i hail from heat, heat
in the heart and in the home, in the head and in the heel of the
sword that swings for both justice and action.
i inherit this love, this life and these virtues like heirlooms.
i inherit this boldness from you
i inherit the air of a highborn lady, while not without the humility of a low born daughter from you
i inherit gentle hands of craft into fists of rage and fire that melt away sorrows from you
i rise and fall, for from you
i breathe.
unspoken it was passed down, and yet it stirs and whispers to me in my bones of
ancient thought and force,
passed down from kin to kin, from one blood to another of
temperance and will
that flow like tradition—
a book written on age-old sandstone pressed eons below the earth,
text mapped in bloodlines over a body, not alone. never fading.
you bid me to rise from dust and ashes into the woman of your forging,
and so with a kiss between my brow for
farewell and fortune
i may live with your light tucked into my heart,
because my inheritance lives within me.

Neither Gentile nor Jew
neither captive nor free,
neither female nor male,
you're all Abram's seed,

all one in Christ Jesus
to him you belong,
all promised heirs
equal parts of the song,

singing out your own "Abba,"
getting childishly closer,
as his Spirit within you
cries out louder,
"Father".

Know that,
in afterlife,
it is not a crime to be born
out of time,
waiting for
the end of an era
that never came—
soon enough for you.  

Are you seeing the immortal roots of the trees
you’ve planted springs ago,
in the garden that has outlived you?
Because I hear you in
the leaves’ rustling whispers:

All life returns to the ground,
but this is how you inherit the earth.

Tempestuous pestilence of manic depressive tendencies invested in a message cocked and loaded as a centerpiece

           Unfold it, if you will,

   The beast lives in these pages
  While the people all went home to their own separate cages
Locks become phones that never ring
  No bars but still encasing, these cells are in our genes
   Its a prison of DNA strands unlocked with a paper key*
    Held firm by *words written within the world awaits to see

I wonder who silenced you.

Who placed your soul in one hand and your voice in the other
and asked you to applaud. I wonder who made you feel small.
As if not yet conceived, your expression made redundant before
it had the chance to reach your lips- those barbed wire worms,  
a sealed suicide note, a tired mother’s eyes in the morning.
“Children should be seen and not heard”. Was it your father?
Did his gaze lock you in the corner and make you screech like the
boiled kettle on the hob? Did the water spill from your spout and
burn, was this the moment you learnt how to un-love yourself?  
To force a grin that buried tears when he said, “C’mon, give me
a smile”. To wrap your arms around his neck and envision  
tightening them until he lays limp in yours. I wonder if later, you
prayed for forgiveness for wanting to do so.  

I wonder who silenced you. And I can feel the shame on my skin
when I imagine it to be him. One who died in his chair and sat slumped
in saturation for days before they found him. One whose name may not be  
soaked in blame, one whose face, I have forgotten.  

I don’t remember Grandad. I wonder if you look like him.

Almond eyes,
Brown eyes,
Ringed in the colors of the sea,
Happy, carefree.

Almond eyes,
Brown eyes,
Wrinkled and crinkled,
Tired and weary.

Almond eyes,
Brown eyes,
Looking out of a sepia toned photograph,
Faded and dusty.

Almond eyes,
Brown eyes,
Three women,
Three lives,
Kindred spirits,
Through the sands of time,
Looked out to the sea.

My father’s watch,
I notice stopped.
His movement ceased
to turn the cogs,
that spin the gears,
which move the dials,
that give the promise
of a while.
 
The watch now mine,
but still it’s stopped.
It sits inside a precious box.
The frozen hands,
my father still,
his whispered breath,
his secrets kept.
Regret, regret.
 
One day ready
to wear that watch,
I’ll move the gears,
start time again,
in good knowing
the hour I’m stood
will come to be,
eventually.