefy together and become introduced to the night

~Tina Meeks