The first time your heart
Will break in front
of your daughter
It will be to your silence
And eyes that betray
Neither age
Nor suffering.
You will smile.
You will talk to her.
You will keep watching your movie.
You will remember.
You will swallow his name
To put it back into
Your heart,
Hoping it for not
To rise again.
-JBHarris, 6.2023
There is a subtle power to admitting you love someone. Admitting that there is a person in the world who you want to know, want the best for, and perhaps think of before yourself.
This is what we chase. This is what I strive to convey on screen, on pages, or by voice.
This thing, this power, I seek to capture, or remind the world exists.
For that cause, I write.
For that cause, I can’t give up.
Romantic love is great. It is a beautiful thing and I am a fan of it. With heartbreak being what it is, I am still open to marrying again.
Mixed in with that intentional dating, I now lead with my head and not my heart.
I pay attention to red flags.
I have no problem saying ‘No’.
I still like kisses.
I won’t smash on first dates.
I expect my partner to communicate, be present, and be faithful.
I’m a wife in an instant, hookup culture.
It’s weird outchea.
Love powers my activism. It has to! I believe that the desire for safety, care and equity, come from love.
I believe if love doesn’t power it? No change can come of it.
Or will.
When your heart breaks as a love poet, two things will happen —sometimes simultaneously.
1-You will swear off love and swear you don’t need it.
2-You wall off and idealize it. Love then becomes something for other people.
Do you know how hard a love poet falls for the chosen?
Oceans hold only half our tears.
Writing about the people you were once in love with is a feat unlike any acrobat. It’s this tightrope between agony and despair.
Sometimes the most potent pain opens wide valves of creativity…which is extraordinary.
Amaya tossed and turned in her king sized bed. Rolling away from the snores of her husband, she placing her hands on her closed eyes. She bit her lip, eyes welling up, cheeks then damp. Sitting on the side of her bed, her breathing in time with Khamron’s snoring. She took off her braid bonnet, shaking sleep, before going to the bathroom. The grandfather clock downstairs chimed, as she tapped the phone screen. “1:07.” She hissed.
Her toes gripped the carpet, and she wiped her face, exhaling. “Just shower and go back to bed.” She whispered. “Hot water and soap, Mama say fix everything.” She walked to the bathroom feet from her cherry oak footboard.
The dim light made her skin golden as she turned on the shower water. The patter of the water on the shower floor made her bite her bottom lip. Hand in the stream told her that the water needed a while more to warm.
Amaya turned to the sink, breathing softly, forcing tears into hiding. “Donovan.” She whispered. She box braids swung as she cupped her face, the blue in her braids matching her mood.
The water was needed, hiding tears. As she dried off, her mind drifted.
Her mind took her to his room, his mouth on her thighs ripping the yellow lace panties she wore against the front door.
His tongue tensing and opening her body as she rode his face.
Amaya remembered his hands on her hips, in her hair. “Tell me you love me, Sugar? Tell me!” His breath hot on her ear as he stretched her body to conform not him again, just like Homecoming Night twenty years before.
Amaya dried her legs as Khamron snored, her eyes to the clean laundry yet to be put away. Grinning at the orange shirt straining against its black plastic cage.
Her eyes watered again, wrapping the towel around her, made her way to the clean laundry.
The towel fell as she began digging for the orange shirt, her curvy frame still luminous, with light over her hips. Seizing her treasure, she put it on.
It was tight now, her bust not the same as it was in high school. She always slept better and Donovan’s practice
shirts anyway.
With her newfound peace, she hoped sleep would find her, letting her mind see him again when she slept.
———
He braced against the shower wall as the remaining water trickled over his shoulders and back. His hand smoothing his chesnut face . Closing his eyes, he willed her away. “Amaya.” Whispering her name conjured her there pinned between him and white tile wall. His hands gripping white tile of the shower wall. Heat coming through his skin again as the movie of their afternoon and last week flooded his mind.
The slapping of her back against the wall. Her grinding into his hands and hips, feeling her open, stretch and accommodate.
Her coffin shaped nails lightly scratching the backs of his ears…she remembered.
How she squeezed him, as he pushed her gently upright, squeezing her nipples and the darkness of her areolas.
Then Amaya screamed his name. And over again. Head back and full voice.
Donovan flipped her on her back, her legs on his shoulders. His face in her neck. As she had all through high school and college.
Her body was home. Her pleading for more of him music.
He bit his lip, the heat coming through his back.
The beeping of his phone ripping him from
recent memory.
White towel secured around his waist his Face ID unlocked it.
Sugar [1:10 AM]
Thank you for the shirt.
Response [1:11 AM]
I ripped the other.
He held the phone, breathing and waiting. He moved from Messages to his Delta app to check his flight information. He tossed the phone on the bed, turning to get his suitcase and wheel it to the front door.
Beeping again.
In short strides, reached the unmade bed.
Sugar [1:17 AM]
You ain’t changed at all! What am I going to do with you
Donovan grinned, heard her voice in his ears, reminding of the taste of Amaya’s neck.
His response [1:18 AM]
A woman with a mouth like yours to keep it quiet you have to keep it busy.
He attached his iPhone to the charger. Grinning, he took off the towel, preferring to sleep naked to remember her body again. He would text her in the morning maybe. He had a flight to catch.
While this piece was not included in this printed work, it was too good not to share. -JBH
When I asked you
to be my first,
I meant that
first—
last
The everything
first time
my legs would shake
on your shoulders.
The first time
I will ever feel a
spread in my hips
to the point every chakra
would realign to
ruin me for
any other man
that would dare
look at me
knowing that I was yours
deeper than senses
longer than love
quicker than Lightning flashes –
that kind of belonging
you can’t buy…
that kind of power—
you can’t mimic
when I asked you
into my body
to be the first
to explore
to awaken
to erupt everything in me
that was meant for you
I meant that.
I meant that,
like God is real
admitting all I held
for you—
would belong to you,
which means there
was a lock on the inside
of me with
your name on it—
If you thought my
mouth was slick,
You’ll find out
What else already is
A lock that
no one could find
but you—
Just like they put
names on hollow point
bullets so that the soul
will be captured,
I wanted to be
captured—
to be held
to be found
by you and none but you.
Knowing the caliber of love
and love making,
Relentless exploration
that the kids call fucking
you would give to me
—and only me —
because I asked
it of you.
when I asked you
to be my first
I meant for you
to be the last
because how often
do you get to
touch the sun
and live to tell about it?
-JBHarris, October 2022
To grab this book on Amazon or Kindle, click here.
Through the lack of social media, and the uncanny nature of my own life, I have found my childhood sweetheart. For respect, I won’t give his name here, but he knows this book exists.
If you know you know.
I have not seen him in 21 years, and yet he remembers the last thing I wore, and I saw him before he saw me.
I all but ran to him. Hugged him. And the world fell away. No, that is not an exaggeration.
For those feelings, for the power of that connection, I wrote! In being transparent, this was the man I thought I would marry.
There are attributes of this connection I have looked for in other relationships–to this day (I mean #ForeverBae plays Poker AND Chess!)!
This chap book is a reminder to me that…maybe I am still a love poet after all. As and maybe (just maybe) this is a reminder to younger me that I wasn’t crazy–and neither was he.
The butterflies were real and still are.
Favorite pieces:
Love Note #3
Hymnals
When Beale Street Talks
I know you said
You need all of me,
But what happens
When I need me back?
-JBHarris, 9.4.2019
I Breathe Fire 