This Is Where We Land

This is where we landOn the edge of today The cusp of Tomorrow Where hope crashes Against now And thoughts manifest In real time Along the map Of desire Latitudes of beginnings Longitudes of endings No finish line Only circles No score Only love When your feet ache Sit on the earth Let her hold you When you're hungry Eat Then eat again When you're sad Look up Drink something Sparkly When you're tired Sleep Say no Say yes Say Whatever You Damn Well Please; You are alive You can Dance Kiss Throw your arms Around the nearest Beating heart You won't live forever So live Now.

I See So Much Wrong

I see so much wrongWith us Does this make me A bad person? Why do I think We are supposed to be Good? What is good? What are we but Crazy Beautiful Infallible Endearing Predictable Operating to uphold Nonsensical beliefs Dismissing signs as Happy happenstances Forgetting the Light-filled person We were born to be Calcified by layers Of lies While the cure Lives within The tender truth Contained in the Seat of the soul Would we rather be Uncomfortable or Unhappy? Are we living Or are we Dying?

Let's Be Romantic

Let's be romanticLet's stay in bed all day And count countless Stars at night Let's see how much Of my skin Can touch Your skin Let's talk about All of the ways We are different We can tell New secrets And old stories In new ways We can draw Constellations By connecting The freckles Maps of future Lifetimes We can imagine All of the different Ways we will meet And fall in love Whether or not We will ascend Or go extinct We will talk about Everything Anything Except for one thing: What happens If we fall out of It.

Pretend

I don't pretendTo know Why my body Just broke out In chills

I don't pretend To hate myself Or love myself Or know myself And what I want

I don't pretend To be anything Less than perfect For I was born This way

I don't pretend The deluge of This human experience Does not break My heart daily

I don't pretend Mistakes don't happen Or light doesn't die Or envy doesn't Warp my thoughts

I don't pretend My thoughts Don't matter My addictions Don't count

I don't pretend I'm naturally Thin and I don't need Recognition for These years of work

I don't pretend My heart doesn't Hurt And I don't pretend To know why.

I want you to be more you

I want you to do what inspires youWhether it's "bad" like taking off your clothes Committing to wanderlust and only wanderlust Looking beautiful above feeling beautiful Numbing and filling and failing Or it's "good" like fighting for social justice Making babies and raising them closely Teaching yoga or meditation or The Truth Reading and writing and ruining and creating.

I want you to be who you are Wild hair pale skin smooth hair dark skin Sex lover sex avoider sex hater Careerist artist feminist philanthropist Competitive anxious selfish judgmental Gifted deep spiritual devoted Depressed happy introverted extroverted High low stubborn stuck Changeable mutable unpredictable

I want you to cast away shame I want you to love yourself I want you to have unshakable faith I want you to do what you want I want you to stop listening to them I want you to know your purpose I want you to enjoy yourself I want you to be more you As you are now, you are perfect.

Alone

AloneWeeping alone Sleeping alone Surrounded by alone

She did it to herself She made the space herself She carved it out with her fingernails Artificial red

Why? To weep? To smoke? To drink cheap wine & expensive cheese without anyone watching? When she's not alone She craves loneliness Her only constant companion

Blood on a page Words stamped in her brain She wants to matter to no one She wants no one to matter to her

She wears sunglasses and overcoats When she steps outside She prefers rain clouds To open skies

The potent sun that burns Her skin Too gauzy to protect her insides From the Evil

Some try to ignore it Until it strikes In the form of dishonest Devious

Heart-breakers As it always does So long as you are not Alone.

The Make-Up Artist (A Poem)

Her smile in a wordWas hopeful Baby fat Still clinging To apple cheeks Eyes bright and curled open Her face a daily masterpiece Only to be washed down the sink Come black skies. It wasn't beauty She sought But transformation A boundless identity Someone not herself. But she made a good living Because she wasn't alone In her need to erase the shadows And the lines Etched by fractured glass Filled with pools of red.

Becoming Real

We are always differentOur hair clothing thoughts goals Victims of seasons trends preferences Shaped by experiences and new information and fresh perspectives Mutable bendable breakable fixable Every day we learn a little more But our habits tend to remain unchanged Stuck on a continuous loop Our hearts stuck wanting to love and be loved Days stuck on repeat The commute The coffee The croissant The computer We find our purpose We lose hold of it We chuck identity to the wind We wrap our selves in a new set of problems We search We have regrets We doubt our choices But we are choiceless And nothing we do is wrong not wasted Forgotten relics Are but marinating masterpieces Waiting for their turn to trap fragments of light And become real.

What she doesn't want

The lies came down in sheetsHeavy like someone walking on the roof But it was only the beating of Rain from low clouds The kind that never really lift She mistook your admiration for love You could only love her from afar You never loved her real self Her fractured self Her selfish self Her self that digs holes to love in Her self that wants to be found Her self that fills in the holes without help You didn't have the patience for Her shameful self Her victim self Her self that rises like cream Her self that doesn't know what she wants Only what she doesn't want.

Ungrateful (A Poem)

I have two good legsI hardly notice them I love my husband I always want more from him I adore my kids Sometimes I don't like them They are the only reason I know for sure I matter Sometimes I get sick But I am strong And smart and beautiful And insecure I am wasted space A tangled mess of power Pushing without organization Working without focus Deficient of attention Pulling knots tighter Not looser I am angry And I am grateful Blessings Can be curses Hope can do nothing If we don't lean upon it We are trapped Between narrow perspectives Like a tiny ant Searching for sustenance In the middle of a football field Where all directions look the same And he runs Away from the food Away from the others Because he doesn't know. He doesn't know. I don't know either.

We shouldn't be allowed to love so much

We shouldn't be allowed to love so much We are going to die

We are going to break each other

And leave the pieces still scattered

All it takes is a strong grip

The right set of circumstances

The wrong eye contact

A chance meeting

A kiss that landed wrong

A stretchy good bye

A sticky gaze

A flash of recognition

Serendipity

Hesitation where hesitation means only one thing

The brush of a finger

The glimpse of a shoulder

Saying the wrong thing

Saying the right thing

Saying words you never meant to say but can never take back

Going with the flow even when you don't like where it's taking you

Changing course

Going separate ways

Going home together

Falling apart

Staying home together

Staying together

Why don't you go fall fly away Leave me on this island

While I drown beneath today

Information like storm clouds

Churning and burning cold

A ceiling between me and source

A cage thick as an eggshell

But strong as gold

Yearning for tomorrow and youth

At once

A paradox of impossibilities

They comes in flashes, the truth

We chip away at suffering

But all of this feels old--

Could we leave it behind

This yearning for our words to be sold?

Without condemning human kind

To a history that does not bear

The privilege of repeating

Nor believes

That a greater power does, in fact, care.

Claiming wings

I open to Acceptance / Being enough / Needing not stuff the spaces between moments with nothing but joy

I open to

Ease / Sitting with pain looking directly at beauty / The glare like summer sun

I open to

Abundance / The evidence of opportunity compelling creation / The responsibility of privilege, the privilege of responsibility

I open to

Expansion / Honing thoughts with presence / Exploring new frontiers in the galaxy of the mind

I open to

Angels / Communing over cups of faith and faerie dust / Commonplace miracles

I open to

Serendipity / Intuition embodied by spacious possibility / Guidance from the nuances of oxygen

I open to

Sunlight / The heat of it piercing pregnant clouds / The completeness of a circle.

Inebriate

It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake

Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain

She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger

An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness

She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.

I rise

I am source / streaks of sunlight

Whatever makes our hearts beat / I am it

I exist not within boundaries / but around them

I am not the limits of the body / I am Holy Spirit

I quiver beneath the power that I am / but I do not crumble

I focus I fight I flounder / and I rise.

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Appetite

I'm still learning who I am

A woman

With boyish handwriting

A voracious appetite

Nothing is ever enough

I want to shake harder

Sleep more but lie supine less

Do more

Be more

Dare I say have more

Know more

Write more

Back when I drank

Drink more.

A woman

Open to womanhood

As a map

To joy.

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Morning

Mornings open me

In the ethereal quiet of daybreak

I am free from excess thought and arbitrary restrictions.

Possibility looms in the form of light flooding from the east, clouds streaking the dome of sky.

A blank mind is a clean house, a new day is an unwritten page.

Coffee tastes better and I wish that mornings could last all day.

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Cobwebs

Opening feels like a cobweb of cracks around my soul.

As if I am a piece of glass and I have dropped myself onto concrete.

Not out of carelessness but because I am living and the risk inherent in living is breaking.

Light leaks through

Widening the gaps but also filling them in with the possibility of morning.

Who will I be today?

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Invisible cloak

My heart swings open.

They climb inside

Squirm

Get comfortable

It sounds like

The womb

Smells like

Heaven

Looks like

Beauty

Feels like

Somewhere hurt can't find

An invisible cloak

Of soft supple folds

Bound together

With a sheath of power

A gauzy squeeze

Ripped with bruises

Grasping

Gasping

For time

All they do is grow

Bloom

They are never the same

From one minute

To the next.

Neither am I.

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