I pressed my ear against the chest of the world
And felt it's life today
The slow, drowsy beginning of a late sunrise
Creeping seeping over dewy hills
A patient inhale
The tight suspension in the air as the sky grew black and grey
The explosive exhale as the winds blew thick and heavy and sheets of rain whipped the trees
Then the peace after
Between breaths the exhausted calm
The air was spent
The emotions felt
And the sun began to set
Like tired eyes closing
The layer clouds adorned it's decent
In radiant and floating colors
I felt the breath of the world today

so willing to spill
their truths
their unreciprocated stories soar
echoing aimless into the
empty air

You are everything I crave  
But you won't even meet my gaze
Your eyes are filled blue with fear
I see it glisten in the corners of your eyes when you don't think I see you
You're so afraid of letting yourself be seen
You recede into your blue nature
And I'm desperate to pry you away
from your safety net of seclusion
But I'm frightened that you'd crumble into dust without such security
So That will be the way that we remain
Me, in velvet love with the idea of you
And you, too consumed in fear
to cure my disillusion.

Dust like stars in the galaxy of this singular space
swirl and dance in the streak of window filtered light
this soupy universe swims with grace
and with effortless poise, reaches across vastness to
bring me into the womb of immediacy
where the red velvet moment is called home
like a mother calling the child in from neighborhood play
when the sun dips down beneath the cottonwood tree.
Ah, the cottonwood tree,
whose tufts would swirl and dance through wind
like summer snow
like a mothers knowing arms welcoming home
the grassy-kneed, mosquito-bit, bright-eyed child

Relentless pounding
Ceaseless pressure
Crest deep heave shove
Collapse spread recede
Repeat
Gather grow peak collapse spread recede repeat
Constant irregular weighty dive
Tumble harshly continue fall

There are ways to tread the earth that are kind
and gentle.
Find them.

Have you ever tried to carry the weight of the dead?
Have you tried to lift the weight of
The mangled heaps of smothered souls that
In life held hopes and careful joys
And in quietus are absent but yet linger still
Living we number billions,
But the dead multiply in our yesterdays
The only remnants of the complex, or simple,
Lives now lost and left
How much of our earth composed of marrow and body  
Now heavier with no soul to uplift and spring forth
Stagnant weight

How many of our ancestors lie in rigid frames
Still, still in the chamber of dark breathless space
That keeps their bones, their decayed flesh
From bringing forth life again
How many trees have sought that nutrient rich cave
But found only metal and hard polished wood
To deny their gentle ask
  
Must it be this heavy?

We spin through magnetic nights
Falling in love with each others
Laughs and quirks
As we sail down streets
On wheels of joy
And bounce grey pebbles
Off copper train tracks
And feel cold wind play with out hair
As the train shoots past our deeply alive eyes
Spinning through magnetic nights

that strong trunk that so supports the sweeping
twine of festive arms that extend and sway and lace
a pattern of perpetual growth and firm embrace
even and especially in its strength, its firm resolve,
it lets down great drapery of sweet lament
to sway in the whispering air of times passed and endured,
of pains harbored and tended and stored deep in the roots
of the ever weeping tree

What then, is a walk?
is it many muscles pulling bone
is it neurons firing without thought
is it intention,
(or is it not)
is it simply a means to destination
is it repetition till a pattern wrought
is it important,
(or is it not)

if a walk is only menial, offering no solace or
warmth or soft flutterings of aliveness,
if a walk is purely liminal, only a meager bridge
between destinations of questionable importance,
if a walk does not hold the destination wrapped
in each step and especially between-step,
then may I never walk again.

"when my body was mine"
a line read recently

did i let my body slip out of my own skin
before i noticed
was i so oblivious as it dripped between their fingers
so far from my skin

when i was told i was old enough to need to shave,
my hair wasn't mine anymore.
when my rough and wild behavior
was no longer considered ladylike enough,
and i had to tame my wild skin
to sit and dance in proper ways,
my posture wasn't mine anymore.
when my toes were deemed to callous for society
my innocent beautiful little toes
were strapped into shoes
and forgot their freedom for a time,
my feet were no longer mine.
when they called out at my body
when it possessively dripped between their fingers
i realized that i had let my body belong to other people

and so i let my hair grow thick
everywhere
and i carry myself with the joy i feel
and i sit and dance from the inside out
trying to forget how much i may stand out
vulnerability is strength
vulnerability is strength
i tell myself
as i dance barefoot with hairy underarms
in out-of-style clothes and an unpainted face
come dance, please come dance,
so we may taste the flavor of life together

the loneliness of a pair of eyes
deep and serene as a vast field of wildflowers
nestled between great mountains

they see your beauty and feel your allure
your bight colors make them feel alive
your novelty makes them feel worthy

the lonely people come and pick of your abundance
they take you home and display your essence in a vase
a memory of vitality

until the flowers choke and fade away from their Source
so the lonely people return
day after day they pick a small bouquet

because the field is endless
so it seems
what’s a few flowers to a whole field?

they picked the field to scraps of color barely vibrant
the field has grown thistles and thorns around its edge
with a riddle guarding a single entrance

“What are You that I Am?“
(to know you must
become the field)

You put words in my mouth
In a way I can't spit out
Without the shame and bitterness
Coating my worn down throat

So I bite my swollen tongue
And I grit my aching teeth

In an effort to stifle
What I yearn to say, to yell
That you don't know me now
And you don't deserve to