~
Weddings and honeycombs.
Why do they give us the hives?
The keeper knows.

There's a buzz in the air.
It belongs to
the rudimentary happinesses:
The minor miracle of father's smile,
a morning breath of honey,
painting toy lips with
blood from mother's finger.

Deathless protagonists,
Mom and Dad,
our propolis.
They love us from afar.
They love us with what they are.

There's a buzz in the air.
There must bee!
They can't help loving
us little monsters,
who sting
and then say goodbye,
sting and say goodbye.

A linn begins to form
in the corner of their eye,
as wheat fields sway in the wind.

The innocent
and the beautiful
have no enemy, but time.
~

In the days of seafaring yore, in a candied littoral time, my parents shared a love for wingsails; propelling their craft on the surface of gentle waters.

It was here my father navigated me into existence, by taking my mother for a long enchanted boat ride.

And like a hook and eye, they so clasped and rowed into the boundless deep. The tender rhythm of their waves stirring a rivulet that would come to be called me.

Floating in this colostrum bed underneath the heart's thicket, I settled to sleep; dreaming of cradle song and breastmilk.

My unborn hands and feet routinely practiced swimming toward the open shore; until that day when a familial voice called.

And there in the dilation of a growing current, I sprang forth; thirsting for their love from my very first cry.

How do you measure the once-was?  The invisible?  The void?  

                                 The ache in my heart is not physiological,
                                   although it may feel like it sometimes is.  

I can measure the words I write,
                       the words that get stuck in my throat.  
The boxes of belongings left over.  (You can narrow down a person’s
                                                               physical life by how many trips it
                                                                ­                          takes to Goodwill.)
How many songs can I now not stand?  
How many scents are now trigger trapdoors?  

Shall I count the number of times I’ve thought of you today?  
No ******* thank you.  
                                          Measuring is for the birds.  
                                                        ­                                    The doctors and
                                                                ­                                the scientists.  

I keep reaching inside and pulling out my still beating,
                                          but rotting and decaying heart
                                        only to be told it’s perfectly fine.  
I refuse to be gaslit on my grief anymore.

We all know that life can thrive in the most inhospitable of places.
                                             Plants grow from volcanic soil.
                                             Bioluminescence crawls beneath
                                               immense pressure on the ocean floor.
                                             Microbes most likely thrive below the icy,
                                                        radioact­ive surface of Europa.
We all know that life—love—perseveres.  
                                         ­                                 It’s nothing new.

But we don’t talk about
                                            how ******* hard that actually is.  
That’s what the strengths perspective is for.  
What resilience gives name to.  

But what if I don't want to?  What if,
                                                                ­  for today,
                                                                ­                     I’d rather the **** not?  
Is that okay?                           Is that allowed?  
That today I'm the vinca vine dying on the ledge?  
Withered up and not drinking any more water.  

Today, I am every succulent that I’ve ever accidentally killed.  
Today, I am excess formaldehyde.  I am a brain floating in a bell jar,
                        undulating in an existence that is an ethical quagmire.
Today, I am in limbo.  Purgatory.  Stasis and static.  
Suspended upside down in a frozen wasteland, Dante style.  

Tomorrow, I will thaw.  
                                Rise from the soil fist first.

Oh lucky me
I have my friends
I have beginnings
I have my ends
I have control
I have my head
I have my roof
My door and bed
Oh lucky me
I have been blessed
With time to work
And time to rest
Food to eat
And wine to drink
And time to just
Sit down and think
Oh lucky me
I have the love
Of my mother & father
And those above
I have their knowledge
When I fret
Because I ask
And so I get
Oh lucky me
I have so much
That I can just
Reach out and touch
And even though
This is all mine
There is more to come
How divine

my happiness looks like this:

three staffordshire bull terriers that keep stealing all the blankets on the bed,
and a fourth back at my mother’s home who cannot contain his excitement when i visit

grey winter morning light leaking in from behind the blinds—
i hate winter and i should be asleep,
but still my happiness includes this:

the hours i lie awake,
still insomnia ridden as i was when i used to write the nights away in sorrow,
but now

i watch videos of people who like the same pretty colours and the same pretty furniture as i do,
decorating their houses and building
useful things

i put a little more spare cash into my savings each week
and squirm impatiently for our first home together

ours. mine and his.

the main picture in my montage of happiness
is the man lying next to me, sound asleep
an arm cuddled around our oldest girl,
both of them snoring and snuffling in their slumber

sounds i loathed from other people
are sounds i cherish from him.
i kiss the tip of his nose,
each cheek,
the curve of his forehead,
the point of his chin
and settle one more on soft, lax lips

my words don’t feel so beautiful
because all life’s beauty, i find in him.
i don’t have poeticism to spare for writing
when all my love letters are spoken to him
and he embodies everything beautiful
from eyes to smile to skin
down to the soul within

Where to begin?
All beginnings must meet their end.  
I’m falling in.
Too late to stop this momentum.

Fleeing the ghosts of history.
Silhouettes cloaked in black.
Can’t shake the words that raised me
from life to death and back.

Why speak at all?
Things unspoken can’t be undone.
I’m chasing this.
Who honest claims they never run?

A chance to fight the finish.
This dance may be your last.
No future can convey that
shaped only by the past.

What’s hope but fraud?
Faith in willingness to be won.
I’m looking up.
Praying for breath that’s never drawn.

I came here seeking answers,
But what I sought was gone.
No meaning found in victories,
but in the moving on.

What does it mean?
Nature, nurture, or divine force.
I’m bowing out.  
Seeking an end to this discourse.  

The loudest form of quiet,
that e’er resounds in me
is in the sound of nothing
where something used to be.

Do you ever escape your grief?
Do you every find release from sorrow?
I can’t say today, perhaps tomorrow,
but today I’m growing round my loss
- not diminishing its presence, but recognising
that my present is not my finish
and that I add to this grief:
my joy, reminiscence, and celebration
of those who are no longer at my surface,
but remain my foundation.

Do you ever escape?
I think not – I hope not.
For they are not a shackle,
but where I found my feet.

I was the anomaly.

the reason she couldn’t have
a white picket fence,
two kids with straight a’s,
a loving husband.

I was the reason
life kept going to ****.