Here's the thing,  and I get it, right?  
The stigma behind allowing my child to meet those
Whom I'm seeing.
But truthfully,
I've never fully understood why
There is an insistence on judgment
With how I choose to raise
My own seedling

And furthermore why invest
Time into something that
Doesn't vibe, with your mom-life
Why hide?
I want her to see, what love is
What it means to give
What it means to hurt

And mayhaps
It's not fair to expose
Her to the truths of the human experience
I haven't shown her anything
I wouldn't have wanted myself
To see from her eyes
I shelter the parts that are dear
Children should be just that
While they are, after everything is said
And I've witnessed enough for both of us
In my own time

But to show her that brand of happiness
That comes from something maybe
Her father never might be able
To access.

That takes true courage.

What is it like,
To forget a piece of you exists?  
My own I would never
Even though the other half of her
Is no longer my lover

Even when she's a woman grown
Never would I
Put my existence above her own
And maybe that's what separates
The mothers
From the seed used to sow

I'm forced by my mind
Sometimes to wonder
If you know
That my eyes glow
During conversation about passions
Like yours,  or so I'm told.

If you even cared to be
Aware of my feelings
I'd tell you
How happy I am for your
New found purpose
And the weight you carry of raising
My siblings.

But you don't.

And I suppose,
I'm forced to cope
With the pain of never knowing
Your true self

But I have found myself
And as a child,  transformed

I realize,
I don't need your love
To keep from hating the woman I've become.

They come in waves
Each one receding
And a fresh breaker each meeting
To lap against the seaboard
Phases,  individually different
Like seasons changing
They bring me reasons
To wish for steadier climates
Markedly too many cloudy days
And frosty iced beaches
Frigid and barren sand dunes
Glossy with the sheen of nothingness
Phases, always redundantly taunting
It cycles with the moon
As the tide rises
Deluge swelling to a riptide
A clumsy waltz, gravity and satellite
Fuller and more violent
With each movement
Threatens to deepen any second
The further it pulls
The farther the tendency creeps in
Shoreline expanding,  threshold capsizing
Each pulse a tender beat
I walk barefeet in the shallows
Timid to dare to wade too deep
Past the places I'm comfortable enough
With the feeling water against my exposed skin
And from here I can find stones to skip
Why would I trade leisure for treading
The sunset on the horizon
looks far more beautiful when
You can stand to see it
Phases, they help me remember I'm breathing
Because how can you bear to be alive
If you're not feeling
You're not truly living

Bitter disgust creeps over me
This seeming cloud,  dark and cold
Looms to rest upon my shoulders
An earth of unearthed restlessness
A burden the likeness of Atlas'
Weighing
                  Me
                        Down, and now?
My minds peace was only just found
Lensed memories unfocused
Once fierce defensed, now softened
A fault of mine, brought by elated carelessness
Blinded, in part, by optimism
Sunny disposition, eclipsing my affinity of guarded feelings
Other part, in layman, love
General heartfelt and honest affection
In roots reflection, mirrored image of my own
Sought to help sustain, intended nurtured growth
Found only rot, contagious decay of a soul
Then my own branch being infected
When only in care was it bowed, blossoms begin to wither
The warmth of spring they'd hardly known
Virus of untrusting insecure betrayal
Unjustly and so unfairly given
Am I not deserving of these gentle breezes?
After years of harsh and relentless frigid winter I've endured
And so, in sustain...limb thusly removed

Sleeved hearts only allow for deep grief and aching wounds.

I have never feared to love
Or to let love touch
The hidden places of my soul
I do not close
Myself off from those
Emotions that make us most human
Or hide from the fluidity
Of eyes flecked with longing  
Tenderness comes with ease
To me

And I see it now in yours

Honeyed glowing orbs
Speckled with curiosity
From underneath a shadowed brow
Come to disarm me
But I hold no weapon
With which to frighten
Or force you to turn from this
Only pens,  
And the notebooks I surround
Myself with
A writer knows
No sword can outmatch
The weight of a word
And with so many to choose from
To explain the phenomenon
Of us
I can only use one

Love

The heaviest of them all
And I feel it's potency
When you turn to glance
In my direction,
A foreign feeling
I am leveled by the honesty
Of the way your eyes
Scream only things unwritten
Unsaid
Unfettered
Windows to things we don't speak
The idea of forever
Etched into the panes
Do you see it in me?
Fixed in your gaze
Is the only home I'll ever need.

There is a swell inside my chest
Pressure steadily increasing
With each breath, I take
In your presence
Close,  so close
To the skin of insistence
Shall I?
Could I?
Take the chance to plummet

I have touched the edges,
Of forever
I have mouthed romanticisims
And sighed deep
Into the collarbones
Of those I thought could keep
My secrets, hidden
I have sunk into the flesh
Of lovers, I longed to call home
Tangled my vines around
Their bones,  and clung to the hope
Of a love that wouldn't grow old
I have shouted from rooftops,
Names that no longer cross my lips
Like fingertips, brushed across with longing
Branded myself with irons
That no longer have embers
to keep them aglow
And only my scars to remind me now,
That for a time,
They were mine.

Do not fear me, love
I have no penchant for pain
Just a strong desire
To be held longer than a fleeting moment
A poor merchant of poems
I could write you, into eternity
And if only
For a brief meeting
Our parallels have intersected
I'll carry you with me, in parchment
And memories
For this is far more than just
Children playing at intimacy