When the cold seeps through your skin,
thinking how many times you've walked here alone
when you might have been lying in the arms of lovers,
warm and comforting,
don't sit there shivering.
You weren't meant for those chains.
  
You were meant to rise on cool mornings
and swim in deep, clear ponds,
to walk along mountains
and stand at the edges of cliffs,
to gaze at stars --
drawing strength from their fiery motion.

The nights are long but the days are longer
Only in her sleep does she exhale
The rest of the world loosening its grip

She thinks of false promises and shallow hopes
Things all too familiar by now
And swears to do better for her child

The baby on her back now a young woman too
Still her precious light and hope
"My only sunshine" in the dark

She feels her bones and flesh aching from the race
Her heart beats stronger than rising tides
An indomitable force pushing at an irrational object

And so she wakes, smiles at the sky
Fixing sunny side ups for her kin
To get by in spite of everything

is sometimes the bravest act of all

Covering ourselves in night cream, we fight our wrinkles, and buy anything that says anti-aging.
We want our skin to stay frozen.
Frozen in a time when we didn't even appreciate the glow of young skin.
Spent our entire youth hating what we saw in the mirror and doing everything we could to keep it covered.
Under thick masks and dark outlines we tried new products, techniques, designs,
Searching for one that made us feel pretty.
We let - no - we pay doctors to stick long needles into our soft features and change them with chemicals making us less human and more plastic
and that's just our face
our bodies? we do so much worse
Starving ourselves till our heart shrinks in the only thing running through our brains is you are fat, you are fat, you are fat, and who is to blame us when everything we see is telling us to believe that
“I run so I can eat” “I work out because I love food”
These words are printed on shirts that we wear when we should feel powerful but instead send the messages that you don't deserve to eat unless you earn it
Burning every last calorie until we are empty again
We work so ******* fixing our bodies, but maybe that's not what's broken maybe the repair work is needed in our heads and in our hearts tweaking until we can find a connection of love between our bodies and our minds.
The same genuine love you have for your mom, or your dog, or your daughter
Unconditional, Everlasting,
When will we learn to love ourselves?

I need a freedom from cynicism
from male chauvinism
embracing a softer masculine
an absence of sexism
and an embrace of a different manly-ism
one seen through a more unmanly prism
a less than bearing the whole weight of the family
and more like living as a 'we' community
not necessarily a man that's handy
but one who is able to more gently
lead by an example that's differently
fully
compassionately,
unmanfully
me.

when already in his mind
he'd dusted himself off like a rooster
run down the hotel stairs
gotten on the train
to quickly
escape from her
to where the black pepper grows

she, snuggling up to
him with both eyes firmly closed
had already built with them
a house
smelling of dinner
and fresh children
to which he'd just come running
up the stairs

(in reality
he and she had slept
together for the first time
and lying
keep silent about this precisely
in two foreign
mutually unknown
languages)

Cross your arms
Hold your breath
After a while,
All will be right.
Close your eyes
Then open again-
Time is renewed.
You'll make it though the night.

Deep inhale,
Sharp exhale.
Keep the rhythm.
They won't know.
Just say hi, and move on past.
This is the day.
Keep carrying though.
You'll keep living because
Today is not your last.

You pass as cis.
You've made it, dear.
You're important.
You matter to me.
I need you here.
You can do this.
Don't bother what they say.
Just let it be.

The palms sit tall
stand long
speak softly
sing clearly
search deep and wide
sway in all winds
but never complain
never seek shelter.
They are there to be found
and to shade her
and all who gather to hear her wisdom
and to taste the colour of it.

Confide in me she whispers,
Peeling away each layer that traps his essence,
Share your devious truths that ache to surface,
Confide in me,
Trusting her gestures he dismantles his barriers,
Flooding her refuge with stories untold,
He confides in her solitude.