Gothic Cathedral

A Poem by harlem_knight

My art teacher says that true love bears fruit as sweet as honey dew.
This reminds me of my adolescent years when loving myself was harder each day and the road to affinity felt more like an infinity with crackling embers around campfires and frostbitten hands.
I found I was a mosaic of a person.
Proof that together broken pieces can be works of art too. Stained with blood from jagged edges please
I’m only attempting to fit myself whole
No matter the pain involved
I was always a bit too unshapely
A little too uneven to balance out
A bit too unorthodox to be secluded to the secular
At 15 they told me my color made the sun regret kissing me. That I was too dark to be seen during the night so I felt invisible. but isn’t that just like the coolest superpower.
I made myself into a hero!
Saving my dignity one unrequited text at a time to someone who just happen to be on my mind…see there where a few someones.
There is always someone other than myself that I am wandering for.
Moving a tad bit too slow for the culture and too wise beyond my years to give up now.
My story is that of Gothic cathedrals in hidden parts of France. Visible from the blackness of space my arches extend to the heavens only to inspire those who know of its existence.
My doors open west because that’s where the sun sets.
I always felt more alive in the dark.
and my arms close whenever the mirror tells me a truth that’s too painful to accept when I’m not alone.
I learned that offering masses of myself will convert few and the rain is better faced fearlessly. I learned The difference between a summer shower and a hurricane is only in the eyes of the storm.
That Promises are stray cats looking for shelter in dark alleyways of nyc streets. They’re never kept forever.
So i built fortresses around the ones made for myself and housed my heart for the times I would need it.

Mamma told me I should love myself…….
She told me to love myself so much that I wouldn’t expect it from anyone else.
But mama that’s hard. Especially when
They call me new England black tea.
Bitter as lost love how could one ever acquire such a taste..
And the result?
I end up adding too much milk to my tea, too much creamer in my coffee, a little less Hershey in my kiss.
In hopes that the world would accept this adjustment.
And there I was, white washing my potency with s curls for waiver hair, reading all the works of the late white poets I couldn’t relate too but still admired.
I can’t lie I even thought about bleaching my skin
I just wanted to make the odds fairer
I wanted to stand out at night.
I didn’t want to be a superhero anymore. I just want my arches to be seen from the blackness of space and more than anything I wanted to make mama proud.

So mama. I stand here today telling you there’s no more cream in my coffee., just sugar. I have reconstructed my cathedral. My doors open east now and that stained glass was the only way the light could shine through. I kept those.
And f**k whoever doesn’t like new England black tea. pass me a cup and watch me sit and sip.