the canyons you carved
mains nues
like cracked earth
prend soin
break cycles between
ce qui est figé
surfaces and heavy skin
fixé pas coincé
now leaves and has left
seul à nouveau
reconfigures my vision
proving i never knew anything
et je saurai encore moins
me, i travel and pass past
de l'eau qui se jette sur
les bords du rocher
she reminds me of me
when i loved you

Why is it always about Jesus' Suffering and God's Sacrifice?
Where is Mary?
Where is the woman whose reward for goodness and virtue was to have her baby boy tortured and killed as a warning?
Do you think Mary the ******, Mary the Mother, Mary the human ever regretted being good enough to earn attention of her God?
Do you think she ever quietly, privately, resented her faith?
Cursed her fate to be raised on a pedestal, carved into history as beautiful, weeping, covered in gold, cradling the body of her child?
How would she feel today, to step into a church and see above the pulpit, larger than life, the glossy painted likeness of her boy, thin and bleeding, looking to the heavens to a Father who would not spare him?
Was it terrible for Mary? Did she hate her God, in the end? Or did she stand tall to the last breath, a reluctant but obedient witness, faithful despite everything?
Was as she ever torn between her faith and her heart? Her love and her fear? The choice between loss or betrayal?
It would be terrible if she was in torment, but would be terrible if she wasn't.

Walls of ocean blue welcome me
every time I open your bedroom door.
It was the color you chose amongst
all the swatches that slipped through your fingers.

There must have been fifty shades
of sea and sky you pondered before
you found the one that spoke of waves
and splashes of joy.

I roam amongst your things in a dream state
traveling from when you were a little girl
until spring brought flowers in vases
earmarked with condolences.

Broken doesn’t seem to be a bold enough word
to describe how I feel, yet I feel shards of longing
splinter my ribs where my heart lies scarred
by hours of yearning to hold you.

Oh sorrow, you are a conundrum.
It is both tears and joy… I cry from your absence
and sing because of your freedom.
I stumble and I dance getting through what I’ll never get over.

Dear Dawn, my precious daughter, I am trying to be
strong in my weakness, be a light when I’m besieged with gray.
In this room of blue I’ve splattered with growing green plants
I am your mother learning how to swim in the space where you dreamed.

he keeps pushing me.
telling me
to take a chance.
have an interview
with his ops,
who would love me,
by the way.

and since i’m leaving,
why not now,
especially,
that him and the company
are definitely my thing.

it’s my decision, he said.

i hate that he’s right.
i hate it so much.
and i hate him
for asking me
what’s the hold-up.

what a joke.

the hold-up.

it’s you.
i’m wasting my energy
thinking about this.

it’s you, holding me back.
it’s the thought of us
being at the same place,
in the same room
for longer
than ten seconds,
holding me back.

it’s my heart,
my mind at last,
every living cell
in my body
holding me back,
fighting fantasies,
thoughts
that carelessly run
through my head
as i play out what happens.
it’s my instinct of fear
holding me back.

i don’t want
near your fire again.
hand myself over
on a silver platter,
and say,
‘do whatever you can.
my very core is
in your hands’.

you should know better
than ask
what’s holding me back.
i’m fighting my feelings
with everything i have.

go, and get yourself burned
like i did,
when you have the chance.

Drunk, we walked west to the ocean,
drop soup and sake,
sloshing in our guts.

You would marry in twenty days.
I stayed close,
swallowing the words
that would’ve ruined it all.

In seven years,
I will have a son.
You will bury yours.
We will wonder - quietly -
if souls can be traded,
if grief moves
like a current
between blood that is not blood.

The tide was electric,
a woman waded in,
cupped bioluminescence
like an ember from the deep.

We stood apart from the others,
two men
bone-wet and wind-bit,
trying to scratch our names
into blue light,
signatures gone
before the next wave came.

I never told you the future.
I let the dark reclaim our feet.
You laughed,
drunk and perfect,
and I looked away
as the sea
turned the sand
back to stone.

Each day, I awaken
as someone I do not recall
yesterday’s self dissolves
like salt in rainwater,
leaving only a faint outline
I cannot name.

I watch feelings and faces
rise and vanish,
a reel of strangers
moving through me
voices shifting in pitch,
hopes changing color,
beliefs melting into questions
before they find a shape.

My heart is a hall of mirrors
where nothing stays still,
reflections sliding past
before I can greet them.
I reach inward
but my hands pass through mist
whoever I was is already gone,
whoever I am is still becoming.

There is a deep confusion,
a constant turning
emotions swirl,
names and needs blur,
each new day a new mask
that fits just for a moment
before falling away.

How can I explain the ache
of never arriving
of always searching the crowd inside
for the one true face,
yet only finding
a thousand shifting shadows
dancing out of reach?