There are so many times I want to be brave
When I know my life is my own to save,
Yet my courage fails me again and again
I can't quite seem to deal with my pain
I wonder if it's because I was made wrong,
That I have to be weak, while others are strong,
Maybe I've been given worth that I don't deserve
It's why it's so easy to lose my nerve
Is there a way I could just believe
That it'll be okay, that I won't be deceived,
That my actions will determine my future,
That I can go against my brittle nature,
That there'll be strength in myself I can find,
To move ahead, to leave the past behind?

There's no easy
Way of asking
I already know
What he's going
To say but
Maybe he just
Needs to say it
So I ask
Him anyway
"Are you scared?"

Only smiles
And a patience
I've never seen
In the face  
Of someone
Who knows
That they
Are dying

It happens at once
and sometimes in stages.

In days and months
and sometimes in ages.

In distant lands
and the strangest of places

Touches your hand
then leaves with no traces.

Fortune is but
a foul mistress

that favors the brave
and deserts the shitless.

He tilted his head “Okey doke, it’s almost time to go
– I’ve got a yoga teacher next, down in the Grove.
For you, it’s time to write the silence for a while,
to write the unsaid, to shelve meek and mild.

“Write the inner anger, the notes of distress.
Write what it was that you wished you had said.
Write all the things you’ve been meaning to say.
Write all the feelings you’d wished you’d conveyed.

“Write what it was you had meant to do,
what you intended that so frightened you.
What was it that you’ve let fall in between
your long dead silence and your unsaid scream?

“See if your volume will go above minimum
without it scaring you and leaving you frozen.
Go shape the words and say them out loud
find what it’s like to make fiercer sounds.

“Cos I’ve been so bored, sitting here listening
to nothing but you sat saying your nothing.
Go write your silence and come back around.
And let’s see if you’ve something worth writing about.”

She was sewn from a stream
of significant disasters,
but she has taken charge of the tide.
Directing the course of the storm,
she became one with the fiercest gyre.
The lightning, the moment
through the raging sea,
the season of her storm is done.
The smell of the after-rain,
the calmness of the shores mended the remnants.
A rainbow of colors and vibrance, the abundance of black clouds is gone.
The beautiful sky,  
a magical release
from these painful bonds.
Courage and kindness,
gratitude and strength,
the real treasures are now found.

i’d really love to thank her
for being so, so strong.
for not taking our life
when everything was wrong.
i don’t know how she did it,
the flashbacks paralyze me still.
must have been nothing
less than strength of will.
even sometimes now
i’d really like to back out
but i hear that small girl screaming,
“we can’t just give up now!”

A poor wingless bee in dire torment
Sat brooding beneath the lemon bower:
"How shall I ever know the rose's scent,
And sample the sweet nectar of her flower?"

"And what value do you place on these?"
Asked a wise old bee perched on a stone;
Suddenly there appeared a swarm of bees,
Eager to hear the wisdom of the drone

Cried the wingless bee: "My days are drear,
Longing for the rose's scented dew;
Without wings how can I hope to draw near?
How I thirst for her . . . if only she knew!"

"Climb, my lad," advised the wise old bee.
"Brave the stinging thorns and twisted vine.
Only through courage and tenacity
Will you savor the bliss of her sweet wine"

O, what angst now stirred within the bee
As he scaled that stem toward the sublime!
But what delicious hospitality
Awaited him . . . because he dared to climb!