when your hurt turns cold

When your hurt turns cold




When your hurt turns cold

You feel your heart become chilled

The blood slows to a slug like crawl and you feel no palpitations

It crawls from your soul

Up your throat and you vomit it out

For all to see and hear

All you can hear is the hurt coming out in my words

The hurt comes out and will give your essence frost bite

Your ears might crumble off the side of your head

When my hurt turns cold

So, when your hurt turns cold

What are you going to do

But freeze up from the inside out

And cry

"An Akili Carter original"

Crying

Crying (in honor of Shannon)

Every day I cry when I think of the hurt

Every day I cry when the lassitude’s of destruction

You have laid on my poor grieving heart

Come crashing down on my head

“It’s not you, it’s me” you said

It’s not me that broke up my world

Made it all come crashing down

That was you too

It wasn’t me that had to break up with my voicemail

That was you as well

All the time I’m stewing in my own head, crying

Looking at pictures of us, crying

Thinking about your family functions, crying

Driving to and from work, listening to pitifully sad love songs

Still crying every step of the way

I try to call you and you ignore my calls

You won’t let me have closure and end it like a grown up

So I have to sit here stuck in infancy

Trying to figure out how to do anything besides cry

I need to pick my heart up again

Restructure the pieces back into a solid figure

My heart is broken and I want to make it whole again

But I keep crying

I want to move, yet I keep crying

Stagnated by the way you left me in the dark

Holding and consoling myself, and still crying

"An Akili Carter original"

When Love is Madness

When love is madness (in honor of Marni)
When you cannot figure out what is going to happen next

When every word they say goes through your chest

When those words crash into your heart like shrapnel

The love makes you mad like you have no sanity

All you can say is “you drive me crazy”

So as you drink in his unpredictability

He lives in insanity

But not as in crazy

He keeps you off balance emotionally

While he drains his emotions in liquid libation

Stifled by sporadic emotional masturbation

Today he is emotive, tomorrow he might not be

You want to return to the first days of how he used to be

The time when he used to be so sweet and caring

Now all he seems to care about is everything but you

When love is madness you try to remain stable

When love is madness you attempt to smile

There’s no medication or therapy to fix this hurt

There’s no one person besides him, whom can Aleve this hurt

You want him to grab you and hug you, to relieve the hurt

So tired of reliving this hurt and pain

I just want to be normal again

I so often forget what is normal again and again

Never knew if we were normal to begin with

When you cannot figure out what is going to happen next

When every word he says goes through your chest

When those destroy your heart and prevent it from beating

When love is madness

The madness seems never ending


"An Akili Carter original"

Through the bottle

Alcoholic mother, father, and brother

Drinking always the lone thing that connects them together

Liquor the substance that appears thicker than blood

For their family

I try to sit back and look at things objectively

But get so angry that I feel like I need a drink myself

Want to take the drama and displace it for her

Want to destroy the negativity and transform it into something more

They are always looking at each other through the bottle

The only strong family ties seemed to be sewn together

Amongst the beer and vodka goldschlager and grey goose

I look at she and she only looks sad and hurt

Even though she looked for more from them

They were always looking back at her through a bottle

Incessantly swigging, shot-ing, and chugging

The alcohol lubricating the pain that has been omnipresent

Dusting her heart with glass bottle shards

Cancer, homeless, locked up, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg

Dancing around each other in an alcohol hazed stupor

Her mind numbs and slows as if she was drinking when she sees them

I see them, meticulously destroy her

She wants them to show love and share their hearts

But none of them know how to express anything but criticism

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

And the drinks take them back into their cold closed off hearts

Not knowing how to tell their sister and daughter that they love her

Not knowing how to express love

Looking for love she is

But all they can show her is the empty bottle

The empty loves in their life

All I can do is show her that at the end of the day

Empty bottles are just empty bottles

"An Akili Carter original"

A ballpoint pen without the ink (inspired by a line written by Yvonne)

You make me feel like a ballpoint pen without the ink

Like an empty glass when you want a drink

You make me incomplete

Completely lost and inconsolable

But I don’t need you in my life at all

But I want to be near you no matter what I say

All I can say is that I want to be a part of you

All I need to say is freak off I don’t want to be around you

I feel so lost and alone, that I’m a map without cities or states

I’m Alicia Keys or John Legend without a piano to play



You make me feel like a ballpoint pen without the ink

I’m a kitchen without a refrigerator or sink

I’m feeling real metaphorical today

So I am a sculptor without the clay

I am an artist without a paint brush or paint

I’m a tattoo artist with out a needle or ink



You make me feel like a ballpoint pen without the ink

Enough metaphors and similes

I’m hurt without you and devastated when you are with me

Cry tears so hard that my tears are mini travesties

Want to be near you but callous over when you are too close to me

I’m so cracked my heart has fault lines

So sad that I’m really sad and can’t come up with a crazy poetic way to say it

Bottom line is that we are at the end of the line and for once it’s not on me

I want to cry for you but am actually crying for me



You make me feel like a ballpoint pen without the ink

Dry and barren

Devoid of anymore poetry

But I’ll get better soon enough

And ill be refilled with the ink of life soon enough

"An Akili Carter original"

right now

Right Now
I can’t write a happy poem right now

I can’t paint roses and rainbows with a heavy heart right now

I won’t be able to locate the inspiration for a dedication right now

My heart is bruised and dented right now

My eyes are red, blurry, and burning right now

So don’t ask me to smile right now

Because, my poems are cold and jaded right now

Well this poem is hard and skewed right now

I can’t pick up a pen and compose songs right now

I can’t dance with the words right now

I’ll just stumble over the missed steps right now

And fumble over the counts that are off beat right now

The art in my poetry is broken right now

The ink is running thin right now

No matter how hard I squeeze my brain

The pain is too intense right now

I can’t exude happiness for you right now

All the dead butterfly carcasses are pilling up right now

I’m broken up right now

I’m too hardened right now

I can’t write a happy poem right now

I’m just staring at an empty page right now

I’m just writing a sad poem right now

Because, I feel lost in my own hurt right now

"An Akili Carter original"

The Soloist (inspired by the movie)

The soloist


Imagine digesting music and hearing every nuance

Picture yourself composing Beethoven or Bach

I want to write symphonies like that

Where every word dances in your head like a musical note

When every letter is distinct and full of beauty

Because my beauty and your beauty must meet in symbiosis

I want the lines to destroy my world and rebuild it in one swoop

Destroy any ideas I had previously of what poetry is or what music is

Every psalm will become a concerto

I want my pen to manipulate the page like a bow does a violin

That’s the beauty of poetry

It’s the music of my mind and my soul

It’s the rhythm that dances in my heart

And while I might not exist just to write poetry

I hope one day I am able to honor my craft

And become a true soloist



"An Akili Carter original"