A letter to myself before I identified as polysemous.

1. The idea of meeting a stranger and only defining them based on what they mean to you, and not the relationships you already have is thrilling, and honest, and joyous.
2. The pressure of needing someone to meet all your needs is lifted, in this their is freedom. Take the time to feel it.
3. You will have more people who love you, love is endless and you don't run out. You can love an expansive number of people... their is always more water in this well.
4. Nothing will prepare you for the moment you realize you are capable of loving two people at once.
5. Nothing can prepare you for the moment you realize he can only love one.... and its not looking like its you. You will cry. You should have seen this coming he was never good a multitasking or balance.
6. although truth is usually your friend, you will find days that it is to hard and to brutal. He will look at her in ways he cant at you any longer
7. You can feel alone in a sea full of strangers or a room full of people you have hand picked... it depends on your feelings. On others smiles.
8. loving him as he slowly fades will be hard. Not regretting your choices in some moments might be too. But don't punish yourself for being capable of loving at such a great capacity... If loving was a Olympic sport you would have gold.
9. Actively shaping your life and customizing it to you is what its all about. Think about your needs. You matter too.
10. Its okay you still love him. Its also okay to love Chris. Its all going to be okay.Its hard to see now but their is reliance is spreading out your love. Its loving to limited and too little that you need to worry about. I love you too.

hail falling on silent still surfaces
your words break up my calm
like clouds release rains on days they feel light
you let go of old angst and loneliness
in exchange for new smiles and hope

mist hugging mountain tops
while loving arms open up
asking me to explore
I lean into you
Feel nature embracing me

Fingertips buoyant and dancing
skim across shimmered skin
my breast turn to moving sea
you stand on my beach
youthfully observing
tossing rocks into a stilness
making waves into ripples
my body is full, beautiful, endless
you want to dip into me
want to know me
want to swim.
Someday you will realize
there is no way for you to hold all of me
not at once.
That I am not the body you want.
You will forget me
Turn other bodies into water
No not water but
Bouncing ripples of flesh,
Into waves
Dancing your fingers across their skin with thirst
Forgetting all the ways you have been quenched
Forgetting my body of water for a sea of skin
All that love and i'll turn to rain
I will remain the most beautiful, and endless body
But water wasn't what you were looking for
so sorry you cant hold all of me at once
too expansive to only be a body
to much meaning to just be the sea
yet still to little to go around
still just one

I am always doting on those in my life, I worry, I pick up all the heavy things so they can feel lighter. I am a care taker, its in my nature.

you were the first and only person in my life that wanted to take care of me.

At first it was awkward.I did not know how to sink into this kind of love. The kind that held me up, the unconditional kind. I felt like an apology falling from the lips of someone who has never felt regret before. Even now with three years practice I feel the air being taken from my lungs every time you find new ways of loving me.

You turn coats for homeless people into a warm wrapped gift for me. The unsaid words that I have nothing to be embarrassed about in my past. You take a trip to that second hand store that I use to have to shop at. The one I was embarrassed you even knew I had went to. And you turn it into something beautiful.

It has taken me years but I finally figured out why you don't wrap your gifts.Its simple really because the object have always been the paper. I still feel like their are ribbons and bows every time I receive one. Your gifts are always containers.They hold a concept or an idea. Perhaps they hold the universe. I think they might , because they are always growing and changing what they mean to me, always expanding.

You once wrapped a gift with some beautifully hand crafted earrings. It was a note saying I see you and I love your creativity, I think you are beautiful. You wrapped my past embarrassment in warmth and empathy. You once used A letter box you decorated in hand pressed flowers to wrap up the idea that you always want to talk to me, even if you are far and cant receive phone calls. You said you always will make time for me even if its as slow as snail mail.

How silly I was to think you gave me unwrapped gifts. Its funny how time can tell you new truths. You are the greatest Gift. Thank you.

Life is far from fair. He was born to this place, but his ancestors took it by foot. So long ago he can’t remember what being the immigrant felt like. Can’t remember the xenophobic slurs were placed in other people's tongues to whip the different out of him. This took place so long ago now he doesn't remember what blood spill looks like, can't remember his fist drawn back. He is the **** Italian immigrant, the fire crotch Irishman, the Gew the ******* and now the towel heads. He is everyone who has made himself at home hear afraid again, that a new immigration will take all the parts of their home  he loves the  most. Forgetting quickly he was the ones marching last time around. Refugee is so much more of a statement then immigrant. An immigrant is looking for a better future. A refugee is looking for any at all. They fleeing from war torn promises and bombs that fall from the skies like rain. My government fears ISIS, those towel heads, they all look the same to our fear filled eyes, so we through them to the wayside. My government does not speak for me, I would welcome every refugee.Anyone who has that common enemy, who wants to fix it with love and a new life, I open my eyes and my arms wide.I remember that I didn't  belong here at first, that we were promised something more. I can't deny that to you and yours, I welcome you. Life's not fair, it’s clear to see, I am sorry that you are you and I am me. Difference only in where I was born, difference in this is already my home.I am sorry. Sorry that those with fear filled hearts have no room left to welcome you. That they are so worried about what pain might feel like that they can not feel sorrow for the pain you are already felt. I am sorry. To every middle eastern refugee that has been denied the right to live humanely… all I can do is be sorry.

I asked you when you find me most attractive… wondering if that would help. Perhaps that's not the question I should be asking in the first place. when do I find myself to be the most desirable version of myself?
when i'm in the eighth hour at the studio, overalls covered in mud, brow furrowed problem solving out in clay. I am **** as **** when I forget the world around me long enough to create something I find to be beautiful captivating and alive, something amazing out of dirt.

When I empathize with someone's heart break, with their loss, with their lost, with their depression and ugly parts. When I don't stand above them looking into the whole they currently live in with sympathy and a sandwich but i crawl down to meet them in the dark spot they are. So they inside me, when someone does something despicable.. when hurt and sadness bites down on my throat and I can choke on the knot that is refusing to go down smoothly and I manage to articulate myself through all that is drowning me from the inside out, when I say something so true that those around me get choked up and the person who is doing the hurting hears me, I am brave, I am beautiful then, when I take a stand for something I really mean.

I am beautiful when I get up to go to work again and again, when I go and go and still notice the laughter on the streets, the children puddle jumping and can remember why I do it all. I am beautiful when I find the motivation to continue, when I am or am not at peace with the world or with myself. I am beautiful in my struggle and my success.

When we were at the wedding with your family, I choose to take of my shawl so people could see my tattoo. I decided to because I had decided It was time to be myself unapologetically. I may not be what everyone sees as perfect, but I am something to be proud of not hidden, in that moment I was beautiful.

When I see myself in those around me I find them to be beautiful, even the ugly parts. It’s so human isn't it. I feel like myay angalue could never have said it better, we are all capable of know they are not alone, that I can relate and I love them. when I tell them thank you for sharing their problems without shoveling silver lining down there throat. When I have the courage and vulnerability to meet someone where they are, I am beautiful then.

the moment before I sit down to drive. when my heart tries to flood my body with fear and anxiety. When in my mind I can think I can't do this a hundred times but I still sit down and start the car. When I feel my breath change and I am embarrassed that this simple everyday thang has such control over me and I wonder what you must think of me, but I move forward. I shift, I drive,I do. I am making my own choices and I am beautiful then.

When I sit under your arm, on your chest and I feel your warmth, I feel like I am a part of something. I feel safe, and at home, I feel wanted and I feel beautiful. I feel like I am desired and I feel desire.I am beautiful then

when I feel that fire burn everything a human has done, we are all made up of the same things that make up the human experience it's just the parts of ourselves we encourage to grow that makes the difference.But it's especially beautiful when i see myself in youthful smiles, acts of kindness, small acts of defiance against what is always accepted as the truth. I am especially beautiful then.

I want to be at the harbor, not to be one.
I want sea salt waves to lap at my toes
Not to hold on to this until I explode
Please I just want to go, not be this.
I cant shake the feelings of being left behind
The fact that I can strip down naked
And you see through to the other side
I am searching for you gaze, like the one you use to cast
I want to be at the harbor,not to be one.
The one you look at last.
So I search for any place to be
any place at all, as long as that place isn't me.
I'm crumbling and dull
I cant hold on to all of this
I wont anymore.
sitting at the harbor
letting waves take what I cant be
letting the harbor, harbor me.