Click clack
Heels down long pavements
Mean business.
A bystander excuses himself
From my way.
Take a seat and
Squickety squeak
Leather up legs
Crossing on
Leather up legs.
I'm endlessly amused
Biting my lip,
Silently cajoling,
"Oh, is this your thing?"

I have a hard time with differentiation
Between getting coffee
  And let's demolish 3 bottles of wine!
Between getting inspired
  And let's spend holidays seeing the country in a van!
Between getting butterflies
  And let's kiss on the face right now!

Surely,
There must be spectrums I can bisect
  Splitting
   Platonic Love from Romantic
   Sensory from Sensual
   And Casual from Committed
But they are not immediately apparent to me.

Regardless of type
All ships must be properly cared for,
So I will patch the holes
Man the sails,
And try not to rock the boats
Too terribly hard.

Above all
I thank the stars
For the gift of wayfinding.

Above it all
I gaze higher still
Or to the sunlit valleys below
To find my way.

The gift of terrifying awe as Orion's belt peers through the trees, bringing South.
The gift of sure confidence as I point the Dippers out to others, bringing North.
The gift of guesswork as we discover behind which peak the sun will rise, bringing East.
The gift of inevitable hush that descends along with her, bringing West.

The gift of heavy elements
Composing all
And my body
And these eyes
That were also made for
Reading maps,
Reading signs,
Reading animal sigils.

Above all
I thank the stars
For teaching me
To be less blind
And to find My Self
In the world.

We want to tear in -
To taste all the juices
Knowing that now,
All too soon, we could lose this.
We want to drink
All the things in this world
And never
Stop to breathe.
For the wheel
Takes and it gives
Some things will die
While others still live
When the day
Gives way to new day
We're afraid what we love
Might all fall away.
Still, the world demands
That we must let go
And let the deep rivers
In motion all flow
Dropping our leaves
Going back to our roots
Re-evaluating
What we know to be true.
Stop to breathe.
Before the next bite,
Stop to breathe.

We don't have to walk far
Under the cover of canopy
To find exposure.
Once outside the city,
Outside the usual framework,
Outside the boundaries of polite necessity,
We can truly breathe.
On the trail
I bathe in dust
And my hands converse with trees
When asking for support.
Nursing logs remind us
Where we stand
In an ancient cycle,
And we can confess anything.
Stripped down to our bare humanity.
It's the intimacy
I used to chase in pillow-talk,
But without the dance.
The trail is always a soul's journey,
Whether solo or shared.

I have learned how not
To deal with fury -
From my mother,
My father,
And so on,
And so forth.
I have learned what inside
I don't want to be.
Left untamped
I would be fire.
Left unexamined,
I would own my rage.
Instead, I turn it over -
Laugh-crying at some,
Numbing at others,
Until I've far surpassed fury
And settled in even rockier
Despair.
I shake at injustices too great
And I heave my sobs
Into a furious ocean
Of everyone else's.
Better to quietly, privately drown
Than actually burn it all down
As would my mother,
My father,
And so on,
And so forth.

Head turns
Eyes gleam
Brows raise
Lips press
Mouth curls
Head shakes
Eyes roll
Meeting yours
With a mischievous grin
And a glance too long
That seeks to meet,
No, submerge itself in,
And possibly dive the depths of
Yours.
My perpetual smirk,
My curious simper,
My amused beaming,
Must all seem customary now,
But in truth,
the eyes I give you
Are seen by very few.