Today
I gave away your cocktail dress
it was black and fitted
I kept it for thirty years
but I never found the shoes
they were too big to fill

She is hiding behind her projected frumpiness..
but when my young lovely takes off her glasses;

   Ah,    ****..

Those eyes are the reason men were given theirs.

Group facilitator is Christ incarnate..
                                      I am sure of it.

     "How well do you want to get, Paul"

I look over at her--
curled up on a chair pad..
hiding,  wondering
Looking down.. and then looking up at me
wondering if I'm gonna answer him;

      "Paul?  Are you there?"

I stare at her--  all alone,
biting the back of her fingers
fighting tears few in this world
would understand


There is roll-playing  in the group
using both action and Word
   to climb all over me
   and uncover me from where I hide.

He (my Jesus with an MA)
is staring at me,  inviting
I look back over at her
"I'm not leaving it, Dave"

              "Leaving what. Paul?"

"My brokenness..
its shattering of my soul"

He is staring at me, but begins to smile.
I look over at her,  and just know

  I will be with her forever

I am the offspring chosen to face our past
My grandparents could not cry and their parents could not grieve
Their gardens were empty and their stomachs were knotted
The twist so tight they sank into the ground while the walls rotted

Goodbyes were stolen, identities not built
Time spent living lives not truly felt
Generations before me, beneath me
They have chosen to lay in rest

But the burden does not remain away
Instead it sits with me
It is by my parents blinded rage or my grandma's quiet disapproval
That their uneasiness in their agnony is all of ours to feel

You see, this pain it demands to be seen
It engulfs the children, the lovers, and the sea
Embracing a storm trapping us into repeated beliefs

Legacy blinded by grief has no room to grow until we shed the layers of our mothers forgotten tears,
She was not allowed to cry but I shield her from uncertainty, the world is senseless but I sacrifice charting this land unsighted
Feeling this pain that has drowned generations before engulfs my existence


I scream into the dirt as I break us from this loop of silent agreement where survival is key
I bawl to my blood what they did to you was not moral and the lost mourns have been freed
Because I will always remember what couldn’t be seen is etched in our veins,
Our families blood is my blood that remains


My eyes may sting with ghost but I swore of an existence leaving the world less scorned,
My touch vigilant of the surfaces it reaches,
I welcome my future kin and sing him a story that there is a life worth living and it will forever be freed

So here I am,
Learning and living.

So little did I know,
Before believing.

These emotions,
We are feeling,
Have purpose,
Have meaning.

And that I,
Right now,
Am truly healing.

If there’s one thing for sure abt myself. ,
I’m going to survive  ,
I will figure it out

You will live on
Because I live on

To my childhood stuff animals,
     I think I’ll hold onto you,