choosing differently

  • God is generous with
  • Second chances
  • I see you in him
  • In his intensity and curiosity
  • In his determination of what’s
  • Right
  • For me
  • I see how my strength
  • Intrigues him
  • And incongruously makes him want to
  • Fix me

frozen-rose

  • He’s just as
  • Sure
  • That I need his
  • Guidance
  • He’s just as sure
  • That he
  • Sees me
  • Better than I
  • See myself
  • He’s passionate and
  • Hungry and
  • He presses me
  • Challenges me
  • Outright
  • Pushing and pulling
  • But instead of
  • Resisting
  • Correcting him
  • I’m flowing
  • I’m choosing
  • Different
  • Can I let him
  • Be
  • The way I couldn’t let you?
  • Can I let him
  • Wind himself around me
  • Without stiffening or flinching?
  • Can I let him poke around
  • Inside my heart
  • Determining for himself
  • What is true and false
  • Without fear
  • Impaling him on my slamming portcullis?
  • Is it not too late with him?
  • I used all my chances with you
  • Can I open myself to him
  • So he can walk right in
  • Like I couldn’t with you?
  • I made so many mistakes
  • This time
  • I choose to float
  • Downstream
  • I choose to
  • Risk
  • For me and for
  • Love

 

woman

Guan_YinShiva
It’s in the way the
Sunlight
Catches in her eyes

In the quiet patience
Of her hips
The curl of her lip

It’s in the grace and economy of her
Movements

Fluid and lyrical

In catching the
Falling

Bolstering the
Trembling

Embracing the
Without

It’s the delicate flesh
Revered
Worshiped

That can be made to
Stand
Fragile
But in furious
Defense

And the violation of it
Becomes
Twice-fold
Because

The body of a woman

The pleasure-seeker
Give and receiver

Bends and stretches in
Ecstasy as it does in
Constancy as it does in
Protection as it does in
Cooperation as it does in
Leadership

Her softness flows as a stream
Yet dashes rocks below

Nourishing
And
Ravaging

In every step and
Breath

We are yesterday
Today and
Tomorrow

if, then, else

  • If I had been a happy child
  • If I had known unconditional love
  • Would I have grown into a woman with
  • A surging thirst of ambition?
  • If I had believed my mother
  • Anytime she nurtured me
  • Instead of ever suspecting her motives
  • Would I have come to love a simple life?
  • If I had had brothers to look after me
  • If I had had friends or my father to seek solace in
  • Would I have grown so strong and
  • Independent?
  • If I hadn’t faced and walked away from
  • The option of suicide at eight years old
  • Would I have chosen it instead
  • After some flapping melodrama years later?

TheCreek

  • If I had played dolls with little friends
  • If I had had play-dates and summer camps
  • Instead of wandering the forests and creeks like a wolf-child
  • Would I still have a transcendent imagination?
  • If parent figures hadn’t wafted in and out of my homes
  • If I hadn’t been drug to one sham wedding after another
  • Would I have had my starter marriage and divorce
  • Instead of insisting on one true love or nothing?
  • Who would I be
  • If I hadn’t faced what I’ve faced?
  • Would I like me as much?
  • Would I be as proud?
  • Would I want as badly
  • To touch the hearts around me?

 

a kernel of you

OrbInHands
Can I have nugget of you?
A kernel?
I promise to treat it with the utmost
Care
I will build it a
Velvet box and
Keep it
Warm
And sheltered
And loved
I will hum to it
And watch it sprout
And protect it
From the wind
I will
Nourish it and
Prune it and
Keep it
Close

love’s labour lost

  • Ex-boyfriends in old haunts
  • Old hedgerows emerge and the
  • Grandest point remains
  • It comes fast and hard
  • The most pristine point of contention
  • Ah, yes, that was why
  • We wouldn’t remain together
  • Why
  • We we remain forever
  • Opposed
  • The sticking point
  • I am simultaneously relieved and defeated
  • Perhaps not to smack my head against this particular wall again
  • But to see the suffering and frustration in the eyes of a man
  • Once so treasured
  • Having known a Love’s deepest stores
  • And the years blur and melt away
  • Yes, it’s the same defeated slouch of shoulder
  • Yes, they’re the same eyes
  • Yes, they swell and redden in the very same way
  • But now it’s not in conflict
  • It’s in commiseration
  • And that’s worse
  • Because the parity of Love without consequential remorse
  • Love for merely affection’s sake
  • Asking for no answer or culpability
  • Love because of Love
  • And sorrow and commiseration for only the
  • Fact of a history of understanding.

railroadtracks

 

lying and cowardice

 

abandonedgreekboat
  • I’ve lied to you
  • I’ve taken the road of strength and power
  • And left you swinging and vulnerable
  • I could have met you there
  • Exposed my own fears and tribulations
  • But I chickened out and left myself
  • Together
  • It was cowardly
  • I could have pressed myself against you as an equal but
  • That would have left me
  • Equal
  • And that would have been
  • Unusual
  • For both of us
  • Upset the paradigm
  • And been yet another
  • Glaring reminder of why we were
  • And remain
  • Wrong

i give it gladly

I’m crying because you can’t
I’m crying because he can’t

Your pain and fear and frustration wash over me
His pain and fear and frustration wash over me

And you’re being strong for him
And he’s being brave for you

And I’m the only one here who gets to cry
And if this is the only help I can offer
I give it gladly

leavesonatomb

the empty room

My calls reverberate

Around the empty space
Echoing sharply off of the
Cold, dead slate walls
Bouncing and bouncing and bouncing
With increasing speed
To rebound and cut my exposed arms

I don’t remember entering
This room
And I can’t see any door out
But it’s very dark
Perhaps if I feel along the wall

But I don’t move
I can’t even be bothered to sit
I just remain
Straining to search the darkness
For

Him

I’m looking for my father
Which is ridiculous
He’s not there
No one is there
Nothing lives here
Nothing can
But I’m convinced that
If I just remain and
Look and look and look
And call and call and call

DadDaughterShadow

Nothing will happen

It’s almost academic
My job is just to
Stand there
Searching