Offer patience to the shadows
that dissolve with veil of night
Strong outlines of your being
Dark reflections from the light

I held myself together
Through the fire
Through the cold
I held my heart together
Through the lies that had been told

I let myself unravel
Feel the darkness
Feel the rain
I let my soul unravel
Giving patience to the pain

I stitched myself a new life
Always dreaming
Something more
I sewed my hope together
Stronger than I was before

I offered you a poem
Hoping it would help you see
The words too proud to speak aloud
A more authentic me

You didn’t need to like it
Never asked you to pretend
I chose to share my heart to bare
To my kind and lovely friend

You skimmed the lines so quickly
Crumbled paper on the floor
And with a glance cast it askance
Claiming poetry a chore

Through the careless criticism
Silence broke my soul apart
I became aware that you don’t care
About the contents of my heart

And so I learned my lesson
Closed our pre-poetic door
And as for sharing souls, my friend
The words they are no more

I love you in moments unnoticed
In the spaces between words
Eyes looking upward in thought
In the breaths between stories

I love you in places unknown
In the cracks on the floorboards
Tucked away in corners of the attic
In the shutters on the windowsill

I love you in time undiscovered
In memories lying dormant
Craving to awaken
In the heartbeat of life

Where others love in shouts, I love in whispers
that only we can feel
Face to face
Eye to eye
And in loving you
By sun and moon
My love grows louder by color

Little by little
I am
learning
to
let
go

I am learning to let go
Of rehearsed questions and unanswered responses

Of missed opportunities
Expectations and disappointments

Of words not said, feelings not felt, mistakes not rectified

I am learning to free myself from perfection and guilt
Allowing myself to marvel at the chaos of life
And continue to grow amidst the wreckage

I am learning to let go of people
Watching them walk away with smiles and understanding
Accepting that it wasn't our time
And if not in the future
We will meet again in another lifetime

I am learning to let go
Slowly
I am learning to let go
And in letting go
I am learning to hold tighter
Hold faster
Hold fiercer
To all that should never be let go

I suppose there will always be a part of me that will wait for you in doorways
Stepping over the threshold
Hesitating
Contemplating
Looking back
Then moving forward
Each time the pause becoming less
Underneath the stairwells of bookstores

I will search for your face in the crowds
And for your footsteps along the shorelines
I will feel your presence in places we used to visit
Perhaps this may never stop

For you were woven into my life as a piece of the fabric
A part of who I was
A force in who I was going to be
You were a friend that I expected for always
Someone to grow alongside myself

But then you turned your head and shut your eyes
Seduced by the promise of a remedy for your lovelessness
A body to temper the loneliness
Leaving me to search for your face through caverns of fog
And wondering why I am so often a second thought for you

I used to be angry
But that potency is fading with time
And someday you will be a memory

Yet in this subsiding bitterness I shall keep your secrets safe
The secrets that drip from your lips and waver in your eyes
You are different than me though, love
And I shall find peace in the comfort that mine were never yours to know

Light the stars tonight with me
Oh - light the stars tonight
And we shall lay another day
In moonbeams of the night

And when the sky is cloudy
And our eyes too fogged to see
We will know that in the glow
Is all that we can be

For we view ourselves in darkness
Broken pieces of a whole
But truer yet, lest you forget
There’s stardust in your soul