Sleepy blue ocean
Hiding in a cowrie shell
I heard her snoring

I met a woman
brutal in her mercy.

Her embrace was a clinch
to prevent hard blows.
She pulled me close to push me away.
Seeing my nakedness
she leant me a dream
of chainmail and shield.
Taking love from me she gave a reprieve
to a mind resigned to the slow death of feeling.

Ignoring my words she heard
my faint silent heartbeat and
understood that it was music
too quiet for the world to hear
and turned it up louder
than I could stand.
I wept in my deafness
as she danced.

I ask for very little,
but I need what
I ask for very much

If it’s a penny for your thoughts
then it’s a bank in my head
where the automated teller
is swiping plastic cards instead

I was always infused by the quartz of time
I balanced love in separate hands ; cut , aching , refusing to heal

Happiness was measured out one grain of sand at a time
My measuring cup runneth over

My thoughts are bleached  bone white .
But I have preserved the marrow of my ways

I am the walking cacti
that push rocks in the sand creating the trails of tears that never reach the ground

I am desert
Full of the emptiness
that exists on the face of clocks and time

I am one grain of sand
The silence of the wind
I have no foundation
I'm tendered to my whims