I am not changed by you or from you,
but with you

Like the earth and moon
your pull attracts me, moves my ocean’s tides
and I hold you steady, in an orbit,
We dance, of pushing and pulling
a starlit spin that lasts our lives

I am not made by you or you by me
but nurtured and renewed

Like the wilting bud that life has already cut
closed and confined,
You are soothing water and I am allowed to open
You fill me with so many possibilities
and I bloom

I always wanted to do spoken word poetry,
but paper is too forgiving.  
It's so easy to pour onto paper
what you think,
how you feel.  
To become what they want...
expect, hope, fantasize...
to hear.  

If there's a misspelled word:
bitterness, anger, frustration, blame...
there is always the spell check.

Or if there's a typo:
misunderstanding, miscommunication,
misappropriation... miss-everything...
there is the backspace key.  

And if all else fails,
and the words are too much:
too far, too long... so long...
there's always delete.  
And start again.

Paper is too forgiving,
I've imagined how it feels:
scribbled on, removed from, blotted out.  
And then discarded once I've been read,
or not.  

I mean, how much paper is recycled
that's never even been touched...
till it's tossed into shredder to be
reshaped, remolded, reconstituted...
to become something else.  

How many poems are written
that never even get read.  
At least words spoken out loud
have a chance if screamed...
or whispered...
loud enough,
to get heard.

Yes, paper is too forgiving

You can't go back to the beginning
You can't start from the end
At no point are you the same person
You can't go home again

In every heart there's an aching
A desire to remain
But with every moment there's a changing
It will never be the same

When you leave, memories go with you
But your love may stay with them
Like a phoenix, rise from the ashes
Take flight and build again

Do you know how it feels to be yelled at
screamed at
***** slapped
all that
Hiding in a corner praying that it's over

Do you know how it feels to be
called names
shameful things
head games
things you can't bear to hear

Do you know how it is to feel
***** and unclean
terrified, scared, mean
angry enough to scream
******* to all the world and *******, to you too

Do you know what it is to feel
like the bad words stick to you
running you all through
ripping at the real you
rip and cut and **** me too

Do you know how much I just need to take a bath
wash away all the mad
rinse all the sad
scrub all the bad
be careful you don't wash away, too

I tasted you the moment we met
Our eyes meeting… the tranquil waters of the ocean
Our hands touching… strong and worn like the Earth herself
Our lips forming words and smiles… a private dance shared between us

And then we parted, nothing left but the sweetness to savor
You knew nothing, it was my own private taste, my own private moment
I was cute, and shy… always “cute” and “shy”
You were proud and beautiful… like a mountain that needs nothing more than to be, to display its glory.
What hope had I that that single taste would become a feast

But I would taste you again, your essence a vivid memory on my tongue
And so we did meet again and again, mingling and parting
Eyes, hands, lips… all practicing for some other destined occasion
And you, becoming a craving, the desired main course for a starving woman

After a time, I had lost hope of quenching my thirst of you
As your flavor seemed to get lost on my tongue,
Nothing more than a vague memory… an aftertaste
I began resigning myself to a life of fast food and leftovers

Oh, I had tasted… dined… on others
But none could compare to your flavor, water to honeyed mead
Or perhaps it was your flavor mingled with my own
That created some epicurean delight that my senses could not let go of

And just as I had reconciled my life to TV dinners and mac and cheese… there you are
Eyes, hands, lips, coming to mingle and dance once more
Letting me taste you again, and again
Floating on my tongue like sweet ambrosia

Our meeting, glances and gazes…
Our touching, hands, shoulders, backs, thighs…
Our dance, the words and smiles,
Go late into the night

And you remain, the taste becoming an appetizer… a prelude of the dinner yet to come
Then a single promise… dance… kiss
And as if we had practiced enough,
I taste you again… and drink you whole.

Words, Thoughts, scenery
nothing but random memory
passion in me
Slippery soliloquy
Sounding possibility,
chance derived, probably
I mind it like I find it
Deriving, aligning, designing…  bit by bit
Thrown together, fantasy is what I take, I make
all the words strung together like so many pearls, I break
all the rules and boundaries
Giving me power, and power frees
the mind, my mind, my body, my soul, decrees
That I do what I please,
with ease...
I tease... the words, the form and find the heart
just one part,
the start
of the whole, the body, the soul
of sound, its bound
within me I struggle to make it resound
and this is what I found
I finally see, what's deep within me
I'll be... Poetry
and I'm free

I found myself buried deep within the womb of creation
Lost, I climbed through the mud of life
Pulling myself up on the bones of the ancients
I broke through to the light, and heard the earth cry
Rise, Woman, Rise

I looked upon the face of the eternal
Reaching upward, I tried to touch the sky
So with my feet planted firmly in the past
I grew toward the future, bridging both earth and divine
And in me, the words rose once more,
Rise, Woman, Rise

After I had bridged the heavens,
After I had delved through the mud
I branched out towards the stars surrounding
Souls glittering in the lonely sky
Beckoned by a need, I reached to them
But just out of reach, they twinkled distantly
When a single answer I heard them call
Rise, Woman, Rise

And from my roots, I grew down deeper
And from my arms, I reached out high
With my fingers, stretched out longingly
Glancing over them, I swept the sky
Fingers clasped my own in their hands
Pulling me towards their brilliant light
Connected, I am tied to the universe
Woven into the web of life
And now, when I see another reaching,
I cry out the words that brought me here,
*Rise, Woman, Rise