I turn to you
     lips red with love
                      such a violent pleasure,
it drips from me in streams.
Reaching for you
I am undone
                  collapse
a wave
abandoning
rage on the shore,
leaves bowing
                                          “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”
I was unprepared,
no one told me it would be so hard to be human.
I did not know
that remaining soft
was a daily choice,
kindness an hourly one,
empathy and honesty
needing to be chosen
again
again
again
again
again
every moment...
If only
I had stayed
curled up
               /with no body/
in that deep place
where we
are all formless.
But I
wanted sunlight
I wanted
flowers
and the soft songs of bees
I wanted
arms,
a wet tongue,
I wanted
knees,
and toenails,
and freckles,
and knuckles,
and eyelashes
wanted
all of this strange, cumbersome beauty.
If I had been told
this was the price;
so much heart it beats to get out of you,
the unrelenting need to be loved,
so many words that my tongue grows swollen,
raw skin and blood in my palms,
skinned knees,
lost teeth,
the confusion of something I think is love,
the inability to make the people you care about stay,
learning to say goodbye,
learning to let the same person go
a thousand times over
because their is always
one more thing
you wanted to say to them
If only I had been told all of this first,
I would have forgone this human form
chosen something more fleeting,
perhaps a pollinator;
Holly Blue,
a few beautiful months
of sunshine
and flowers
and summer breezes,
feet small enough to rest on the softness of petals
to taste the sweet secrets of spring’s blooms
before the sky gathers me back into her arms.
But I did not know,
jumped in blind and laughing
waiting for miracles
dreaming of bird’s songs
and warm arms
to wrap around other bodies.
                                                                Yes
                                                                   Yes
                                                                     Yes
                                                    I have seen miracles!
                                               I have heard the birds!
                                 Been warmed by so many other bodies
                   I have been given, so much more than I could ever have imagined.
                                                         But at what cost?
                                                             Look at me!
                                                                                                  lips
                                           teeth
                                                                              hands
                                                          chest
                                                          all stained red;
                 the metallic taste of love
heavy in the air
              too much
                       too much
                                      too much
                                                             it pours out of me.
                          We were not taught what to do with this.
I turn to you,
              overwhelmed with love
and you cry out
             perhaps in fear
                                          perhaps in joy
                            and in that moment
             I question
                                                     why why why
                everything.
I pray
           to be made simple again,
                                       return me,
                                                       to that deep place
                           where all things rest
                                      wait formless,
                                                  till they are called back into the light
                                  I promise;
                                                         next time
                                                I grow hungry for the sun,
                                                                I will choose a creature
                                             who does less harm.