Snapshots of a Whole

When I wake the light is always behind you.
It makes so you come into focus slowly,
And I get to see each feature clear and alone,
Until the foggy waking mind can put it all together,

The scent of sunscreen and tree bark will always remind me of you.
Like pink booster seats, Stephen King, high ceilings,
Burnt butter and thick coffee.

These things are mine -
The stitches segmenting my life,
Into ours.

From bus stop walks to high school dances,
Those moments pulling heart-strings, always knowing,
When you need to feel me close
In reaching you'd not find empty air.
My hand would be there.

Knowing this, one day we'd start again -
Fresh and newborn,
To live the stages I didn't share with you,
It fills me now, how deeply my heart longs to.

I'll watch the lines of our story deepen
Around your eyes and mine.
Settle in the truth of time gone by,
The joy only felt and known
When we've stayed long enough to see it.

Sound of You

The sound of your slippers padding around
While autumn calls and songs fill my days
Again.
Your feet slush across the floor coming closer
I can't tell you the comfort found in this.
Laid up vulnerable, ill with chills
Filled and brimming with gratefulness.

Even sick feels best with you.

Love, old or new,
is hearing your clatter in the next room.
Is the sound of your sigh and the thick breath caught
in my chest while my eyes well up
with the rest of the whole
Truth,

You.

Separately Connected

Write to me the way you speak,
In your own mind at night,
When you're too tired to fight fears, dreams and secret thoughts.

Unveil who you are, behind strengths clung to in waking hours,
Moving you through moments... right now, and now...
Outfits viewed by those around you,
Filling in holes of roles unfulfilled
For yourself and others.

Tell me your truth,
With or without constants.
I want to watch you in growing motion
See what brings you from there to here,
And know that while you go,
You'll keep me near.

Held Here

It's the summer of my adult heart,
Who survived Winter's song, cold and long,
And Springs of growing pains.

My soul is wider now,
Having slept curled in blacks and whites,
Safe beneath their weight.
In the end it was the grey that brought the light,
And lines drawn so dark and deep between the Universe and me -
They fell away.

I saw her then.
Sitting across from me, swirls of energy,
While soft light sparked in eyes and hearts,
And background chatter played over
Jazz notes and drink orders.

I sat so still.
She looked searchingly at me,
Trying to see what she already knew.
I hold her in my mind there;
Under transparent masks, unprepared
For what she'd find in our spaces combined.
She didn't dance outside for long,
Her soul so brave, determined, strong...

I observed awhile, didn't trust
Myself enough to move an inch.
Patience.

She called me out so slowly,
Not knowing it was when she didn't try.
The way her head fell back, the thoughtful sigh,
The scent in her breath of the air inside her
Whispered invitations to explore.

Her lips...
My fingertips felt so alive
When I watched the soft curves in that slow smile,
And heard my hands plead leave to reach out,
Let them touch that mouth,
Swim in the sense like my eyes did the sight.

But I won't hold them tight for long,
I know what it is she speaks of now.
Instinct longing to be unthinking.
I'll let it take the rest of me,
Let go the hold on a sense of safety I,
no longer have to seek.

I'll learn what it means to set myself free.

Clean Hands

Naked hands open to last year's hurricanes,
Blown clean and breathing
Freedom.
I remembered then
What my skin feels like
Smooth and young,
Uncovered.

I let myself in on my own secret;
I never liked the feel of it there.

So strange to wake from moments
Floating between
Presence in my aloneness here
And random thoughts of you -
To discover my thumb checking,
Between second and third fingers
Involuntarily.

Shake Your Fate

Rounded eyelids, heart shaped lips,
Free fly, despite the tethered feathers,
Finding pleasure amidst the ever
Resolving past mis-hits.

She learned a lot, she knows her part,
She stayed in darkness long enough
To know the glow that told her,

No.

You gotta turn it on.


There is no dawn that shines in shyness,
FuckThatShit.

Light the fire that lives inside you,
You weren't meant to dim it, fake it,
question where it came in.

Just jump the gun, who says that's what
Can keep you grounded?

Maybe you were meant to find
A brighter light to take it higher,
That's what it took to discover
It ain't outside you.

Your inner sun, bringing you one
Who sees right through you, knows it too,
And has the strength to hold onto
Desire, the inner kind,
That finds a way to take today,
Make it what you always wanted -

That's the trick, it makes no difference
How you get there.
The universe, She doesn't care,
Until you're ok where
It is you are,
I'm right here.

Gently

Write for her the story of
The souls inside us.
Where all the heads are held high,
and space finds safety,
In the quiet between breaths
Of our heartbroken,
Beautifully bare and alone,
Body shaking cries.
Where cold and cutting
Pain finds the undying smile
And they linger there,
To hold each other awhile.