My young body is impatient.

Restless

a bird
in a gilded cage
that would be at peace
for
if not for cage
there to rattle against
like ribs
creating a fortress

she mistakenly
thinks freedom
is granted

hungry for experience
so that her bones may know her truth.

My old soul is ever-patient with her.

Understanding
the energy and vitality of youth
and its contagion

my old soul waits

needing no one else's company but
her own,
she will wait lifetimes if she must

because, for her, there is only one
other
to wait
for.

She sits behind me
and my pain,
under a beautiful arc of roses
dripping
the colour of blood

watching over,
and watching those
that have failed her test
with
compassionate
knowing eyes.

For she doesn't know
what
he looks like in this life,
but she'll know
when she sees him

she will feel it when they meet

and an entire lifetime
will
be
captured in
the
intensity
of their gaze.

I search for him,
he who would take my pain
and carry it as his own

even just for a moment,
so I that I could feel what it is to breathe without this weight on my ribcage.

They walk
through
my gates

through my garden,

and see the ugliness of my pain
holding court in the center,
and would flee in fear
and disgust.

And each time I sat next to
my pain,
holding its hand
and
letting my tears nourish the earth around
its deep roots
that wind through,
because nothing and no one else
dared to go nearer.

I sat, the only company my pain
has ever known
and told it with damp eyes that watch
the abandon,
that they are beautiful
just as they are,

and that men that can't see
beauty
in pain,
are simply boys
playing.

And each time,
my heart bleeds a little less.

And so I sit in wait
with the only real company
I've ever known
and hope for more,
tomorrow.

I wash your sins
within me

I heal
and nurture
them

not for you,
and one moment
on your long list.

I cleanse
your transgressions for me

and for her,

and our daughters
and their daughters.

In the
undercurrent of my
being,
I bathe my wound
and swim
and search

for a way
forward,

because what is
existence
if not time
pulling
us along?

-

I think
I was born into
this life
a healer.

To feel this shared
pain
and see its shadows

as if light, reflecting
and dancing
against a wall,
creating
constellations
of
heartache.

I see now
my purpose,

to connect with the
heavens unknown
from this

earth

so this wicked
energy may
leave
this

world.

And us.

To nourish each other,
so that we can choose
to transcend
pain

a human existence,
where love
and its triumphs,
and
deepest
darkest
of
pitfalls

coalesce
into this flesh
to
cross both space and time
to make
generations.

This flesh,
that I now wear
proudly,
albeit
timidly
at times.

This paradox,
I want
for her too.

I'm sad.
And that's okay.

This heaviness in my heart
is not mine alone,
I carry it for my mother
and my father
and his mother

I carry it for her husband

who quickly became
the demon
sleeping in the
shadows
that then became
a
stain
who's faint edges
still linger.

Deep and bruised
like my heart
after that day
confused and
oh, so green

I was already shedding
my innocence,
but you stole
hers

in one moment.

And for this
she
starves
herself
of nourishment

of unadulterated
joy

her body,
something she feels
shame
about

all because you thought
every
body
was yours
to be played
with.

It's been 19 years
and America
is still
burning.

The death & destruction
carries on
without prejudice,
hungrily  
taking all in its wake
and leaving sorrowed
loved ones
behind.

Man creates man.
Man destroys man.

The only constant is the earth
below our feet
& our conflict with each other,
from whose blood and ashes
a new one
is born.

When will we wake to see
we have been the masters
of our own terror
all along?

Come forth
little one
and be guided
by the warmth
of your own
light