I love you
But, for now, I need to not love you,
Until you wake,
Until you learn,
Until you finally and honestly realise
Who it is I am loving.
This is no merging of memories
That I have shaped into you.
This is you -
In your beauty,
In your cruelty,
Just as we are all beautiful and cruel.
And I could love all those things
Over and again.
But only when, one lonely midnight hour,
You lurch and scream with the pain you put in my heart.
When, one silent moment,
You weep at your own reflection.
You are not, never were,
The key to my worth, my growth
But neither am I yours.
Yet I was, always was,
Your truthful mirror.
Now you must be your own in my absence.
Until the fires smoke on the mountains,
Until the river runs cool on our skin,
Until you speak of your dark, your light,
Your purest blue
Your truest green.

Until then...

Whisper wings glide above
So close
That I feel
The displaced air
And hear
Was that a name
Or a song
I look east
But no sun rises
The ground trembles and I look down
Where the shattered shards
Of my distant past
Lay reforming at my feet

Somehow you have become
The sort of dream
That leaves me
With fingernail marks in my palms
Wondering what is and what isn't.

My mind turns you
From lover to stranger
And back again.
Over and over.

Cocooned it thrives
Dormant but alive
And pulsing so gently
With a tone barely heard
It grows yet stronger
Within the quiet space
That flows between
the blue and the green

There is a salty coldness
On this love that cannot float.
And when we most need
Sweetness and warmth
To tread water.

I'm with you right now
...next to you....
inside you
lighting up any of those dark corners.

I hope you are sleeping.
I am thrilled by your love
I feel it inside me
My body and soul resonate with it.
My love for you is an ocean

I wasn't expecting,
This evening,
To want your presence
And need your warmth
As much as I do.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want you
To encompass me
With complete protection,
Endless protection,
Unwavering protection.
I do and do not want you
To lash out at all who have hurt,
Will hurt.
I want to know that,
Were I standing next to you
With tears running down my cheeks,
That you would hold me still,
Peer deeply into my eyes,
And ask what is wrong.
Draw me into you
If I had no answer.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want you
To cry when I cry.
And I wonder
If there has ever been a time
Where you have wept
Until you felt
You might never stop.
And if not,
How you have lived so long
Without feeling so deeply,
So desperate,
So frightened,
So happy,
So relieved.
Tonight
I shamefully realise
That I want to be
Both strong enough to hold you
And weak enough to be held
Well enough for you to love me,
Sick enough to hear that love
Over and again,
Over and again.
I want you to be
One step ahead,
Tapping into what is coming,
What might hurt,
What might scar,
What might send me reeling
And hurtling backwards.
Tonight I realise
You are here and not here,
How I miss the nights
We will not spend together.
Yet how precious
How sacred
How gentle
Those nights would have had to be,
And anything less
Might have hurt or scarred
Reeling, hurtling.
I trust it would have been nothing less.
And then do not trust.
You fluctuate like a sheet on a line,
Back and forth in the wind.
And though I know why,
I want to take you down
And wrap you tightly around me,
Then lay you upon the bed
And curl into you.
And I'd say,
Hello. I am here.
Life is here.
All worlds are here.
All words are here.
Breath is here.
Reason is here.
Tears and depth,
Life and death,
Hunger and thirst
Light and dark,
Love and love and love -
All here.
Until you broke and wept
And I mended and laughed
Until together we met -
With release
And relief.
Both healed
And ready to grow
A single stem.

I don't miss you
I am with you
A kiss
Would be
Amazing
Quietly seeping into you
Infusing
Believing
Rejoicing

And so it was that
her song was lost about the ether,
with no where to call home.

Your eyes
Whispered sighs
The sun and the moon
In the same sky

Contact
Love
My eyes
You
Touch
Holding
Breath.

Floating
Feeling love
In a string
That can't be severed
And will never be released