I never liked kissing her
Until I kissed him and
His breath tasted like hers.

I 'spose it's the culmination
Of decay, plaque, cigarettes
And a mouth that's gone
Without brushing since
Who even knows when.

Such a joy to learn to love
The ugly after it reveals you
Too are ugly, ****** breath
Tasted just like fermented
Roses. Lips folding over another
My tongue begrudgingly knotted
'Til realising this was the moment
I lived, the kiss we both initiated

But ******* I didn't want to miss her
On that particular day.

Ofcourse I never mentioned anything
To either of them.

History is inherently
full of self-depreciation
studiously staging its ugliness.

It masks the truth of its beauty:

The painful present
birthing breath to the future.

© Qwey.ku 2023

It's ok to sometimes fall out of balance.
Out of flow like a leaf that gets stuck somewhere between branches or stones.
A minute ago this leaf was flying graciously like a butterfly but it lost its balance and got stuck. Squeezed between some objects.
Now it has to stop worrying. To look around and to breath. "Where am I?" it says. "A minute ago I was flying carelessly like a beautiful butterfly 🦋 and now...?" it thinks.
"It's ok to lose your balance sometimes" it hears an unfamiliar voice. "It happens so that you can stop and look around for a moment. It happens so that you can appreciate what is here now. Breath, relax. Soon enough you will fly again."

🙏

Or maybe... the balance gets restored when I lose my fast pace for a minute?

This is my recovery
I’m not where I want to be
I can’t shake these memories
Of the person I used to be
The scars fade but
They’re the scars that made me
The scars that saved me
Now I’m a little closer to whole
Filling in the holes that I wore through this soul of mine
I’ve been run ragged carrying around all this baggage
It gets too heavy after a while and it’s time to stop and steady myself
Why don’t you just lay it down?
This road keeps going up ahead
There are more ways to move on and one day you will be found
No sense in stopping now
There’s life up ahead
Living one day at a time
I keep filing through the pain in my head
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace
One day this life will stop and the you you knew will cease to exist
There’ll be nothing left but what you did with all the pain
Take a breath
Take a step
Let someone know
Life will ebb and flow
But we’re better off with you
We’re better off because you kept going
This is my recovery
But it’s not just mine

I don’t think I could tell you of ease
But I see you across from this sea in between
Shifting in your seat, nursing a dull ache
I know that feeling all too well
But I don’t want to tell you about it
In case I may come across insensitive
Because I’m trying not to shift this center of gravity
We both share in desperation
And tip us over the edge
We didn’t dare to wonder about
But I never learned to swim
And this sea in between
is filling up my lungs
When did it get so hard to breathe?
I call after you, under my shallow breath
I see you for everything  
Hoping you see me too
But this heavy air we drink
Settles in your shadow and mine
It spells out gracefully
That the spaces between us
Are built out of love
And so, we go on
Paving distances
For these descending clouds

No fast traffic here
no high steel and concrete
in the streets, but
walkable space

The sun draws attention
away from us, towards the light
on the black facades on the harbour
the white cornices and red tiles:

the picture for the photos
of the tanned tourists
on the terrace of the tanhouse
who walk into our gardens

as if we live here
in an open-air museum
and should praise
their silly insolence

as a decent interest
But we can live with it
The visitors walk around
in a parallel reality

and we have real neighbours
a wide sky, the wide water
and the green island
We can breathe here

as the wood breathes
in the seasons
as the wind breathes
in the grass

Somehow
Stuck preaching from a throne of steel and
Spokes and wheels
Bound to machinery and cogs and breathwork apparatuses to assist in feeling chemicals fill your lungs You
showed me how to Walk
silent and
Listen
To the Woods
Trees
Two- and four-legged beasts of earth and Sky and
I
am made aware
In context of discrepancy and disconnect connect ed
How painfully
Truthfully and all-encompassing in harsh unforgiving reality
I
am
Dirt, and, soil, and peace, and, turmoil

Someone please tell me,  that

..The true Art of Love  is more
than the self-centered,  'incestuous'
  form of  love,  shown
within what the Modern world
refers to as "Romantic love"..
aw ****.. please tell me it is more

    Romantic love says this--
"You are 'of value' to me because I love you"
"You are 'of value' to me because you are in my life"
"You are 'of value' to me because you are  mine"

And after the 'bliss-filled'  romantic love
     ***** the bed..
the only value that remains is through the residual,
soon to be diluted and washed out by displacement--

..Either that of a new self-centered based  'filling'
or that of the re-placement of "value-image"  
with that, brought about through the all-too-ready
  and internally-available Gaslighting process

So please, please explain it to me just how  wonderfully
"romantic' love can truly ever aid in the healing process..
     someone.. please.


     .      .      .      .      .      .      .    

Alone  she sits in her room,  waiting.
The atoms  of the air,  
carry  both sides  of the story--

  The coldness  and the warmth
  the closeness, and the distance

  ..the empty-black
  followed by the Sky-filled Blue

  Someone please tell me,  just who
  helped this little-one  to see
     that the way  out..
     is the way,  through?

Protected to the point  of nearly dying
    Insulation is isolation to the bone
     (she is crying, crying,  crying)

On a Prayer mat,  facing East;
a grounded soul  is flying

    (but flying  so very all alone)

There is a Chaste,  and a Purity
  Borne separated
from the Un-doings  of man..
    Void of all walls,  
   there is a susceptibility

Yet also  a wide-Opening
    to the pressings  of the Ache

There has been a waiting
to the point of near Death
A look in Patient eyes
    (One that separates me  
       from my breath)

Not all are so protected
from the Fallen  love of man
..Not all  have almost died
so all alone  in their room; 

  protected

From that empty kind  of love
leading to an empty, empty  Death