I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,

but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

From the road, I see your silhouette on the stairs
your slim form outlined in the descent of day
A year gone, this sort of evening would have had you waiting
for me.

For a walk, for the "Let me put on some shorts."
The old brown shorts with the bleached edges
or the slim black ones.
The "Let me grab the keys."
For the, "Can you put my phone in your pocket?"
For your hand in mine
as we crossed our picnic spot to the sidewalk,
"I should collect some of these juniper berries to make gin."
For the way our strides coordinated, syncopation, across the road
to the path well-travelled.
So many diminutive moments
I didn't expect to miss.
But of course,
it's the small deaths I grieve the most.

I look for you everywhere.
Some days there are premonitions of a glimpse
The soft forlorn emptiness that pervades me
and the cheshire glitter of you, or who I think is you,
bringing the pain into focus.
We're half a mile away, at most.
I can't even half entertain the thought of crossing our divide,
but
I miss you.

Are you looking for me, too?

the amber drip of honey
crystalline memory
I eat
mouth watering
hungry for someone to undertake me
to seek between fern frond and yarrow
for my magic, spilled and spent
in the places I no longer fill
to return singing the song
I lost to wind and rain
a traveller's lips
tasting of honey
and promise

why can’t oxygen
ever be enough to feel
safe in my own skin

i just want to feel alive
unbothered by my own thoughts

The wind's fingers reached into his collar,
pinching him with the cold
With another stroke of the paintbrush
The blue mixed with the gold

The walkers who ventured o’re the shore
Stared at the mumbling man
Whose teeth were stained with yellow
And drank to calm shaking hands

The burning lights blurred in the water
Pooling refractions and ripples
He captured the heavenly bodies
As the canvas he covered in stipples

Azure he blended with the indigo,
canary and honey and flax
The cool and the warm melded in one
candle and moon, wane and wax

Soft falls the light in the harbor
The stillness of night overcast
In the river he cleans off his brushes
And turns round for home at the last.

His touch was
like sunlight on my skin
the sweeping skim of kelp across marbled coat
his webbed fingers tracking their rough edges
through the sand.
In the storm's howl he was calm
the chaos of waves in my belly slowed
an unearthly peace
of tide-pool eyes that stilled the seventh stream.  
The waves roll out and the waves roll in
and out my love rolls with them.
Seven tears shed at Spring tide
for love of a man
whose heart
is sea bound,
sealed.

TW: eating disorder*




I am walking underwater.
The food I will not let myself eat
falls into the garbage disposal with the thud of voided misuse
a rising steam of self-hatred
as my mouth hangs open
hungry,
waiting for endorphins that never come
and self-denial still does not
meet my confessional act of contrite penance
it still feels like a sin
to eat
or not to eat
and there is no pleasure in gluttony
or in fast.