How often is it that I hear you calling
yourself a good-for-nothing, useless,
unwanted, ugly, and a nuisance?
Don’t be a ****.
Be a vetiver.
Grow stems that are tall and leaves
that are thin with lovely
brown-purple flowers adorning them.
Be versatile, stabilize the ground
around you, and with your rigid stems keep
those crawlers out.
Provide for the animals and protect the fields
against those that are weeds.
Let your oils heal and renew, replenish.
Be strong and durable, yet flexible like the rope
made from vetiver.
Be a vetiver, child for if you are a ****,
you will be culled and thrown out, but
those that have grown themselves a place
within the world will thrive.

Like the veiled midnight moon,
shrouded in the clouds, I,
covered in your gossamer sheets,
still shine brighter night.
When it is only us three,
I feel most at ease, most at home.
In your arms, beneath
the gentle gaze of the moon.

Darling dreamer,
close your eyes and sleep.
See the rain and the streets and the
silver buildings that jut
like silent watching giants into
the clouds.
See the coffee shops and the window seats
and the libraries and the guardian moon.
See the glittering city lights in the
evening and the dew-slicked streets in the
morning.
See the black and the silver.
See us.

Precious metals lifted up
from their watery graves
in the depths below.
Scrawled on their
backsides, 71026010.
Stacked, stored, arranged
in Venice.
The shipwrecked collection tells
a story of a slave who escaped
with eclectic artifacts, only
to be buried with
them beneath the sea.
It was all invented, orchestrated,
a fraud.

Unbelievable.

We invent excuses, complications for love
and romance, but the simplest truth is,
even though it is so, when you know, you know.
So many days are spent in the act of weaving webs and
tossing ourselves from one muse to another,
from one obsession to another from one infatuation
to another and getting stuck.
This just comes with it.
But the most exquisite truth of all is that when you
stumble upon someone who steals softly the breath from your lungs
by their existence alone, someone who takes you to another universe,
another eternity all its own, where you can do no more than sit
doe-eyed and serene, pouring over their every perfection and
imperfection, all the same, all in love,
you never return from it.
You have no choice.

Love doesn’t come easy
It is a dogfight through and through

But once you find it,
you will remain changed always.

I’ve collected many, many
trinkets over years and
decades and I’m probably
dating myself by saying,

I’ve got more than Ariel
and more than my mom,
more than father too,
but you know whose
collection takes the cake?

Grandma Betty’s.
Why?
Because not only is it a
massive hodge podge of
things she’s loved, and things
she loves, but it’s also a
collection of things
that remind her of those
she loves and those
that love her.

So yes, I have trinkets.
Gadgets and gizmos, galore.
But mine is nothing compared
to her collection of things I adore.