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

I scribbled some words on the edge of a napkin
Hoping at home they would make sense to read
But all I could see was disjointed confusion
And perhaps that was all that I ever could need

A moment suspended
Crystallized like morning dew
Trapped prisms of moonbeams in spherical orbit
Ever swirling in hopeful anticipation
New dreams precipitated
Old dreams awakened
All suspended in a perfect spherical moment
Hovering above trembling hands and shining eyes
In simplified complexity

When I needed words, he gave me silence
When I needed quiet, he gave me noise
Yet I have come to rely on his steadfast presence
His chaos - the only grounding force in my life

I am empty
I said
In not so many words
The veiled confessions dripping off his ears like candle wax
As the wick burns down
Filling the room with a palpable smokiness
That only I can sense

I am choking
I am crawling
I can feel my light fading

For I am a teacup
Sitting on a shelf
Dusty but decorated
My handle pointed towards the wall
Breakable
And uninspired

How I long to be filled with more than emptiness
To have him pour all of his being into my heart and mind
To have him look into my eyes and see more than himself
But each confession only serves to deepen the loneliness
As a search for a soul to listen through the words

Is there meaning in the madness?
The careless moments strung together like broken Christmas lights inside a cave
The moments that ***** your fingers and draw unwelcome blood
The madness that you rage against inside your chest

Most days, yes
I say as a soliloquy, sipping my tea and watching the passing storm clouds
My eyes are wet but my heart has dried
Opened up and beating forth.
But today, I don’t think so
I can’t bring myself to say yes
For I am emblazoned in a firestorm
All consuming
There is only hurt –
And doubt –
And loss –
And isolation –
My eyes are no longer stinging
They are burning
Almost bleeding
Today I can’t blink away the shadows

This madness is finding me
Entwining me
And, at times, defining me
As I remain motionless trapped in the endless webs
Searching through crowds of strangers to find myself
And turning up empty every time.

I am an island
A safe haven
A warm body
For traveling sailors to rest their weary heads
Blink away tears
Tears that
     fall
        splash
           disappear into the saltwater sea
The droplets dissolving into the tapestry of waves
Becoming one
A scream
A relief
A prayer
Always part of the beautiful secret that I keep tucked within my shores

Wanderer, I am your island
My love for you is true and unconditional
My vegetation is lush
My beauty is boundless
For you
Take what you need
And in this moments I am yours completely
I offer myself to you
I will sing you to sleep with the sound of my wind
Watch over you
Shine the stars upon your face
Cradle your cold hands
And you will feel home

But I am an island
And sometimes I have storms
My branches break
My waves crash
My flowers start to wither

And, in these storms, I am just an island
Just land and water
Just shore and sand
I am just an island
The magic is no more
Permanently impermanent I become

…And nobody stays…

Having all they need, these sailors rush to board their ships
With warm hands, they pluck my flowers
Making hurried bouquets to take home to their loves
Their fingers sting
Why do they sting?
And stems sway in the storm

They never listened to my whispers
They will not listen to my cries
They only needed some distraction
That they found within my eyes

With the winds
The footprints fade
No evidence that they were ever here

I have everything to give.

I have nothing left to give.

I am an island.
An island
An island
An island
     I am.