Basquiat over a Rolls Royce.

Jean Michel Basquiat was the catalyst for the modern-day tortured artist. 

The Radiant Child.

A poem written to me from my little sister.

Speaking from the Heart


Well, Jazmine, I'll tell you:
Love ain't an easy path to walk on.
There's the heartbreaks
and smiles.
And the waiting,
for someone to pick up your world. --
Heavy hearted.
But I'm still loving,
I'm still smiling
and picking myself back up.
And sometimes you'll feel like you're
walking on broken glass with no shoes on.
There'll be those days when your bones ache because you're so hurt.
But don't stop loving.
Someone will pick up your world.
So don't you give up.
For I'm still smiling,
I'm still loving.
And love for me ain't no easy path to walk on.

-Taylor Cosey, 15

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.  And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love, nothing I am profited. Love is long suffering, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not boast, it is not inflated. It is not discourteous, it is not selfish, it is not irritable, it does not enumerate the evil. It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth    It covers all things, it has faith for all things, it hopes in all things, it endures in all things. Love never falls in ruins; but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or tongues, they will cease; or knowledge, it will be superseded. For we know in part and we prophecy in part. But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.   When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant; when I became [an adult], I abolished the things of the infant.  For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.  But now remains  faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The Getaway

No words I can say.

No words could I write to iterate why or how I feel this way.

Through this touch I pray you can feel me.

The transfer of energy from one body to the next.

It’s like the hope that filled you when you learned to ride a bike.

You closed your eyes tights.

Let your head fall back as the wind whipped your hair and face.

You breathed in the scent of autumn,

And prayed like hell you didn’t fall and bloody your knees.

Your loss of control is greeted by the embrace of the grass.

Breathing hard, your chest rose and fell. 

A smile crawled across your little, flushed face as you began to laugh.

Exhilarated in disbelief,

Realizing you finally did it.

Firmly your hand grips my hip as we lay side by side.

It lets me know you’re here.

You lend me your lips softly.

They let me know its all right.

I take your face in my hands,

All bad I’ve immediately forgot.

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Wrapping me in you.

Swimming, growing, filling.

Our breath shortens and the thickened air encases us.

We’re lingering somewhere between here and there.

Each movement is steady.

Each movement is taking me down.

Each movement takes us to our getaway.

I escape in you, and you into me.  

Pit

I feel it move into me. Filling in all the empty spaces. Yet when it takes me over I feel emptier. This darkness brews. Each time it comes and goes it leaves a little more of itself behind. Each time it comes, its visits seem more extended than the last. At its arrival, I am enraged. It is a slow, burning fire deep in the heart of me. During these times I am not quick to anger nor do I display any true emotions. I intentionally hurt people and take pleasure in it. Sucking out their joy, hope, and happiness they have ever found in me pleases, feeds, and nurtures me. I become a glutton for punishing. I seek to be left alone. I isolate myself and socializing becomes achingly unbearable. The only people I can speak freely to are the ones who may not understand but do accept the darkness within me. I’m sinister. There is evil in this. I can physically feel the change in me. My facial expressions dement. This has been me since I can remember. Anytime it comes I feel like it’s an old friend. I know it wants to permanently take hold of me. I am considering it.