When the calm in my eyes met the fire in yours, I mistook your heat for warmth.
You were an artist and arsonist, creating something beautiful just to destroy it.
The cycle was violent, reminiscent of manipulated shades of red on canvas.
Your words were sharp, softening my tone until I fell into quiet submission.
Your need for control couldn't be satiated, I failed to realize that I handed you the knife.
Blood pooling at my feet, I still felt grateful you chose me.
I opened my mouth but no words came out and as you lit your final match, I realized I was the art.

I built this prison by hand, laid every brick until I couldn't see the world around me.
Shackles on my ankles, anchors keeping me from floating away.
Solitary confinement the only solace l've ever known.
I built this prison by hand, my sentence indefinite.
My pain written on the walls, a reminder of why I'm here.
Memories kept out like the worst kind of contraband.
Suffering consequences of actions not my own.
Was my trial fair? Do I deserve parole?
Having once felt safe within these walls, I find myself claustrophobic.
Suffocated by unearned guilt, choking on shame.
Cracks in the brick reveal light.
A reminder that the sun rises, time passes, though I stay here.
If I built this prison by hand, what else can I build?

A hermit crab
In love with his bongo.
Scuffles on with his bongo beat.
Each thump filling the empty space
Around him.
He walks the hot concrete.
In search of something like home.
His shell dragging behind
Weighing him down.
The thump no longer loud enough
To move its tiny body.
The rhythm barely rattling around its
shell.
After a while everything can turn into a drag.
But still, he scuffles on.
He smiles, stopping to take a break
On the grass.
The concrete burning his feet.
His tiny claws scraping across the bongo.
He looks over to his left.
To find an old boot.
Nodding her head, tapping the ground
Following along to the beat.
Although weathered, she too smiled.
Echoing back his loud thuds.
Her sole cracked but full of life.
Life happens in the strangest way sometimes.
Two outcasts alone.
Drumming up stories without a word.
Scuffling on a bongo heart.
Life doesn't have to be a drag all the time.

If I could hold
what hands won’t

If I can have
what hands don’t

If I can smile
and take note

I can handle anything.

I don't sit in these minutes.
Wondering how and why
I fall into a motion, mindlessly
Opening cabinets of half-made
Half-done, half-finished things
Opening and closing
Yesterday and today
Just opening and closing
Until it starts to make sense
Until this loss fills in the cracks and these half-things, this half me,
find a resolution to seal these doors shut

When you are Loved,
and so deeply cared for;

There is nowhere to run..
  Nowhere to hide

The only thing you can do
(under the warmth of that beautiful Hold)

     Is to slowly unwind..
     Until  you  Become.

It is already in you, Love..
buried behind the horrible Residual.
Remember..?

Within the soon to crumble Wall..

within the Corruptible,
that was so unfairly and horribly
     corrupted

Is the  absolutely Beautiful  in you
that has been  (and always will be)
     Incorruptible
.. preciously-Hidden, behind the wall


"It is Incorruptible..
It cannot undergo Decay"

You are in there, sweet-one
   buried underneath
every horrible part of it all.

      As the wall comes down..
      Love will find you.


   When allowed,
   it always, always does.

You see, kid..

(it's like this) :
With every door,  closed
another one   previously unseen
opens up  fully..

   The moment  I lift you
   and press you   up
   hard,  against that of the last

      ..Call it,

"A little Mommy and Daddy time"
once the children of the world
have fallen  peacefully asleep..

In fact, Love.. call it  anything
  you want

There is a price to pay
for a life of Courage..
In as much as there is
a Payment  to be received

   that may.. (or may not yet)
        have been  received.

Consider also, Love..  the  cost,  
as to  how utterly Incredible  
(it is going to be..  to be able to feel)

        What  it  is  like


  to Truly  become Paid in Full

Arms outstretched ,

her awakening spirit--
  Stardust-clad,
within the celestials..
These pirouettes,  bourne
on nothing but air--
   ((free air..))

She is beginning;;
and as she does
her spirit stretches back
to a time  before creation;

..as she Unfolds
as she  maintains
underneath  this blanket   of Love
   she  now  feels.

And like  a hen
that gathers her chicks;
her newfound  wings
pull all the  pieces  of her  own heart
back to her self..

Back to her-self


       (( back  to  herself. ))