No.
Not ornamental,
more fundamental.
Not sentimental,
but rudimental.
And when I wear it
it's very much an intentional
statement of who I am,
how I live
and who I worship.
So, no,
not simply pretty,
but pretty much essential.

I drank in the portrait
of the lady on fire
wondering how
the master kept his eyes focused
and his heart unmoved
as he captured the moving anguish of her beauty.

My two ears are red
my ten toes are blue
at this time of year
warm days are few

Whoever you're with
this valentine's day
keep your heart warm
and keep flu at bay

Blinkered and blindfolded
and hooded for good measure
- I run.
And when I run out of road,
that's when I fly.
That's when I stop looking around blind and instead see that my loss of footholds, my lack of reference points and my failure to orientated myself to others frees me from restraint and I acquaint myself with possibilities that I had not allowed myself to paint even with numbers to guide me and instead I had paid too much attention to the mumbles that derided my attempts at something beyond my safe comfort, grounded in the fear of the ****** of others' distaste for what I deep down desired for myself. And so with this loss of the constraint of others' eyes, I fly, blinked and blindfolded and hooded for good measure I no longer bother to check my mirror and instead I revel in this fresh freedom by which I can navigate the skys.

Blinkered and blindfolded
and hooded for good measure
- I run.
And when I run out of road,
that's when I fly.

I'm now made up of what remains
now that you're gone.

And now I'm alone I see,
I know that it's enough.

You were not all that I am after all.

I write for the unreliable reader, the one who reads what they want, whether they want and how they want
- not reliably reading though my eyes and carefully abiding with my well placed breaks in line, my enjambments, separation of themes into stanzas or even a subtle semicolon.

I write for you and entrust to you
my heartache, my headaches
my angst, my joy
my mess ups, my bust ups
my skewed views, my hard pews
my shouts, my sullen frowns
my walks, my sleep
my songs, my guffaws
my control, my dance
my destruction, my elevation
my blame, my late claims
my relish, my shame
my togetherness, my brokenness
my sleep-kicks, my daybreak
my jealousy, my generosity
my rewinds, my reruns
my hospital runs, my mother's hands
my triggers, my pretence
my pride, my bullies
my children, my memories
my past, my now
my decisions, my abdications
my loss, my child
my teen, my adult
my space, my confinement
my health, my ailment
my green, my red
my therapy, my surgery
my war, my peace
my time, my eternity
my kindness, my hate
my tea, my cider
my queuing, my waiting
my coming, my leaving
my life, my death
my ever after
- these are yours.
Just turn the page