I’m somewhere in a perfect limbo
Between yes and no
It has stopped raining
And the birds cry out
In beautiful language
I will never know
I soak myself in their melody
But the sun is not out yet
It is gray,
(Her favorite color)
And there is a lightness
When I realize
I don’t have to hold onto anything
I am not new to this
My heart is tender,
Like how you pound steak with a mallet
I know well the sting of the salt
And I like myself almost raw, too
I have so much room
And I love to let it be filled
With the after scent of you on my sheets
That never stays long
Then I look at him,
Digging feverishly into the Earth
For that intoxicating scent
And I see myself
Head down-
The hair on my neck like razors-
Scratching until my nails are stained with tiny remnants
Of where I came from-
Earth and stone,
A body in the river’s widened mouth
Whispering
Screaming to me
To please sit here longer
And love with ferocity
Until the sun comes out

I haven’t been able to make my bed
But I ate breakfast

I haven’t been able to clean out my car
But I haven’t faltered on taking my dog to hike, play, explore

I haven’t been able to organize the shelf in my room
But I rubbed lavender tallow deep beyond my skin

I have been in this threshold
Between what can wait and what matters

I haven’t been able to even think about looking for another job
But I put out a book of poetry
(And it feels so small an act)

I hold the standard high,
But differently these days.
I am cluttered,
I can’t hold onto many things for too long
But there are things, my dog, rebellion, prayer, that no longer need holding.
I held them so long we merged.
They are marrow, cells, blood.

I haven’t been choosing to do those things,
actually.
I am able - without question I could pick up the pile of clothes in the corner of my room
and fold my socks.
But it just doesn’t matter enough.
There is weight-
Things to cry about,
and I have to, I must, call my mom if I am going to be okay.

So my bed, the pile of clothes, my car, can exist as they are.
There is no harm in mess when it can be cleaned later.
But my body, my dog, my heart, the genocides,
Require me.

So much feels fickle in the face of the grief and love I bear.
The grief
I want to plant.
I want to get my hands ***** in its power.
I want it to know my name.
The love-
Oh the love.
I cannot tell you of its expanse.
I can only bring you into the flood,
Show you the mountain,
Let you feel the sun.

It is not my new year,
no, no, no.
I am still unripe.
I am still gestating,
cocooned,
quietly dreaming in mid afternoon,
waiting for the stars to tell me my name.
I am still,
I am in grief laced with longing.
Do you not remember
you
are
Nature?
The light is only slowly starting to return.
The trees know not to sprout buds
the birds are still south
it is not time to sew seeds.
Nature is resting.
Please do not find discouragement
on the other side of a failed resolution.
Find understanding
that your biology is still clinging to any remnant
of your ancestors
of midwinter days spent fireside
eating warm stew and
bread with extra extra butter.
I hope you still eat stew
and pass on the salad.
Please let the crock *** simmer all day.
Please sip warm mulled cider
and sleep in,
sleep in.
I grieve those who chastise the Sun for setting
so early.
Is that which gives us life
not allowed to rest,
to sleep in,
sleep in,
and go to bed early?
I grieve those who see Winter as one
who consumes everything
and gives nothing.
I think
she is so beautiful in her barrenness,
in her slumber.
I have an unparalleled love
for when it is cold and dark
and the kitchen smells of my dad’s
Portuguese fish chowder
and I can go to bed early,
and sleep in,
sleep in.

Dear Dream,

Many versions of this letter have been writing themselves in my head for weeks now.
It started when I ended it about three weeks ago.
Told him we'd be better off friends.
I know that's an abrupt start but your words are on replay,
"I'll never forget when you said you're painfully loyal."
So I couldn't say this without you knowing I'm not with him anymore.
I am still painfully loyal.
It's the Taurus, ruled by Venus.
So when I love,
I love passionately.
My Moon is in Cancer - zero degrees.
I'm as Cancer Moon as Cancer Moon can be,
so when I love,
I love with the weight of the Ocean.
I've learned that I don't let go and that is not a weakness.
I make space for everything to be a part of me.
My Venus is in Gemini.
They say that means my way of loving is dynamic-
does that give sense to the two voices at war in my head?
One believes in love that withstands,
one fears being abandoned.
And my Mars,
my Mars in is Aries.
Could it be more suitable?
I am headstrong in the planet of action and passion-
warrior-like, not war-like.
When I love something,
when something ignites me,
I must move towards it.
And so when you are far away,
I still look for feathers in my dreams.
I think about the night we both knew we loved each other,
lying on my bedroom floor.
We did not say it-
not with words.
It was our names hanging in each others throats.
For hours we ached over the inches between us-
felt like the mountains and oceans that are between us now.
I miss you and sometimes that feeling takes over me.
I am afraid you don't feel the same anymore and sometimes that feeling takes over me.
I want to know how you're really doing.
I want you to tell me what the sunrise looks like in Alaska
and what is keeping your heart warm.
I want to tell you that I can't wait to (I hope I get to) see you again.
I want to tell you my feelings haven't changed,
but that I've only grown more curious
of how September, October, November, December have changed you,
made you love something new,
made you cry.
What has died inside you?
Has anything come to light?
I feed death every day-
laughter,
and sunlight
and poems
and honey.
It loves everything
and I feel close to it.
Most days there is an overwhelming part of me that only wants to sit and be with grief, sexx, magic, darkness,
and the willingness of the human spirit to find hope and strength amongst hatred and decay.
But I still get up
and walk with Odin under the early morning Sun.
I learn from him how the world is new every single day.
I just want to lay with you beneath the stars
and talk about
everything.

Love,
Feather

I got my ancestral DNA results back
Was reminded I was born a thousand times
I came roaring on a song from the volcanos throat
The wind gave me my name
I am a skeleton of branches and stone
Held buoyant by the ocean’s womb
Her salt still lingers on the taste of my skin
The base pairs of my double helix
are fire and air
earth and water
You can trace me back to the serpents tongue
Enticing Eve’s rebellion in that garden
I am the first womb’s blood shed,
the first ever rain.
I am every spirit that crosses the River Styx
I am the boat, the ferryman, the afterlife, the now
My body was once four legs,
Fur and howls
I could smell the blood for miles
I am still controlled by the waxing and waning of the moon
I hide with her when she is new
I have been the predator
My teeth have ripped apart the hearts of Elk
I have been the prey
Spilling my insides across the Savanna’s floor
I know the language of mycelium
But I am no better than the maggots that emerge from decomposing flesh
I have been them, too
And I believe they have a wisdom so sacred
For they have consumed everything
My father forged me by fire
His love lives in the blue of my eyes
In every life
My mother sang me to sleep
Her voice gives shape to the curls of my hair
When I look at my reflection
I see my grandmothers
When I dance
I become my sister
And when I cry
I remember I have been born a thousand times
Just like you-
You who is the first breath of dawn,
And nightfall’s lover.
You who is the flight path of Eagles
You who is Oya’s lightning and her storm
You who carved hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone
You who is all of us
Who is me
You,
Who has been birthed a thousand times
And will be a thousand times more

Woke up
Early
Stepped outside
To pink and yellow clouds
Blue sky slight chill
Fell back asleep
To yesterday
Woke up
830am
Walked bare foot
Barely clothed
Through the fields beyond our house
A symphony of birds
The flow of the creek
And your footsteps
Running
Exploring
Were the only sounds
I filled my basket
(And my heart)
With milkweed flowers
And red clover blossom
And passion flower
And yarrow
And sage to keep it all clear
Lamented
That no wine berries were bursting off their buds
Remembered I’ve eaten hundreds this year
And smiled
Went to
The elder tree
She is in transition
From maiden
To mother
Holding so much medicine inside her berries
Not yet ripe
Or ready to give to the world
There has been
Sweetness to my days
And I’m savoring it
In the fridge
In a big glass jug
Of milkweed and red clover and passionflower and yarrow and sage

consume my medicine
gently
touch parts of me
not luminous
**** my shadow
into
a sacred offering

I am sitting on the counter of the bar where I work
The moon hangs waning buoyant in the sky
It is starless-
It is midnight blue-
not yet engulfed by nights depth
There are bodies strewn about
I have exchanged
“What can I get for ya”
With a hundred
“A margarita, please”
None of them know my name
Or whether or not I’m sure if I want to be here
None of them asked
And I wasn’t going to tell them that
I never expected to be here
They just want their drink
Single tall, no story added
And I am not saddened by it
I am not really anything at all
But another body
Occupying this space
Wondering
If they will forget me as quickly I have them
Their faces
A mirage now,
An early morning dream fading quickly
Tomorrow
We will all just be bodies
Occupying other spaces
Probably not exchanging names
Moving like an empty wind
Through hundreds of other bodies

I took a picture of myself in the mirror today
An Ode to the algorithm Gods and immediate gratification
I just want people to read my poetry
And I will get more views
If I succumbed to my body as the poster child
Holding up flashy signs pointing to
my words
“Please read!”
There’s more to me than what you see here,
I promise.
But it is not the algorithm God’s fault - not at all theirs - that a picture of a girl undressed in her bathroom mirror
elicits more &  immediate emotion
And that black words on a white page get glossed over (I get it, I really do. Sometimes I don’t have the patience or the capacity either)
I want so badly to make you feeling something.
My sister will, of that I am entirely sure.
She will soak in every word and get to know me even deeper.
There are a few others who will do the same, and I appreciate you deeply.
Because this was never about my reflection.
I just want the words I’ve laced together that I love so much
To be read & loved too.
I want to tell you that yesterday
the butcher asked me if I wanted the beef heart cut into slices
And I said no
because holding it whole in my hand allows me a moment
To drift away and dream of when it’s the heart of a steer I’ve loved and butchered myself
I want to tell you that
My dog always takes the chicken foot off his food bowl first
and runs away to another room to ingest it
as if it holds wisdom he must keep to himself
I want to tell you that I prioritized writing this morning over breakfast
Because I had to get this all out before I could even consider
Taking anything in  
I want to tell you that
I wonder all the time why I get to be in a body
That wakes up to so much love every day
I want to tell you
I moved into a new house
and there are altars everywhere
and I started bleeding as soon as I was settled here
Because my body knows everything
My body is the actualization of my ancestors ceremonies
I want to tell you that
My body is moving me through each day
and I am finding poetry
In places another version of me could have never imagined to be beautiful

I am digging for the devotion
scratching myself raw
to find the pulse beneath my skin
I want to feel the rhythm
of the moon and tides
building my blood
and letting it shed
I want to be in it-
the cosmic, sacred space
where my prayers and rituals
feed so **** deep

You are never late to the ritual
The ritual is the tenderness in which you greet yourself upon waking
It is the moment you catch a glimpse of the day moon
and remember
You were not constructed to be the same every day
The sun is now a remnant of Summer’s heat
that filled your belly
made you golden
And Autumn’s cool now flirts with the night
The scent of her temptations lingers in the evening mist
You can taste her after rain
Persephone is calling you to join her
Narcissus flowers in your dreams
Teaching you to court the darkness
as formidable as it seems-
In it there is a medicine so sacred
One that begs for your descent
Take her hand
Stained red and sweet
from the pomegranate’s seeds
Go,
Go meet the winter as a lover
Lie with her late into the night
Listen to her teaching
that you are never late to the ritual
“the ritual is in your body”

your desire will
fly
sing
turn dark and ice
to
sun and fire
every moon will shine
fall
melt
believe winter can bring
warm light
with time

The butterflies
In my stomach have cocooned again
It’s not safe for them to be so gentle
Their wings no longer flutter
To the sound of your laughter
Each strand cautiously spun for every day
You offered me silence
They gestated to your absence
And now
I can feel them ripping, choking through
Their silken coffins
Emerging as little parasites
With viscous voices
Making me nauseous
So I have fed them
Raging fire
A single flame for every time
I’ve been abandoned
I have loved them
Into new formation
Refused to let them
Be a poison
Chosen devotion
As their medicine
I have fallen to my knees
At the altar
Of my own sacredness
Fallen asleep to the cadence
Of cicadas
And my heart
Still beating
I’m still breathing
In deep
One prayer after the other
Trying to mother
All the wounds
And conceive
Something sacred
From something broken.

Who are you?

I trace my finger over your lips
Slowly…slowly
I want to take it slowly.
I want to learn the language you speak when you’re in deep.
You breathe out,
And I breathe you in,
Inhale you
And exhale poetry.
The warmth of your hand on my skin
Intoxicates me.
I want to hold you closer
Even when there is no space between us,
Even when you hit all the way to my center.
We swim in the depths of holy waters-
Where all the layers are exposed,
Where we are speaking new languages,
Where we search for the undiscovered.
I want to bow to the poetry of you.
Worship you in your kingdom.
I want to make love to you in a way that is biblical-
Prophetic-
That reaches beyond what is good
And touches the holy-
The sacred,
the poetic.
I want to feel the hymn of your heartbeat
As your breath gets heavy and deep
When you’re giving your all to me.
I want to dance with you in devotion
At the altar of Aphrodite.
How deep can we go?
Taste the sweetness of my nectar,
I’ll drink your elixir
And we’ll turn our demons to Gods.
Push the boundaries of possible-
How deep does it make you feel?
Does it give life to your pulse?
Can you feel it in the dwelling place of your soul?
Let’s go there,
Let’s melt there-
Combine all the pieces
Become whole.
But first
I want to take you apart
and examine how you’ve constructed yourself.
I want to baptize you in my rivers,
Dance naked through your forests,
Let you listen to the lyrics of my creation.
“Again,”
Play me on repeat.
Sing to me,
Tell me how my eyes look like the universe,
And I will place my hand upon your cheek
And remind you that you are beautiful.

Who are you?

Come,
Let me show you again,
And again,
My poetry.

“When me and grief kiss
we use tongue”
Exchange each others DNA
And become made of one another
Become the threads that hold us together-
Change how we carry and express ourselves.
We are infatuated by the experience of getting to know
the shape of every curve and crevice
Before we dance our way into the center.
When me and grief kiss
we take it slow.
Conscious caressing of the spaces that have been silenced
Tender touching of the pain bodies
To reawaken sensations of love coursing through us-
No wiping the tears when we’re crying.
When me and grief kiss
we lick the tears streaming down our skin
Taste the salt of our wounds-
I let grief in.
Fully consumed
Swallow it whole so it can navigate my insides
And get digested
Break down to
Become the cells that nourish my love and passions.
When me and grief kiss
We get passionate
Like longing for the lover that breaks you open
And finally finding them in death’s darkest moments-
We spark fire,
Ignite ourselves into a version higher.
Burn the walls down that gatekeep our desires
And build a new empire.
When me and grief kiss
We hold each other close.
Press ourselves together-
I feel grief through layers and down into my bones.
No space between us,
The gaps are all closed.
Before me and grief kissed,
It courted me with hope.
Left me roses
Held my hand
Wrote me love notes.
When our lips finally touched,
I fell in love.
And now,
When me and grief kiss
We use tongue.

Soft heart like her,
A bleeding heart,
fingertips stained red with sweetness,
with Woman,
with Eternity.
Root. Seed. Fruit.
Her hands extending to mine.
Through ethers and
In dreams.
In dreams
I’m chasing
her light,
her love.
Protector of the heart,
Stewardess of the dream world,
Please slow my pace
and drive me deeper.
Help me to cry
and be softer.
Slow the rate the pain permeates me.
My heart is tired of
tender swelling.
Wants to be held in the holiness
Of being alive.
Let me take the pain in pieces.
Give me space to digest my place in it all.
Let me dream with her magic again,
rather than of the sickness.
Let me hold her,
Be held by her.
Drive her deeper.
Let it all penetrate me,
but slowly please.
Imprint it,
Brand it into my bones,
make me made from it -
the love, the strength, the beauty.
I want to be built of soft systems.
I wait, I beg, I work for the day we no longer have to be so resilient.
Let me taste, small
the sweetness.
Inhale her existence.
Exchange each other -
I will give her praise and vow to listen.
To find the silent spaces
she Exists.
Where I can bow to her presence
and no longer her memory.

She said
“What if before we decided to take the next journey in human form,
Before we said “yes, I’m ready” to touching our feet back down firmly in the soil,
Carrying bits of star dust and cosmos in our hearts,
We sat with Creation - we sat with God - and God laid out our life on a golden scroll, gleaming with the story of our soul - and asked for our yes?
What if we said yes to all of this?”
Said yes to being the one to answer the prayers to be loved with the depth of the oceans by a strong woman.
Said yes to be the holiest mirror of our human brilliance,
Said yes to penetrate the heart down into the DNA and rearrange it to the sound of a sacred hymn,
Said yes to burrow deeply into the soul - making a home with a fire forever burning that not just warms the spaces cold and dark,
But illuminates them with a constant prayer of everything pure, beautiful and true.
Said yes to being a hand that meticulously crafts a road map
back to the innocence of a soul unscathed by the pain we collect through the years, back to place inside we can dwell that is serene.
I think I said yes
To tearing hearts open wide and making space for crystal rivers to clean,
And mountains to emerge that you stand tall upon and love yourself like the first golden light of dawn.
I said yes
To breaking down the walls built with shaking hands
to keep out what hurts
Said yes to lending mine to rebuild the walls of stone and mortar and the first song ever sung,
So that when the world comes crashing down into a billion shattered pieces
Like a star exploding in the furthers chasms of ether,
You can be **** sure you will cast your sunlight down upon all that is broken
And be a pillar of un-shakeable strength
For all to look upon in awe
Of the magnificence you carry deep and pulsing
Within your blood and bones.

I do not feel the Earth beneath me,
do not feel my feet touching down
being pulled in
to something deeper.
I do not feel the cold Appalachian air in my lungs
I do not yet know
the name of its life force.
I did not see the leaves turn from green to honey’d shades of gold and ember.
I did not watch the leaves fall or witness the sky give itself unto elder-hood
And take on its winter shades of ice and gray.
There are yellowed ginkgos
And maple leaves like crowns strewn across the street here
I feel stuck in this loop of left turns back to his house.
Odin pulls me out and in,
Calling me when I have lost my way
He eats the fallen leaves
And I wonder if he knows something I don’t
about the importance of ingesting something so close to death
Something that will never be quite the same again
(I’m sure he knows)
I do not feel the Earth beneath me,
But I look at the trees,
Barren and cracking
And I understand.
Without rest there is pain.
Your own body will turn against you
Put you in agony
Just so you will please. slow. down.
It will reconstruct all the peaks and valleys you’ve made in your mind
And the pulsing of a newness within
Will push you to what you think is your limit
Make you believe you can’t bare another second of the crippling pain
Even when you know that is the only way out
Must give into the pressure growing in your head,
The thuds,
the pounding,
A new way is being constructed
(I cannot look into the light because I am supposed to be walking into the darkness.)
Your body will expose all you’ve held in to the outside world
Until the only thing left for you to surrender is blood and bile-
nothing is yours anymore.
You belong to the current of the seasons now
and if everything here is giving away and dying
you must too.

“This is not the same body as it used to be.”
I breathe.
It shouldn’t be.
This is the body I prayed would get injured. The same body who laid anesthetic as they graphed the burns. The same body whose skin regenerated itself day after painful day. This is the same body that sat 4 days and 4 nights and saw the sky bleed into her; red cardinals like stars shining against the pink morning. This is the body that kept going through days of food withheld, that processed and digested the binging. This is the body that has carried hundreds of stones into the lodge’s womb. This is the same body that breathed into the sun rising over the Ganga river. That has sat up countless nights praying and singing to the holy fire. This is the body that was told if only there was no sign of womanhood across my belly, I could twist a little deeper - maybe ring out the demons who have feasted there for years. This is that body. The body who has spent countless hours in the face of God, pulling carrots out of the soil. This body has been baptized by oceans and rivers coast to coast because she said “if you want to get to know a place, get into its waters.” This is the body that dreamt of you in a cathedral reading holy scripture & woke to a red river parting my legs. This is the body who then let you go, my Sun, and buried you in earth and in heart. This body should not feel like yesterdays body, or two years ago’s body. When a dear friend was teaching me to weave a basket they said, “a basket is just a memory of pressure.”
So what is this body a memory of?
It is a memory of all the times I’ve made love.
It is a memory of all the meals cooked together
and fires knelt by.
It is a memory of every grain of dirt collected under my fingernails,
Every bead of sweat.
It is the memory of weeping on your floor as I smelled the shirts in your closet the day that you died.
It is every sun salutation and every night up too late.
It has been shaped and pressed and manipulated and loved so tenderly.
It has been looked up and down and turned inside out.
This body
I’ve forgotten
To praise
To love
To honor
To nurture
This body
I’ve remembered
To let rest
And be held
And fed
And let float weightless in the creek
This body
Is not
The same body
As yesterday
And I don’t want it to be
The same body tomorrow
I want it to be molded
By moments
Of wonder
When I get home late from the bar
Saturday night
2am
Stars
Exploding in the sky
So bright
It makes me stop
And breath in the cold
And the ecstasy
It is to be in
This body.

She is serene.
Samsara has no grip on her soul.
She lived a life of transcendence.
The hand of Cycles unclenched itself in the presence of her holiness.
Bowed at her altar,
Made prayers to her name.
She laid a hand upon the youthfulness of my cheek,
Wiped the tears from my eyes,
Illuminated the swallowing darkness
And took with her my grief.
“Let your heart swell in joy,
My little one,
Pray to me with wholeness in your heart,
for I have never known breath so deep,
or peace so unwavering.”
The waves no longer swell and break and crash.
The waters she lays upon are like glass.
Vritti cita niroda (the cessation of waves in the mind space).
I am still here,
And her love coats me as warm as a summer breeze.
I am safe here,
Where I can look into her emerald eyes once more
And just be.

When I think I haven’t worked hard enough,
I look at the soil that has pressed itself deep into the cracks of my skin,
and at the purple stain of wild blackberries that has seeped in.
Hands washed, body showered & bathed,
And its memory of hours of work put in holds tight to my fingers.
The soil & stain know they are safe here.
Welcomed, treasured, revered.
They have become part of my fingerprints,
The way I recognize myself,
Know it’s my own hands I look at that bring tears to my eyes.
Dirt is etched into my fathers ring that I wear,
Amplifying the holiness of the cross it bears.
I am sun stained and
So. So. Tired.
The essence of farming lives in the soreness of my cells.
Picking beans already feels like a thousand years ago,
And tomorrow will come too soon-
Before I am rested.
And I will great the morning sun rising over the mountains will a deep breathe.
I will pull my boots on and my body will ache for the days work-
Begging to feel and overcome the discomfort of hundreds of feet bent over pulling weeds,
unsatisfied until my muscles want to give from exhaustion,
not done until my shirt is soaked with sweat,
and still from depths something asks for more.
More work, more ache, more hours.  
Slowly, please…
Through each painstaking and life giving moment here
So I can absorb the density of every single second I’ve spent with my knees pressed into this altar.
Slowly, please…
Because I know I am safe here.

Skywoman fell from her world above with seed in her hand. The muskrat, dead of life, clenched mud in its paw, its final offering so Earth could become. It all begins with soil and seed. Soil, a micro universe of life sustaining life. Seed, the tiny carriers of stories and sustenance. Two rich and sacred beings I will learn well in my life. My fingers have placed many seeds into cells packed with fertilized soil, placed many seeds straight into the Earth. I have watered them, transplanted their strong roots and promising sprouts, tended to them, harvested their food body and been nourished by their flesh. Soil and seed are the foundation of all plant life, and thus, the foundation of us. Their cells become our cells. Their fiber scrubs our bodies clean of waste and sin. They are the Earth's lungs that breathe life into our lungs. Skywoman fell with seed in her hand. Seed from another world, her offering to a place not originally her home. Turtle Island is not the home of my ancestors. I feel discomfort in the thought of tending to land that was brutally stolen. I find solace in the story of Skywoman. Through her steadfast dedication and reciprocity with the land, Turtle Island welcomed Skywoman in, let itself become her home by its own choice. Her offering of seed a promise to be its tender, its stewardess. Although this Land of Turtle Island is not the roots and soil of my Ancestors, we are all inhabitants of a greater Earth. Through the waters and the mycelial network buried under the old growth forest, I can reach to where my great, great, great, great grandparents stewarded land and tended to beast alike. Their stories are not lost to me, and although I may not know them in the form of words, they are, like the plants, the cells, blood and bone of my being. They comprise the very physical structure and spiritual essence of who I am. And so although this Land of Turtle Island will never be my ancestral home, I can only pray to become its native in time, by its choice, by its welcome. My ancestral home is Earth, as it is for all human life. All of the two legged beings that came before me have foot-printed her soft soil, swam in her rivers, and returned their naked bodies deep in the ground to be food for worms and microbes that digested both their skin and stories. These pieces of human life nourish the soils where wild ramps and fiddleheads grow, where wine berries burst in color, and where carrot seed roots itself sweet and deep. What are we but food for the impeccable microbial universe present in each and every handful of soil? If I work in this life to make my body, my flesh, my muscle, my blood, the most nutritious food for the micro beings to consume and put to new use when I am placed naked and free back into the ground, then I will have done part of my duty. May I one day be potent medicine for them. My duty, next to nourishing the microbes when my heart no longer beats, is to tend to this land as home, healer and relative. One day there will be land that I need, and it will find me, and I will work each day to know and tend and feel and understand that land like my own very body. Until that day, and still after, I will build upon my own heart and mind a beautiful layer of compost and woodchips to breakdown and become rich, soft soil. Soil that retains and builds nutrients and water, is beautifully aerated and loamy. I will build that world within myself so I can extend it outward to every seed I touch, every wild and cultivated food I harvest. And, when that land comes to allow me to tend to it, my offerings will be of humble, hard work. Of service. My work will be to become its native. May the birds know the beat of my footsteps like they know the beat of their own hearts. May the coyotes and the rabbits and the groundhogs and squirrels know my scent the way they know the scent of the wildflowers that have bloomed alongside them year after year, decade after decade. May the soil know the salt of my sweat that has dripped into its universe every day from April to October under the heat of the Sun. May my salts and electrolytes mix with their world, day in and day out, until they need me, too, to survive. May I be as integral to the system as every bee that pollinates the flowers, every frog that eats the bugs, and every fungus that consumes the dead leaf particles and turns them into fertile forest floor for the ferns and other fauna to emerge in ecstasy and vigor. The flavor of this place will be as diverse as the many worlds that collide and coalesce to create it. And I yearn for the day to know the shade of golden yellow of the butter that comes from the cream that separated from the milk that comes from the cow that’s been nourished by the land we have inhabited and fell in love with together. One day I will know just by the subtle change of the smell of the breeze that the magnolias and daffodils are about to blossom. I will know the sweetness of my carrots and green beans, the lingering smell of garlic scapes on my hands after plucking them in May. But first I must make a home of myself. First, my own body, mind, spirit, must be tended to with such adoration and respect and beauty and brilliance. So I will start there…becoming native to my own body. Becoming home to my own self.

I will miss the wood burning stove in my parents house-
My favorite corner-
Where house becomes home.
And I will miss
the sounds of fire and flame-
And the smell weaving its way throughout the house on a cold January morning-
And the warmth of being in the presence of things ancient & forever-
And chopping, stacking, & carrying wood with my dad-
And just sitting here,
sipping dark roast
& raw milk,
can’t take my eyes off the dance of flames - so **** beautiful.  
I will miss thinking nothing here,
letting it be-
being.

You make me want to lay here forever
ignoring the sun
and all of the pieces of myself scattered across my room
tangled in clothes I wore to the bar
that still hold a hint of your smell
from when you hugged me
laid your hand across my cheek
told me you loved me
and I think of her.
I think of how she would feel.
So I try to feed the good wolf
and bite my tongue when you tell me I look beautiful
that you miss me.
I take it all in
blame it on myself
for showing up to where I know you’ll be
and I think of her
in the dark.
Am I no better?
I don’t know if I am.

I want to send you an album.
But I can't.
I can't ignore the fact the we kissed
and let more go unspoken.
I hate that if I never said anything,
neither would you.
I have a paralyzing fear of your silence.
I think of that day that I watched your back as you walked down the E hallway
and we didn't speak for months.
I'm still sorry for that.
She sings of the telepathic desert
and I feel that.
My mouth is dry from the silence.
Ten years of words unspoken
(and feelings felt).
I can always feel you,
but will you hear me through the desert?
Part of me wants to be screaming,
feels like I need to.
When I listen to you sing a love song,
I try to decode if it's about me
because I just wanna know how you really feel.
None of them have been about me,
so I have to ask,
how do you really feel?
It's so hard for me to speak
because I'm afraid of you taking it the wrong way.
Have you kept the walls up because you think I'm waiting?
Because you think I'm seeking more?
Sometimes I think I'm crazy for even believing there is one there.
Is there a wall up?
Please, tell me I'm not crazy...
Everywhere else I feel so **** grounded,
but somehow you still shake the Earth inside of me.
Maybe there is a way to understand this cosmically,
the way your stars intertwine with mine.
What time did you take your first breath?
And did I feel it inside of me?
Sometimes I think of how sad I'd be if I ever lost you.
(Sad is a sick understatement).
Sometimes I think of how sad I'd be if I never got to put it all out there.
I don't want to grieve something I never said,
but I've been grieving these words unspoken to you for years.
I always want you to know how much I love you,
and that you are a special to me I can not explain.
I remember the first time I felt you,
sitting in history class sophomore year,
you said something so simple.
It was the first time you shook the Earth inside of me.
I found my sister in the hallway later that day and told her I found my soul mate.
I have learned a new definition of that over the years as I have picked up pieces of myself in the souls of many.
Something of our souls is made of the same dust.
We are like the fireflies,
ruled by super natural forces,
in perpetual cosmic sync.
Our lights will always understand how to shine together,
how to find each other in the dark.
You and I predate this lifetime,
and I guess some stories never finish getting written.
But I long to know your side of it,
the pages you've burned
and the one's you've tucked me away in.
I long to know in hopes that we can find ourselves on the same page.

You made a comment,
You let your drunken tongue slip,
And out came words
like a drunken man’s fist.
To my gut they went first,
To the place in my body
That holds all the pain.
To a place I conditioned
my “mindless”, “privileged” mind
to hate.
I digest them easily,
Familiar still the taste
of words about excess,
the body and the mind
do not forget.
I’m used to too much.
These words are internalized,
they become a part of my system-
I feel the universe shifting within.
These words are a black hole,
an off switch,
a portal to my darkness-
a place from which I am afraid
to speak,
a place where
my mind is not crystalline,
but jagged and shattered.
I speak with intentions
to cut you open,
forgetting the words
will rip my throat on the way up.
And I can feel tears
down the back of my throat,
Salting the wounds
we’ve just invoked.
I don’t want to taste this,
I promised to myself
Too many times
I wouldn’t swallow anything
that wasn’t intended to help me heal.

written sometime around 11/18/2016

...
Sometimes the days are so tender
And you feel so far away from everything you know you are
(Strong, resilient, beautiful)
And you just want to crawl out of your own skin
And return to the Earth and star dust you are made of
There is a vastness you are trying to find
Like the ocean
And the mountains
An ancientness and forever you can taste
But are struggling to be
The crashing waves are just the same as the tears that roll down your cheeks
You’re not sure why or how
But you know that it is just the way it’s always been
I believe pain only come from two places -
Love, and lack of it.
How far have her ashes traveled since the day my father poured them into the ocean?
I watched as the waves crashed over his boots
And he didn’t even think to move
It was the most beautiful and utterly heartbreaking thing I have ever seen
I come here stand face to face with the deepest pain
I have ever known
And to be reminded that angels exist everywhere
In every form
When we let them in

There’s a hunger in my stomach
and it tastes like you.
Like memories,
just can’t satiate the same.
Although it’s never quite filled me
in just the ways I’ve wanted it too.
I want to know you,
again and again and again.
I long to feel closeness,
to fill the gaps between us
and **** up all the air you breath out.
I’ll never let you slip away
through the sieves in my mind.
But, if I know you at all,
you’ll find a way back in.
We’ll walk together in dreams
(and the hunger will follow me).
I want to swallow you whole
so you can feel how you somehow
still shake the Earth inside of me.
You are a home that I am sometimes
speechless inside of,
and almost all the walls are down.
We stand on opposite sides,
almost always.
And I long for one of us to walk around.

Like the wind between my fingers
I know so well but can never hold
I can catch in my hair
Or in a memory
Like the days it blew strong on the New Mexico mountains
Rustling through the sweet high desert sage
A feeling familiar
I know you, Wind
Although to you, am I just another of the many faces you have blown upon?
I know you will always carry me
From the banks of the Ganges where I breathed deeper than I ever have before
To the space within my circle of tobacco prayers
I looked at the moon and it danced in the night sky
You blow beyond the realms of Earth
Into the queendom of Spirits and Angels
And she is behind you,
a light beyond the moon
My Grandmother’s Sky
Shines down upon me
I can still hear the voice
So clear.
I entangle myself with it before I sleep
And in the morning I wake still in dreams
Of catching you
In my hand
And it being real
That I can hold you
Feel you as more than just the reprieve of a soft breeze in summers heat
That I can **** you into me
And you will catch onto all of the tiny pieces
Where you exist inside of me
You are the one who has traced yourself along all of the waters
Who fears the edge of no mountain
But rather seeks the journey beyond human’s perception
Maybe you are God
Is there none but you so Ancient?
So incomprehensible
With elegance far unknown to flesh and blood
Or have you carried us with you since the beginning of time?
All there’s ever been is existence.
Death is like you.
Ungraspable and barren.
Omnipresent and miraculous.
I will turn myself into the wind.

Today is filled with headaches and their residuals,
with tears I wish I knew how to cry.
I keep ripping up fresh healed wounds
so at least I can feel something.
Have all of me,
because I know I’m not here to stay -
can stitch it up and refill later.
I’m full with emotions that I know all too well.
I feel too big to hide within myself.
I feel you sticking in my lungs (I can’t breathe).
My body turning against me
Demanding to be heard.
Soon there will be a ringing in my head,
knives at the womb -
twisting, ripping free,
cause my heart can’t help but hold on.
Will she rage at me again?
     I’m sorry.
I’m always sorry -
     for you, for being too much, for taking
     it to heart, for loving, for-giving.
Never for myself.
I do not deny that
I know my body language
and I know when I’m not listening.
I know my demons by design
and I know when they are starving.
My own hands feed them,
invite them to the table.
Too busy distracting myself from the things I know are good for me.
That love I want is far.
That love I need staring back at me.
Her hands, reaching out,
she feels the cold
and is pushing through,
reaching into abysmal distance
for something to take hold.
To pull me back home.
Voices I wish I didn’t want to hear
are singing and enchanting me.
I’m left to face this age old Demoness,
withstanding the trials of time.
Tell me what you feed upon
and I’ll serve you on a silver platter.
Nourish you so I’m not eating away at myself.
I’m afraid of any more withering.

I sit here under a clouded sky,
the winds carry these prayers far and wide.
My Angels burn within this Holy Fire,
and I am everything but alone.
The embers, the glow.
For the first time I am warm when the air is cold.
Time may just have stopped,
and in this moment it may just be me and this fire,
me and all I’ve ever truly needed -
the sense of Spirit running,
pulsing through me.
The mountains, my mothers,
the stars, my hidden fathers.
I want to be no where but here.
The smoke encircling me,
making me clean again.
Pure.
I hear the voices of my loved ones,
I see my grandmother looking down over me,
smiling at her little girl,
grown into woman,
into someone beautiful.
I hope my father is proud,
and my mother at peace.
I pray for those who are hurting to find something that to them,
feels like this fire does to me.
Something that can heal and nurture even the most wounded parts of their being
and make them feel safe inside their body,
made of both flesh and Spirit.
I smell the sweet cherry tobacco,
the burning Pine and sage.
I am home here.
I am home because I am in prayer,
in understanding with Creation,
again connected to the Holy Spirit
that breathed life into me.
There is contentment in this moment,
where I can find deep gratitude in all my pains of the past,
and where fear has no place inside of me,
or anything surrounding.
The fire speaks to me loudly and it’s mantra is
“It’s okay.
It’s okay, child of the Universe,
I will hold you when you are suffering,
when you are at a loss,
when you do not understand.
And even if you walk away for a long time,
I will burn the same when you return.
I will remember your name,
for it holds my essence,
    you hold my essence,
in your Spirit, in your scars.
I will remember your hands,
for I have marked you with beauty and strength.
Tend to to me,
and you will come so gracefully back to yourself.
You will learn to be soft, precise, fierce.
You will learn to nurture,
to bring warmth and light to everyone in your presence.
You will learn how to turn from ember to flame,
how to turn so graciously to dust and ash.
How to become something from nothing,
and how you need Air and Earth to survive,
and water to keep you calm.”
This path is golden,
but not without pain -
tis why we pray.
This path is the greatest love I have ever known,
tis why we pray.
And in that is everything.
That we never need a reason,
yet everything is a reason.
I can send my voice up as tears of both grief and gratitude flow out of me.
Could there be anything more beautiful?
More true?
I know undying trust
and pain just as absolute.
I know the pain, the shattering pain,
is what made me search, have faith, believe, understand.
Dedicate myself to something profound.
I know love is the true essence,
why these hands only want to give and hold.
Why I will stay up all night by this fire alone as the moon makes her way through the night sky.
And I won’t question a thing.
Not where, not why or how.
Tonight I will relieve myself of the constant tilling and uprooting of every piece of my life and suffering.
I will leave space for the Divine to make itself a home inside of me,
and remind me how absolutely precious I am,
Life is.
I will let my body be the altar tonight,
and not dare doubt
how life could ever be this beautiful.

It froze me cold in the thick of night,
The demons taking hold.
Feeling myself falling into this hole.
I can no longer taste the mornings of waking before sunrise
and praying that I please be better today than the day before.
More pain is encircling me now,
I’m chasing my own tail trying to get back to myself.
The walls are caving in and my breath is shortening.
Why don’t you remember what it means to stand in your truth?
I’m calling out to you.
My heart is breaking for the broken,
And I’m fragile still from the shattering of death.
I can not hold the broken glass.
The shards are ripping me at the seams.
I’m bleeding, can’t you see?
Can’t you see how this is tearing into me?
I smell that demon on your breath,
Clouding up your head,
And the exhales are slowly suffocating me.
I thought I could handle them,
But they seem to be slipping into my bloodstream.
The fears of you alone
Carving knives into your soul,
I swear it shakes me to the bone.
So I toss aside myself,
Thinking I can just pick her up later.
But as your cup runs empty,
So does mine,
And I have to pull the energy to nurture from dangerously deep inside,
From my own place that I hide.
Where no one is supposed to go.
You haven’t seen the tears.
You haven’t heard the weeping.
But I promise you they’re there,
Ravaging and reaping.
This was never supposed to hurt.

My grief is a sickness towards everything around me. My grief is paralyzing resistance. My grief is the midwife to my anger. My grief is walking in a cloud of darkness. My grief is dressed in black. My grief is a slow poison leaking, it is a stone in my heart. My grief is tears buried so **** deep. My grief sounds like muffled screaming. My grief wants to scream. My grief wants love, to laugh, to be seen. My grief wants nothing but to exist without judgement. My grief is just trying to make its way out of me. My grief doesn’t want to be the enemy, it doesn’t want to make me cold. My grief wants to speak and tell you I’m sorry for how your grief was to you. My grief is lack of compassion because I’m hurting and feel like I must be silent. My grief is ancient. Universal. My grief plays out in dreams that co-star my guilt. My grief knows me inside and out. It has a place in every cell. My grief is held, cradled in the safe, warm arms of its mother. My grief has outgrown what I can hold. My grief lives within the soul of the universe, so I know you feel it too. My grief is the deep breaths. My grief is the fruit from a seed of love. My grief has roots. My grief is so sacred. My grief is you. It’s her. My grandmother. My grief is her last words. My grief is that I don’t feel I am living up to them. My grief misses your voice. And mine. My grief is for me, too. My grief is still grieving. My grief is knowing that it won’t ever stop.

“Let me hold precious the memory of those who have crossed over by letting them be a part of me.” May I be granted with opportunities in my daily life to honor them through kind and loving actions towards others. When my heart is darkened by the strokes of pain, may laughter emerge from a deep fallow within me and allow for a moment of joy.

“Dissolve the haze of fury, and help me be patient as the puzzle comes together over time.” When I question, “Why?” remind me of my faith in Creation. Bring to light my roll in this becoming, and help me forgive myself for my actions that have contributed to my suffering. Grant me the space to be with my anger and move through its outbursts to its source. Implant within me the tools to feed its call for action with love.

“Mellow my hearts rhythms when it engages in a race with my thoughts.” Help me to stay present to my emotions so I can give them the acknowledgement they deserve. When the tears flow and my chest aches, allow the winds of my ancestors to create space within my heart for healing. Break down my walls so their love can permeate through my being.

“Inject me with a reminder that I didn’t come this far to abandon myself now.” Help me remember these prayers. Give them an open pathway to soak into my subconscious and become my way of living. May I swallow them and let them become my blood, my cells, my being - my foundation for higher consciousness.

May my grieving become a light in the abyss of the unknown.

Little hands are reaching out,
Broken hearts screaming silent cries.
Moving through the veil of life,
through the eminence of this death we shall rise.
In the presence of the magnitude of her love,
this pain is but a pinprick,
a thorn upon the roses stem.
It shall bloom forever,
for the soul knows no end.
The planets shift and move,
reminding me I can do the same.
Our destinies may be carved in stone,
but the author is none other than the hand that is our own.
She’s spilled her blood and exposed her scars,
handles ****** with an elegant grace.
No anger in the bones that will rest,
her peace un-jeopardized by an unexpected fate.
I breathe the moments bedside deep -
extract her nectars,
her love, her faith.
Silently I bow my head,
and promise to honor all that is her name.

7/28/18

To feel them,
those tiny arms, so fragile.
Held you like a babe,
like you held me.
And every reason I chose you
existed within that moment.
Standing only to hold you up,
mothering the broken.
I will hold you in my heart
the way she held you in her womb.
I will carry you that way.
To do so is my purpose -
there by both choice and design.
I am the hands that hold the chain,
anchor suspensed.
There is lead in my heart, too.
I will measure our love by this moment.
For you, to cry and let me
hold you
holds the only weight.
This is all it ever was,
and all it ever will be.

Losing you feels like my body ripping at the seams
(Losing you feels like birthing a new purpose)
Losing you feels like the cry of an abandoned babe
(Losing you feels like a new search is beginning)
Losing you feels like foundation crumbling in my fingers
(Losing you feels like rebuilding myself)
Losing you feels like all the pain of a lifetime bottled into a single jar
(Losing you feels like love is present everywhere now)
Losing you feels like a rage from the core of my being
(Losing you feels like making every action purposeful)
Losing you feels like breaking everything I once deemed as sacred
(Losing you feels like now I understand what it means to hold something as sacred)
Losing you feels like the sky will always be black
Like it will always be raining
(Losing you feels like a new duty has been cast upon me from the heavens
Like the feeling of rain on my skin)
Losing you feels like the burning
Like the old scars no longer matter to me at all
(Losing you feels like the fire is now warmer
Like there are new wounds scaring over)
Losing you feels like gasping under crashing waves
Like drowning
(Losing you feels like every breathe is important
Like the first gasp of air)
Losing you feels like a forever famine
(Losing you is like planting a single seed to feed a million)
Losing you feels like a life long battle
(Losing you feels like an initiation to become a warrior)
Losing you feels like the universe is void
(Losing you feels like you’re filling all the holes inside of me)
Losing you feels like a death of my own
Like I will never be the same
(Losing you feels like an opening
Like life has taken on new meaning)
Losing you (is gaining an angel)

day light will be new -
the way it will rise from the infinite night sky,
promising that i will see you.
that moon in a blue sky,
the reminder that what illuminates darkness
can never fade.
always, i will become full again.
the pain will wax and wane,
the tears will swell and pour out.
i will collect them in the deepest fallows of my heart
and my body will flood,
will shed,
will empty and become hollow.
from a void vast and powerful,
matter will slowly form again,
lie a single silver egg,
from it an entire universe of stars
and love will birth.
i will believe, still.
i will trust even when the pain torments each corner of my mind.
i will rise.
i will rise for your body that is weak and dis-eased.
i will form a new self,
one that will know daylight and darkness not as duality,
but forces of great mystery.
death, i will not fear you,
but honor you.
i will bow down and offer my prayers to your majesty.

The Hanbleceya.
The cry for a vision.
The Vision Quest.
The space between worlds.
In the presence of the Great Mystery.
I went down to the fire,
and she, the self I aim to be,
was not there.
I became her.
And maybe just for that moment on my blanket because I needed to be her.
She is on the eternal quest.
Forever in search,
forever seeking.
That magic I was hoping for did not emerge in the way I believed it would...
I let instead the Earth, and only her,
hear my screams.
Hear some deep agony within me,
maybe not even completely of my own.
Maybe the ancestral pains of the women who carried lives before me.
Red is the road to my heart,
is the color that bled out of me on the way up.
Dripping prayers down my legs,
each step became even more sacred.
Together, we sang our warrior song.
They are my amor, my comfort, my shelter, my warmth.
But on your blanket in your circle of prayers,
there is only you and the Creator.
You and the Great Mystery.
You and your fears, your pains, your demons.
You and your truths, your reasons, your prayers.
It is your choice whether to feed to thirst and hunger in your head,
or the hunger in your soul.
There is no greater pain than a soul not enacting its purpose,
its duty, its agreement with the Divine.
No greater pain.
And those screams that emerged from me,
from depths vast and deep,
was everything I ever let block me.
When we are broken open,
when we cry that deep soul cry,
we are breaking to let love and truth in,
we are watering our gardens.
So what magic am I believing was not present?
A vision may have not been shown to me,
but the courage of a single moment was.
To decide to not shut my eyes,
but to pray.
To offer compassions back to the Earth and take less for myself.
To not **** a single mosquito,
but rather walk off that blanket four days later marked with their persistence.
I watched their points enter my flesh
and saw their bodies fill with my blood.
Maybe they were extracting from me all that I no longer need.
And what itch is worse?
That of a red bump,
or that of the soul's need to incessantly scratch through its flesh suit to get to the core of its truth?
There were hours upon hours I let myself fall silent.
Listened to the sound of the woodpecker,
watched the spider crawl,
saw the turkey run.
They know how to be at home here.
And it is nothing grand that they do,
but they understand their purpose and place and they do not strive to feed and ego.
They do not "Ease God Out."
They are of God,
they are a God of their own.
So how do I remove myself from all the ******* of this world
if I do not place my being into the womb of Creation and sit?
The layers strip down,
the sun rises and sets and does so again.
I began to know before the sky would lighten that the morning was coming soon just by the sounds of the forrest.
The great trees barely swayed and the Earth was uprooting.
What am I doing here?
The days were long and hard and filled with a frustrating buzzing in my ears.
Buzzing like all the nonsensical thoughts we have on a daily basis.
If only our ears would buzz and ring every time we had a thought that backtracked us from our truths
and the inherent love that is within our beings.
If only we had the persistence of the mosquito that does not,
will not stop until it is filled with the one nectar it was meant to live on.
There were moments of bliss and moments I felt anxiety bubble up within.
Such a rare form of myself,
a piece of me I do not know too well.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin and be gone.
Be wind, be ether, be smoke.
Be gone.
And then they came,
bearing compassion.
Just a single sip of water.
Just a little.
They handed me that cup and I just cried.
Cried from the depths of my being.
"Do I even deserve this?"
And I let some moments pass,
held that cup in my hands and prayed in the form of tears.
That water,
that precious gift bearing life,
it touched my lips and made its way into my being.
And all become calm.
I am here for a purpose,
on this blanket, I mean.
I am here and meant to be no where but here.
And gently they spoke of the 6 pointed white star flowers surrounding me.
Not to me,
but a message for me.
A reminder of the beauty all around,
if I would only just look.
There I was,
sitting upon the hands of Creation.
If I had just stopped to listen,
stopped to breathe,
maybe I would have understood that on my own.
But that is why we tie that red prayer hung to our Ancestors.
He said,
"that prayer is your reminder to come back."
So for the next 360 days until I sit upon my blanket again,
the only prayer is to remember what I learned on that Mountain.
To remember what a blessing it is to drink a sip of water,
to be alone,
to look not into the eyes of another,
but only see the beauty of Creation.
I went out there wanting to be silent.
To just listen to what the world had to speak to me,
to shut out the voice in my head,
but there were moments that I could not hold back the words and prayers from my throat,
moments I needed to send my voice up or else I swore I would get up off that blanket and just walk away.
Moments I swore I would have filled the Earth with my screams again.
And when I spoke,
it was with such softness.
Maybe to not disrupt the frequency that Mountain has known long before Creator ever chose that spot for me to pray.
Maybe because when I spoke I barely recognized my own voice.
Because when you speak to Creation,
it is the truest version of yourself whose voice rises up from the very depths of your soul.
This is the voice that Creator knows.
And I just need to say I'm sorry that if for any moment I used my voice not pray
or to talk myself back into my heart and out of my head.
I'm sorry if I wasted a single moment on that Mountain.
The minutes seem so long when you're out there,
but now as I'm back home,
I'm wishing I could have just a few moments back on my blanket.
That I could have just one more opportunity to pray.
I would say to the Creator my name,
I would say please help me because I am struggling.
Please help me because  just want to make the best out of my life.
Please help me because I want to make sure I am on the right path to my purpose.
Please help me because I never want to know a life without you,
without prayer, without this Red Road.
Just one more time I want to speak those truths and let my tears become offerings of myself to the Earth.
But that is why we tie that prayer in Red.
Because I can go back.
I will go back and again be given the holy space to send my voice up and pray,
to cry,
to fall into silence,
to watch the sun set and rise again.
And I can stop now and breath.
I can stop and close my eyes and be on my blanket.
I can smell the freshness of Earth and the copal cloud of smoke.
I can pray and cry with myself on that blanket,
because there is a piece of me that will always be there.

Through the silk screen window
he sees her sitting under the morning sunshine.
He's not sure if she came from the stars or
if she will return into the water-
is she even real?
But what he really wants to know is why she's there...
There is nothing new about today to him,
to hands old and overworked.
Nothing new to him about the well worn path of branches fallen and sun dried leaves,
her footsteps are soft and will soon become a memory-
the skin on her soles tender from home.
He has seen the sun rise many days,
watched as the space in his backyard accumulated.
He resonates more with sunset now.
She is still trying to learn how to be that sunrise
and to shine like the glistening reflection of the light
on the warm gulf waters.
The smell of morning Earth is still new to her here,
an aroma he no longer notices flowing effortlessly through the backdoor.
The butterflies and wind carry the spirit of her Grandfather -
she has never felt him quite like this before.
With arms raised and eyes closed
she knows the only thing that feels right to do
in this moment is pray.
And now she knows,
she knows the waters and they know her,
she knows her angel is ever so close.
Yet he has absolutely no idea
that his photograph of her
sitting by the water
captures all of this.

My bones, my bones-
the keepers of my soul,
in tending to you
I am singing a song so old.
Older than Oak,
older than the stories carved in
the walls of caves,
older than the Grandfather stones.
I sing the song that formed the Universe,
that brought eternal warmth to the sunshine,
that shook the Earth with such power,
she created mountains.
This song lives in the river beneath the river,
in the first beat of a heart,
in the world of dreams not
yet dreamt.
This is the song of the Goddesses
and the Warriors.
This song is what the wolves hear
when they are howling at full moon.
This is the song that heals,
that mends the broken heart,
that makes the motionless and tired body dance,
that lets the soul avow its truth.
This is the song that creates undying love.
I heard this song first,
not when life was sweet like the nectar of flowers,
but when my bones were shattered
like a star dying in the cosmos;
when everything I had ever known
burned to dust in the palms of my hands.
I sang this song first
when I had no choice
but to begin piecing myself back together again.

I've reached the house that once was a speck
within thick layers of a forrest no longer visited.
Its red clay walls were cracked and crumbling,
ready to become a pile of dust and ash-
remnants of a place ignored and long forgotten.
The roof was caving,
tiles missing or rank with mildew,
and consumed by tiny holes that let flashes of sunlight break through.
The foundation of this red clay house
was weak and tired,
barely able to support the deteriorating red clay walls.
A cobblestone pathway,
walked upon daily many moons ago,
led me to the door.
Of all the decay and ruin that plagued the red clay house,
the door remained firm,
and the lock thick and strong.
It's been long since entered.
Such a strange little key hole,
such a foreign yet familiar place.
I circled, circled, circled
the red clay house,
searching for the key,
or any way in.
So barren the space around the red house,
just dirt and little pieces of fallen clay.
Not a place to hide the key,
not a crack big enough to enter.
I went to my knees, and prayed for an answer,
     I knew this was my home.
Tears fell from my eyes
as I pleaded for my life.
They hit the sweet Earth,
and I watched a miracle occur.
Where my prayers had fallen,
I found the answer.
A pool of wet red clay had formed of my tears and Earth.
I took the hands which have shaped my life,
and dug them deep inside.
I carried that red clay to my home,
and began repaving the cracks in the wall,
carefully examining the damages,
finding the causes,
and forgiving myself for all the years I spent without a single visit.
The cracks take long to repair,
consistent care,
touching directly the spaces that hurt.
From the foundation, to rooftop I work and work,
watch the house reshape day by day.
Still,
I must fall to my knees and pray for the answers,
let my tears fall to the Earth
and create medicine.
Everywhere I step now,
flowers sprout from the ground,
vibrant colors shining in the sun,
I water them daily,
the work is never done.
I am still reaching my hands in pools of red clay,
and paving the cracks that will always
find their way up from the depths.
I have unlocked the front door,
found the key under my tongue
the day I prayed to be let in.
Oh, how the light shined so bright inside,
not through tiny cracks in the roof,
or cracks in the walls of red clay,
but in my hands
when I stepped through that door.
The hands that paved the cracks,
the hands that reached up to the Sky
and asked for rain
on the days that my tears could not create enough clay
to fix the cracks that threatened to tear down
all the work I had done.
The hands that replant the seeds after a harsh winter,
and unlocked that front door.
The hands scarred and callused
that will never stop paving the cracks.
These cracks are no longer ominous,
no longer chooser of my homes destiny,
for when the home is found,
it can not be forgotten,
and when the door is opened,
it can not be locked again.

Dark of night ignites moonlight.
Ancient self awakened.
New eyes peer into the vast and open.
Nature is alive and dancing,
Yet my mind is silent and still.
Words have escaped me,
Only instinct remains.
Like breathing for the first time,
Forever I am changed.

I want to honor all the lessons of my father.

Thank you for teaching me to work hard,
for it is when we put our full effort and heart into everything we do
that we reap the rewards.
~
Thank you for teaching me to be honest,
for it is when we honor our words and actions
that consequences and troubles are avoided.
~
Thank you for teaching me that I must always forgive,
for it is when we show love to those who have hurt us,
we feel whole in our hearts.
~
Thank you for always being silly,
for it is when we stay light in our hearts
that the troubles of life seem insignificant.
~
Thank you for always protecting me,
for it is when we show the utmost care and concern for others,
that they are reminded of their importance to us.
~
Thank you for showing me that
actions speak louder than words,
for it is through our actions that the truth of our heart shines through.

8/4/2016

The morning will be plagued by slow ripples from today.
The taste of regret and shame will coat my tongue,
and I won't want to look in the mirror.
I won't want to see my enemy,
and I won't want to face my conscience.
"Today will be the day,"
I will tell myself…
And I will want so badly to believe it,
but every cell in my body will remind me of
all the times those words have left my mouth
in days past,
and never followed through.
The frustration is an overwhelming cloud that is thick around my body.
I feel heavy and sedated by my own actions.
I feel weak and at a loss for control.
I am scared to be writing this because I know the power of thoughts and of words,
But I know no other way to heal than to release my life onto paper.
I can not look myself in the face and tell lies-
So although this rips me apart to put onto a page,
I must honor myself for speaking the truth,
even when it's ugly and hurts.
I will wake up tomorrow and tell myself,
"Today will be the day," because maybe,
tomorrow it really will be.
I will wake up tomorrow and brush my teeth clean of the past,
spit out regret and shame and wash it away.
I will pray for health and help and healing.
I will humbly say Thank You to the Great Spirit for my life.
I will remember the days I couldn't get out of bed,
and I will rise for those moments.
I will stand tall and look at myself in the mirror and say,
"I love you and you are beautiful," until I believe it.
I will let the tears run down my cheeks until the veins in my body feel dry,
And I won't wipe them.
I won't hide behind words that tell a story different from my own.
I will walk this road,
So give me lightening and give me rain,
that way I will learn to walk with grace and strength,
but I ask please, Great Spirit,
still let the sunshine kiss my face,
and relieve me from any pain.
Please have mercy on my soul,
and be my guiding hand
as I find my way home.

6/6/2016

Skin once torn and charred
is skin now senseless,
no longer stinging with sorry
and sorrow.
From the absence
I found presence-
it was the only way.
When the body is
a painful prison,
the mind must
manifest solace.
Must silence mom’s
anguish, and speak
for dad’s silence.
Pain is a sense
I’ve perfected-
No longer exists
when breath is focus.
From the absence,
I found presence-
it was the only way.

There's a steel cage match
in my mind
between who I am
and who I want to be.
I watch with eyes of a bystander,
watch as the conflicts of my mind
become intertwined in fragile fists.
In the dark corner roams the Contender,
resting quietly in the back of
the thoughts.
You can hear the breathing,
feel the presence,
feel like the victim
come to the territory
of the enemy.
And I know,
I know it is is me-
     the Contender in the dark corner,
     it's just like looking in a mirror.
     I see the fear and fight in her eyes,
     she means no harm,
     she's just trying to figure out how to be free.
Across the ring
glows who she wants to be.
The soul,
the light into which
her thoughts are punching holes-
     darkness destroying in confusion.
Fists hit her cheeks
as she spits up mouthfuls of words
she should have never said to herself.
She's just trying to survive
the battle of her mind,
trying to absorb the blows
the way the Light does,
so that every fist the contender
drives deep
is flooded back with light
as soon as the fist leaves.
She will not be
defeated.
The Light
will
not
leave
her.
She is greater than her contender.

The strength in which you created to bare us,
became the strength in which you need to bare us.
No book could've prepared you
for the disappointments,
the nights we don't come home,
for a hysterical rush of tears,
bullets straight into your shoulder.
Torn apart in ways more than one,
you never even saw it coming.
We are your blind spots;
the cause of constant and unspoken worry.
No longer possessing innocence,
but still demanding your blind trust.
We're sorry we never call,
and for growing up too fast.
But I promise, we're okay,
and you've done a perfect job.

I think I finally understand why you'll always love us.

i had to swallow the words
choking my throat
the first night i ever saw you cry.
luckily i had your tears
and a bottle of wine
to help wash down the knives.

i remember the way your soul died
and how your arms were child-sized.

it was the first time you told me you were
scared.

i should’ve ripped the air with
“**** yous” to God
and
“i believes” to the devil
but they’d already been ingested.

working with precision,
sterilized tools

carving scars in stomach lining,

words are hands of doctors
words are cutting through me
doctors through my Grandmother,
your Mother,

e x t r a c t i n g  the  c a n c e r

carving scars in stomach lining,

yet all the while She’s saying,
“help them” to God
and
“stay away” to the devil.

Morning rises over Philadelphia
and cracks the sky;
untangles legs once intertwined.
Sun beams pierce through the window,
Revealing two bodies withdrawn to distant sides
of the hotel bed,

The night spent chest to chest
will forever be kept in the dark.