I heard your voice thru my desperate screams
So I clawed thru my ravaged soul
Just to stand by your side
I admired my own carnage
And handed you my heart

His pull was undeniable by her
She felt it across the vastness

He's killing himself
He's drowning in truth
With each inhale of a cigarette
He fills his lungs with ideals
The smoke gathers around him
Changing the perception of reality
Another pull from the wine bottle
Another dose of novocaine
A swig of whiskey
A sip of *******
Freedom he says
It's all I've ever wanted
My way or the highway
I love you
I don't want you
Another pull from the bottle
Another inhale from the joint
You're my everything
But I walk in truth
The truth is I am me
And I have nothing to offer you
The smoke gathers in his reality
No vividness in his realm
This honey colored existence
This freedom
This perception
This alone

-KB 2016

I thought I was doing it right
Loving and caring
Protecting and nurturing
But it was not these things that you wanted
You did not want my watchful eye
You did not want my encompassing embrace
You wanted "freedom"
I offered you food
You preferred drink
I offered you health
You preferred death
I offered you home and hearth
You preferred open night skies
I offered you me
You preferred her
I offered you words
You wanted silent acceptance
I thought I was doing it right
Loving you the best way I knew how
Little did I know my love was too heavy
Too much
And too late

The moon is beautiful tonight.
Full like the womb of a mother.
Growing and giving life.
Waiting to birth a new cycle.
Cycles that change the tides.
Wash away the old.
Birth in the new.
The moon is radiant and glowing.
Spreading light in the darkest of moments.
She exists so we know we are never lost.
She births hope.
Regeneration.
Cycles.
The moon is beautiful tonight.

Beyond the facade of love, lies the desire for normalcy and freedom.  
An aching yearning for the self, but the self with another.  
The self with a partner.  
That other that fully embraces
          and accepts without
                  judgement or
                      withholding.  
The other that loves,
         but does not need.  
           That needs,
         but not too much.  
All this is covered in love desired.  
We want to love,
       but we want to be free,
                and is there freedom in love?  
Is there not a freedom,
    but with limits
          because there must also be respect.  
Am I not me,
         but I'm the me that I am with you and isn't that a different me?  
For truly,
       you wouldn't want the all of me,
               there are far too many critiques.  
Too many judgments.  
        Too many thoughts that invade the space of my personal realm,
               the one that used to just be me,
                     but I let you in because I love you
                               and I want to be me with you.  
Does this mean you are not you?  
What has this done to the you that I knew?  
How has the me changed you in such a way?  
And now are we just us?  
Is this a facade covered in the language of love?  
            Have we gone mad?  
                  Completely lost ourselves?  
                         Has freedom escaped,
and yet we fight for this new us because it feels good
           and bad
                    and happy
                            and angry all at once?  
This adventure,
         this experience,
                this thing.  
So many consistent inconsistencies,
    but I love you so I navigate them.  
I fight for the me that I knew so well,
   but I love you and so I'll fight to be the me you want me to be.  
So am I still me?  
        Are you still you?  
                    Or are we now us in this language of love?

-KB 2016

He doesn't like to be noticed but he's impossible to miss and impossible to hang on to.  
You can't tie someone like him down.  
He'd chew off his arm in what you'd perceive as self sabotage,
but for him it's survival.
His freedom is what brings him home to you at night.
Maybe not consecutively but he always come back....always.
All the reasons you come to hate him, resent him, miss him are all the reasons you loved him in the first place.
You loved his intoxicating freedom.
You loved that you could smell it on him.
You loved that when he was close enough
you felt like it was yours.
So you tried to hold him tighter.
Convinced that if you could just make him love you enough he'd stay
Missing that he was loving you as much as he could.
So instead you began killing him.
Resenting him for not being what you needed, even when he was all you ever wanted.
Slowly...watching him die without even realizing it.
Yelling at him.
Screaming at him.
Begging him.
Cursing him.
Causing him to hate who he is because it makes him "broken".
Hating that the pull within him is too strong for him to deny
Breaking his own heart because it was too broken to just love you the way you wanted to be loved
but he loved you...
By the time he had eaten away at half his arm you expected the pain would be too much for him to bare so he'd stay.
Only to watch him run on 3 legs crying out into the night.
Singing her song that called to his being.
He is the wolf.
And she is his moon.
Not even the sea can resist her call.
How on earth could it be expected of he?

I beg of you to destroy me
To take the pieces left of my heart
To ruin them
So I may look back on this moment
So I can remember the way you looked at me
Your caresses along my body
Your fingertips across my cheek
Your beautiful hands through my hair
So I can drown in your scent
And burn in the memory of your spirit
Destroy the last vestiges of my heart
So I can look back on such beauty
And say I was loved
And I loved
So much, I was destroyed

-KB 2016

As I stood in a room with death today, she spoke of meaningful things. Peace and life and love and loss.  She grabbed my hand and said "do not rush to me, for I will meet you at your time.  Stop giving your power to the little things and don't let them tell you you're blind. Your cross, your bag, your little flag have no meaning with me. What comes is your soul, the spirit inside, that's all that I can see. For I am nothing to fear as long as you've known yourself. When your time comes accept my hand and leave proud of what you have done."  

My advice to you, as it was given to me, is to honor your soul inside. It's what was here before and all that will be left after to join the earth we come from. I shared the air and touched the skin of death today and saw how much life there is.  Don't waste your time feeling lost, just choose your path.  Don't judge the face or body in the mirror, for it is a literal shell that you do not keep. Cultivate who you are inside like a newly planted seed, and when your time comes, leave being a mighty tree to be given back to Mother Earth.

The color of the treasure may have changed,
But the tactics are all the same.
First come the discoverers, then the mercenaries, followed by the soldiers to "protect" us, for we know not what we have.
They come to "protect" and "civilize" us.
To save us from our wild savage ways.
Be it 1492, 1851, 1975, or 2016
The goal is all the same.
**** the Indian, Save the Man.
**** the Indian, Save the Man.
We're still thinking we're seen as that man,
But THEY are all part of that clan.
We are The Humans, The Protectors, we are The People, just as all of our languages remind us.
We are the children of the Earth.
Now the cycle has come again.
First came the discoverers,
And we prayed.
Then came the mercenaries,
And we reasoned.
Do more than just dance this time my people...
The soldiers are coming.
The color of the treasure may have changed,
But the tactics are all the same.

Mni Wiconi

-KB 2016
Cante Waste Mani Kici Win

They come for us when we're lost
When we're hurting and forget our path
They show up and stand next to us
Hold our hands and speak to our hearts
We are never alone in this journey
They are always right there
Waiting, listening, watching
Standing strong so we always remember
So we feel them in our blood and we know
We are one
We are The People
And they, are still here

-KB 2016

The full moon rises marking another month has gone,
And still I miss you.
The sun awakens a new day,
And still I miss you.

-KB 2016

Hope is lost in the heart
In the visions of innocence plundered
In the war cries of the proud
In the hate filled screams of the wicked
Hope is what is looked toward to be the light
But the darkness calls
And not all who heed her cry
Can find their way in her beauty
They are consumed and lost in her
Torn by her thorns
Mesmerized by her misunderstood power
Hope is lost in age
In fear
In ignorance
Hope, that one guiding light
Destroyed by men
And sought by soldiers

-KB 2016

I feel the beauty of the earth all around me.
I listen as her children awaken.
The winged,
The two legged,
The four legged.
She sings her morning song
In the gentle breezes
Flowing between the leaves on the trees,
And I know I am a part of her
My heart the drum to her melody

-KB 2016

Coming and going...waves
Burning and ash...regeneration
Fire and warmth...birth
Cold and windy...desperation
Open and empty...desolation
Coming and going...repetition
Burning and ash...destruction
Fire and warmth...building
Cold and windy...searching
Open and empty...freedom

-KB 2016

I've never seen him as typical
He was always more ethereal than this
A king
A god
Something and someone apart from the norm
Magical
Intense
Real
Beautiful
Especially beautiful
Beauty in his touch
Beauty in his eyes
Beauty in is voice
Beauty in his mind
Beauty all through him
Has this caused me to fall prey to what I hate done to me?
Do I want to own what should never be owned, but merely appreciated?
Perhaps I am not his and he is not mine, but we are just us.
Perhaps he is just typical
He breathes
He hurts
He angers
Perhaps he is just a man
A man any woman can have
Perhaps I am just a woman
And our elevated status is only existent in a memory
In a lifetime long ago
In a time where he was the king and I was his queen
But here,
Now
He is just a man
I am just a woman
And typical is all we have left

-KB 2016

I fear that I shall die without ever being truly known.
As the autumn nears I pull more into myself
Carrying my bleeding beating heart in my open palm blood dripping between my fingers and down my wrist
Droplets disappearing into the earth
Desperately holding myself in
Feeling my fingernails claw at my insides
My soul begging to be let out
To be free.
This is the harvest of what I have sown
This is the ultimate Autumn
The forever alone

Like the drum of the earth
Her heartbeat guides him home
Reminding him of who he is
Where he's from
The strength of his blood
As he travels afar
Learning the lessons that come
Letting go of what is no longer needed
Forging his way through
Until he is back in her arms
Near to her heart
Close to her breath
His woman he calls Home

-KB 2016

Beneath the waves of consciousness
Beneath the skies filled with dreams
Under the illuminating moonlight
Within the warm embrace of the sun
This is where your heart will meet mine
The tenderness of your touch
The sweep of a petal against my skin
The depth of your gaze
The galaxies looked up to in the night
Your sweet breath against my neck
A gentle breeze on the wind
This is how you remain with me

-KB 2016

Because everything is and must be about you.
Your pain
Your beauty
Your silence
Your tears
Your ache
Your solace
And what am I?
The muse?
The nurse?
The safety net?
The lover?
The girlfriend?
The wife?
The one that got away?
None of that has anything to do with me.
You fail to see the selfishness of you.
You fail to see how you take advantage
Because it’s all hidden in pretty words
Words that paint beautiful pictures
But all they are
All they ever will be are words
I don’t want to be that person
And I don’t want a person that can be as this
So continue to live
Continue to thrive
I, at least, will not be a secret in my own life
I, at least, will thrive in integrity
I am and always will be true to who I am
That same strength that angers you now
You would’ve loved had it been in your favor.
But then, that’s all about you...again.

There is an ache in my chest that will not fill.
I can only assume it is because you are missing from me.
I feel you as you are away.
Missing your voice.
And a life I have not known.
I find myself wondering if I am selfish.
If this life is meant for me,
Or if you are a beautiful fantasy.
Have I only dreamt of this warmth as yours?
Am I so deluded in my day dreams that I cannot see reality anymore?
You are missing from me.
And the loss is tangible.
I feel it with every heartbeat.
This pain.
This hole.
This ache.
Is this the emptiness of you?
Or the emptiness of me?

-KB 2016

I wonder who I would be if I had never been told to stop singing so loudly.
Melodies and lyrics that used to come from my heart filling my chest until they fell from my mouth dancing around my tongue.
Belted out loudly because I wanted the earth to know that I could hear her songs and wanted to offer my voice so everyone else could hear too.
What if it had been understood that I was coping with the separation from my mother and loss of my father?
Would I speak more freely now?
Would my throat open instead of shut down and deny that I ever knew how to sing?
Would my hum be a roar?

Who would I be if I had been encouraged to continue to paint?
Continually inspired to find expression in color and shape.
Reminded that the mysterious blots always created some type of magnificence.
How much more free would my soul be if the color spectrum had not been drained from my childhood world?
Placed with a family that didn't believe in nature, or color, or freedom.  
Forced into black and white with not even gray.  
Would I still be dripping and swiping across a blank canvas and know how to pull colors from emptiness?
Would I be unafraid?

How much stronger would I be if I hadn't been told to be quiet when my insides were screaming that something was wrong?
Would my boundaries be stronger?
Would my voice be louder?
How much space would I be comfortable taking up if I hadn't been taught to cower?

How much more open would my heart and comfort be if motherhood had not been torn away?
If I had never been told I wasn't enough?
Or I was too young?
What if motherhood had not been taken from my arms while milk dripped from my ******* and my heart was all I was allowed to send with him?
No one asks about the birth mom...they just move on because she's a vessel for someone else's happiness.
What if I had been supported?
Would it be easier to feel close to
Or good enough for my children now?
Would I feel unafraid of being accepted by them?
Would I tear myself apart less?
Would I not worry they'd be better off with my partner if something happened to me?  Or to us?
No one ever asks about that story.
Not even when they see their own children and understand that kind of love.
They never see how fragile I was left.  
How heartbroken.
No one has ever been careful around me.

What if my strength, independence, spirit, voice, or intelligence, had been respected?
What if I had been celebrated and pushed into that growth?
What if I hadn't been held down or been too much?
What if my fire had been tended?

Who would I be if I hadn't been the only one to hold onto me?

I wanted you to know
But I wasn't allowed to say it
Years had passed
We'd both moved on
Life changed
As it does
But the constant
The thing I've never said aloud
Just kept it quietly tucked away
Locked in a little box within my heart
The one I've written about time and again
The one I hope you read about
Hope that you still have the key
It holds all of our moments
All of the beautiful things that make you
The one I just couldn't forget

His words peel off the page
The way I imagine he'd remove my clothing
Intense
Tender
Passionate
Verse that pulls me under like the current
Of an ****** on the verge

Tantalizing my extremities

As you spoke those precious words, the ocean in me calmed and came alive all at once.  
My heartbeat created a wave that shifted the pull of the moon.  
My night skies lit up and stars paled in comparison to the depth of love in your eyes.  
In only a second of time, all I knew had forever changed.  
The indifference I had surrounded myself with melted and caverns to bury my soul filled.  
The gift of you illuminated all confusion and in that moment, I was safe.

-KB 2016