Maybe, before this, I was wood smoke.
And maybe even then, I stung your eyes.

She carries constellations on her arms. Visions of light in points on skin that tastes like milk.
Cascading upward to visions of heaven and hazel eyes, like caramel sunsets.

This one a kite.
This one a compass.
This one a whisper.
This one a secret language.
This one is a sacred thing.
This one. Right here. In the center.
This one is a single star that feels like North.

I will be fluent…

And from the start my boyish heart wondered
what your lips taste like stained red with wine and dripping with poetry like honey.

Haunting stanzas in the pauses between the notes of your voice.

These days we all need to carry a phoenix on our back.
These days we all need to be reminded that we can rise from ash.
Like high tides and crashing waves. Furious and poetic. Serene and powerful.
And at your core sits the eye of a beautiful storm. You are mighty. And mysterious.

You are serene and powerful.

And she weaves her hands around those strands of time gracefully. Casting spells like ripples, carrying outward, unaware that the pool stares back, jealous of her reflection. Her candle is lit.

“And what are you conjuring?”
“Subtle magic of the ancestors.”

The divine sits slyly in the moments between the moments. If god exists, it must be right now, with your head on my chest. Your hand in my hand.

The red and fiery windswept canyons make me think of her. And I. Earth that has accepted the kiss of fire and blushes the length of mountains. To crash against a sky so blue you could drag your knuckles across it.

And in that breath, I watched her take between the sips of wine, I felt that old and timeless ache become the days behind.
The moon is high now. The stars have danced from her arms to the satin sky, and some have even chosen to live as the shine behind my tired smiling eyes.

Tomorrow is dawn. Her smile will sing the sun up like an ovation. Cracking the horizon open with potential. And we are forever changed. Facing that horizon, eager to see what may lie beyond it.

I predict laughter. And adventure.

Perhaps I do believe in magic…

I have these old grey mitts.
I want to use them to hold your heart.
The are worn and scratchy. But they are warm.
I can’t promise that my care of it won’t leave marks. But they will all be made from a loving touch.
My hands have callouses that run deep. They are cracked like stone.
Your heart deserves a softer touch.
But I only have these old grey mitts.
You heart deserves a birds nest. A place to wait and dream of flying.
Your heart deserves a silk cocoon to rest in until it is fully transformed.
Your heart deserves a heart to sleep in. A beat to match in time.
But I only have these old grey mitts.
I’d like to hold your heart. And if you’d let me, I’d protect it like my own.
For when I saw your heart, I spun my own into yarn of blood and bone and wove it into something soft.
I’d like to hold your heart.
But I have no heart.
I only have these old grey mitts.

The sign said "Danger".
I only saw the river.
I would gladly drown.

Fair warning. I am coming for everything they said I couldn't have.