Victory

How does one claim it?

Is it only as temporary as your next bout?

Or does at least one moment of joy suffice, potentially through one’s last days?

A better word is ‘happiness,’ I think, because it can also be achieved without competition

nor any witnesses, it can be just you, having a feeling deep within –

an excitable peace, a love for existence,

or like a hummingbird’s wings it could be constant, consistent,

a warm, lovely feeling that doesn’t go away,

it comes and goes with sports, and so it does with everything else;

and when it’s yours, in your heart, mind, soul, whatever you believe your ‘self’ to be –

then it’s yours.

Enjoy it. Love it. Don’t go around it or be above it.

Take a step back and feel yourself soar. – RSM

Periwinkle Skies; A Sign

A light purple, if you will,

So trill, the hue of royalty hangs itself above the ever-moving metropolis,

it’s a shade that flirts with blue, purple, and grey – every so often, this, horizon

glows above us, quietly, yet proudly.

Not unlike the dusk that follows, it wanes into darker times, yet reminding us to be not afraid of the night. – RSM

Hypothetically Yes, Theoretically Forever

What if we met on a whim at a random little house party in Harlem


What if we went on a few cute little dates


What if your curls and smile reminded me of sunlight, cuz I couldn’t get enough, still can’t


What if that little blue dress drew me in like a magnet


What if I believed we were onto something and I sneezed inward when you surprised me with a “yes”


What if my demons came to get me and you were there through it all and beyond


What if our spontaneous fun times turned into a lifetime of love


What if we moved in together like 5 and a half times and exchanged my hometown with yours


What if we watched over dozens of college kids for several years


What if the world stopped when you said “yes” again on that sweetest day


What if we got married and kept on traveling the world together


What if we bought a nice little bungalow on the South Side of Chicago and cuddled to Enamorándonos every weeknight


What if none of these ‘what ifs’ ever happened?


^That’s the only hypothetical in my mind I’d rather not entertain. – RSM

And the Beat Goes On

Sneakers and boots swarm the shoe rack by the front door.

The apartment is bustling, the air is rustling,

buzzing with the electric bliss of danceable beats,

beer cans clicking open – a romanceable heat fills the air.

I’m there, purple pants gliding by the guidance of my black socks beneath.

I didn’t know that this pretty girl I hadn’t met yet had her bold brown eyes hovering my way,

but I’m glad that when she saw me for the first time, I was at my happiest –

I was just vibing, speaking my soul’s most fluent language.

We broke the ice with our feet and the beat

as our words flowed flawlessly over the backdrop

of about twenty-something other twenty-somethings,

grooving along to the music that moved us.

I let her know that I liked her necklace, and when she said “Thank you!”

I was introduced to my favorite smile in the world.

Today we’re ten years beyond the night we had shared our first song.

Anniversaries and holidays now align

as we dine, travel, work, live, love, laugh, and still dance together.

From days to weeks, months, years, decades, and more

I always look forward to the next time we share a dance floor. – RSM ❤

And I Ran . . .

What a relief as I take off into the cool breeze,

I’m feeling the air, hearing my footsteps as I sweat it out,

I zoom into the void of my path ahead.

My mind drops into silence from its usual chatter, ever-loud;

distractions disappear like a leftover fog from a cloudy day.

Peace sits between my ears as a flock of seagulls sets a course ahead to explore. – RSM

Visions, Vol. 3: My’nd’imensional Jumps

All the time, so it goes,

a quick shift lifts my consciousness out the nearest window,

a random round-robin of rare realities rage,

ranging from what’s reasonable to the completely unfeasible,

my mind is a flip phone with T9, sometime in 2002, after 9 –

unlimited. It talks all it wants.

A gust of wind blows me back in,

a nano-second long journey takes me across the universe and snaps me back to my reality.

Then,

through the entropy of imagination, the cosmic jungle of all possibilities seen through my own unique lens,

I’m. Once. Again. pinballing through existence, leaning into this mysterious experience, with no resistance –

And here I am, back in an instant – sliding right into my third eye’s home plate, where it always begins, this,

Infinite, unpredictable winding pathway of pathways, it sounds overh’whelming in writing, but I find it lovely,

My thoughts are on shuffle, my mind jumps into the Google text box, but never hits ‘Search’ cuz I’m always ‘Feeling Lucky,’

My ego’s like Jasmine on the balcony: playing hard to get.

But just like Aladdin my imagination is stationed on his magic carpet,

hand outstretched with a smile, asking her, “Do you trust me?” – RSM

L’appel du vide

The air lies still.

A docu-series rambles on, recanting memories of generations past.

A storm batters the trees outside with violent gusts, endless rains ravage the view beyond my closed windows.

I close my eyes for a long few seconds. A familiar light bulb clicks on in an old dusty attic bathed in bright moonlight on a clear, chilly evening – emitting an aqua blue hue, suspended from the center of the ceiling.

I travel here when I think of death and the afterlife, either on my own or from external stimuli – sometimes a dangerous daydream scene emerges from a quaint reality:

For instance – I’m waiting for a bus and wonder what would happen if it hit me, resulting in death on impact – how do my five senses respond?  Where does that leave ‘me’? Or maybe a plane goes down on a trip and before I know it I’m on a new found post-life trajectory.

Be it a heart attack, something else sudden, or a terminal expectation that everybody sees coming, I’ve thought about what death would be like here and there as far back as I can recall. I remember looking out my window as a toddler, and wondering if I fell and died where my mind and soul would come to reside, where I would travel to, where would my soul wander – where does consciousness go after this life?

The aqua blue lightbulb in the attic is in my mind’s eye, on a different plane where all my inner imaginings lie – I have an old journal as thick as a small brick. Pages frayed, leather-bound.  I flip to the nearest blank, past thousands of older hand written engagements, I write it all down in the aqua blue-lit attic while imagining another possible path or experience that may come to pass when this life is finished.

In those few seconds with my eyes closed on that  dark, stormy evening, I visited the attic where the blue light glimmers – opened my old journal, and  wrote down my latest vision. – RSM

PLUR x Hydration <3

We’re all friends, and have a collective jump that shakes the tarmac beneath us,

girls on shoulders, kandi traded along sweaty wrists

as the bass permeates our skin, we feel it in our bones –

a wave of loud cheers erupts from stage to stage,

dozens of countries’ flags on display,

makeshift kandi masks donned as hundreds of shufflers scrape the floor with their sneakers,

a pounding of sound calls you from every direction.

Wavy, euphoric vibes, and dilated eyes all around

About 10 giant bananas are running around together

But the most beautiful thing are the water bottles being passed around.

Smiles, glistening bodies of all shapes, sizes, genders, colors, 100,000 faces

And when one falls, there are 10 to catch them,

We check in with our crew and pass the water bottles around –

We all vibe out, some like to smoke, and some won’t,

Some like to jump and scream, and some roll, and some don’t,

but everyone passes the water bottles around.

Some shuffle, some head bang at the front, some crowd surf,

some just sit back and kick back toward the back,

some throw up the peace sign and the duck face,

some are on the ‘gram, while their favorite DJ goes HAM,

taking snaps and videos and selfies with selfie sticks-

Some even start passionately kissing, or give sweaty, glitter-filled hugs

and rave hands, glow sticks, LED gloves dancing in the air,

some make new friends, and some stick to their tribe,

some are wearing next to nothing, some are dressed like batman;

and some are so lost in the music that they’re in their own zone…

and they’re all passing the water bottles around. – RSM

Breathe Vol. 2

Been there and back but the panic attacks clap with the sound of deep thunder and return with the whiplash of a well-thrown boomerang,

Random and abrupt these emotions emerge, the flood’s surge suffocates, a work-stoppage in my mind and I’m unable to produce words

Energy sparks like a super saiyan transformation, but all the wild hair and screaming is on the inside,

‘Alive and well’ turns to a silent hell at the blink of an eye’s notice,

The day’s events’ recap just kindles the flames, stimulating the flight/fight response, my

Heart rate goes off the charts, looking just
like this poem, when you rotate your screen 90 degrees to the left –

Engaged in a battle with the heavy, inner winds, but I win all these bouts when I just follow the first letter of every line, and remember to breathe. – RSM

Seven Years Later

It all worked out, despite the odds.

It’s on me to keep the good going.

A setback or two has no place in my mind

cuz I crush those with one hand now, without even trying.

The strength gained from it all isn’t seen on the physical,

Rather a strong mind, soul, my ‘guns’ are metaphysical –

I love the love that I have, it’s a skill

that’s built through the storms of life, even still,

I know our lives are a painting or a novel unfinished

as we look back on our bad times when we felt diminished;

But trust me, my guy, my ‘rock bottom’ is a flex

Cuz I know the grit and grime it took to manifest

The present, past, future that rises each morning,

Seven years later I’m not just flying, I’m soaring. – RSM