Rough audio and transcription of a new poem

So it's been quite some time since I've posted a poem on here. In fact, the last time was in 2009, right here! Anyways, I started writing this new poem awhile back, but a few recent occurrences made me actually finish it. It's a rough version, and the audio is pretty rough too (I'm in a guest house and was a little embarrassed to get too loud!). It is a very targeted poem, I'll admit, and some may realize what it is about. To be honest the majority of it was written about an experience pretty far back in the past, but a few lines were added and tweaked in the end to bring it to this state.

Though poems may come off harsher than our actual reality, for me, it's a great way to process and move on. I hope you enjoy, and as soon as I can think of a title and get a video of me reading it, I'll post it on here.

(untitled)

I got a tattoo.

It’s one I’ve been thinkin about for awhile.

It covers the better part of my back, and trickles down my arm like spring waterfalls before the snow melt inundates the stream.

It’s simple.

I like the way the colors blend into my back.

I got it sometime between when you said you didn’t want to see me and that you wanted to be friends. And I’ll pretend

That the unabashed laugh, and the smile a mile wide when you read the words plastered on my billboard eyes were perfectly normal responses between “just friends.”

But I draw the line when you mistook the prose below my brows, surrounding the nose for someone you once knew.

Someone who was beyond devoted Proselytized by your songs and psalms like the ubiquitous black lines framing your clandestinely brown eyes, I couldn’t remove the dogmatic blinders.

My fake guru I allowed you to renovate the plot once housing my essence. But today is a new day.

Through ablutions and purification i’ve eradicated the yolk once extending from your gaze. You would have to be crazed to think that this man now momentarily found in your presence will shy away from calling you out on your bullshit.

Though I have unreciprocated respect for your beliefs in reincarnation, my cross cultural examination has led me to the brink of realization of new manifestation emerging with the each passing dawn. I’m not wrong when I say that today I’m changed. Though the resemblance is uncanny, like the transmuted skin on my back you’ll never embrace, you’re not any part of the happiness now etched permanently on this epidermal canvas. My face may appear the same, but the newly acquired wrinkles, like rivers from the pristine ocean adorning my eyes, tell tales of smiles you neither aided nor created. Aging scars may house your remnants but they are no impediment to forward progress, only talismans of mistakes that will never again resurfaced.

So of friends, I say one should not pour foundation on malleable land, and deceit is shallow soil and if you love him, let your union flourish by not stowing it away from the light. And now that he’s found the strength ot drop on one knee, embellishing anxiously awaiting finger with a promised ring, I hope you have the tact to cease from contacting me. You don’t want that rock to scratch your phone’s screen.

I’ll tell you there is not one ounce of disgrace, in this new verity I’ve embraced…that I wish you the best in all your endeavors. Triumphs, failure, ebbs, flows, falls and ascensions to grace. But I pray I’ve already lived through the last time I’ll ever see your face.