what (i) missed

My therapist told me I should try wearing two different socks to
help me get over my anxiety. She said
that my brain falls all too quickly into the trap of the unknown, and that
some things are just not meant for me to control. The socks
are supposed to act as a tangible reminder of this intangible lesson that I have had
no luck
in learning.
I remember, I got
a haircut the month I started seeing her. You had told me
you were seeing someone, too, and it pushed me to better myself
the same way. Maybe one day we
could cut out these middle men,
I thought.

In the time it took for my hair to grow out
I’ve felt what it’s like to have everything and nothing. Time
is kept by counting minutes and hours, days and months. But
the markers aren’t important. It’s the changes that occur
in between the markers that give time meaning. The short, silky hairs
that used to drip down the back of my neck now fit
comfortably in my messy bun. Minutes have stayed the same and hours
don’t change from one to the next but my hair reminds me I’m not
who I was when this began.
The remnants of yesterdays coffee are congealing in the mug
on my desk; a dismal reminder of my doleful efforts to fashion together
the fragmented-me that remained.

The thoughts in my head are heavy-footed, their
reverberations shaking me to the core. So different,
from the way you handled my heart. So gentle,
it’s delicate warmth burrowed into the palm of your hand. I’m so sad but still I
feel so lucky to have handed it to someone who recognized how
precious, how fragile, so tender
the way you handed it back
as unscathed as you possibly could.

I don’t know where to go now but I know I
can’t stay here; even in my hazy heartbreak mind I know
this is for the best. I climb back into bed
at the end of the first of many inconsolable days, only to look down and see
I’m wearing two different socks.

When morning broke my eyelids were still glued, a day as ordinary as a McDonald's burger I thought, having no great expectation for it. I groped around in the half light cursing, unable to find a wayward sock. That dammed imp that hides things away, we all have one in our homes.
You put a vital something down, turn your back and Hey Presto its gone. I walk into the kitchen with only one sock on inside my slippers, and just to lighten the mood I turn on the radio, The DJ's playing 70's pop, I hum along, but in my head know all the words.  
Fantastic I think, that guy will still be playing that a hundred years from now . David Bowie performing Life on Mars how droll I muse, as the toast starts to smoke, is that what mars smells like; burned toast. I start to sing "there's a Starman smelling of burned toast, he'd like to come and meet you but your just to self-engrossed "  still humming I continue buttering the slightly burned toast.
As I look through the window pane, as I crunched the toast thinking what a sad loss to the world not my sock you fool! but David Bowie, but then on reflection was he taken by the imp  
and hidden never to return. As I peered into the garden one of the gnomes in the rockery smiling gave me a wink. I look down, the profile in the bitten toast was likeness of David returned like a ghost

Why we cant love one another?
Why these bitches start shit, turn around and call the jakes on a brother?
Why my niggas always caught in the system?
Why we fighting for a country thats gonna put us in prison?
Why I cant get a loan?
Why we in the streets more than the home?
Why these single mothers raising kids all on they own?
Why the Government be telling us lies?
Why the want us to die?
Why we divided?
Why we gotta pick sides?
Why do people hate me cause of my skin?
Why you telling all my business, we suppose to be friends?
Why we scared to be men?
Why we stuck in the trap?
Why we working everyday?
Why we gotta pay tax?
Why I cant relax?
Why we cant get along?
Why these rappers only talk about drugs in the songs?
Why we cant move on?
Why Kobe didnt drive his car?
Why is life so hard?
Why I cant get a job?
Why is COVID-19 only hitting the hood?
Why do people at the top get more than they should?
Why them niggas had to go and kill Mike?
Why the cops shoot blacks, but they dont shoot whites?
Why I fear for my life?
Why the hell I turn down my deal?
Why is niggas always broke after paying the bills?
Why my buzz in D.C. aint as big in New York?
Why the love me down south, but wont say it up north?
Why we still gotta fight to be free?
Why we still gotta march with signs?
Why we still keep dying?
Why the judge aint give you a bond?
Why do everybody say they miss you soon as you gone?
Why the doing us wrong?
Why Im not your underground Top-5?
Why they keep putting chemtrails up in the sky?
Why we never think to go and invest?
Why we never buy stocks, but we always in debt?
Why we chasing these checks?

WHY?

I hid a thought once    
I buried it deep inside a word    
inside a poem for you    
and I charged that word with mojo    
spiked it with my hard love voodoo.    
I taught my charge to keep quiet    
to sleep inside your mind    
growing strong enough    
to navigate the flows    
through the heart    
to the loins    
then back through the mind    
searching out those secret places    
into which it could wiggle    
its nasty little self    
infecting you with me.    
That word you can't quite remember reading    
that held that thought    
still draws you inexplicably back    
down the trail of each new line    
lost and looking for the clearing    
and at every turn home feels so close    
as I lead you deeper down the rough and wild.    
   
It wasn't hard    
a few good guesses about a bad daddy    
some details that might be true of anyone    
pinpricks to breach the dam    
and I burst through from all sides    
until you swore I'd invaded your darkest recess    
like a jaguar stalking your thicket    
where you are clawless, so vulnerable    
that you surrender yourself as my sole prey.

But these are not your woods.    
I laid the lines and grew the poetry upon them.    
I darkened the sky    
hung the moon and soaked the moss    
planted every tree and twisted each root    
and made this purposeful path where I pass    
ahead holding the only light    
that leads you farther in.    
That glow is not my heart of gold,    
but the sheen of a well worn key    
one that I had hidden once    
working all the while inside of you.