Empty Heart still aches
Broken are we
Standing at the window of heart
You refused to leave
Addicted eyes wander to steal a glance
Distant are we
We bid goodbyes
Sacrificing the coast of communication
Snapshots still pooling up our eyes
Sacrificial Are we
We the truth
Unsaid
The stories breathing In dead
We love to be loved
Building a house of mud
Empty the empty heart
Again
Yet it feels empty
Breathing are we

having your lover
trace your earloves with their
fingernib is as intimate as
reading.

To be haunted
By voices of people
I have known,
But will never meet;

To be drawn
Into worlds
I have explored,
But will never see;

The sheer emotion of reading,
Magnifies and withers across each page;
With ink tearing into our hearts,
Leaving us yearning at each epilogue...

Shade siting , escaping scorching rays.
A book in hand, words reanimating  visuals.
The scent of pages drowned in tears,
They are different of course. Bitter is the scent of sorrow, few are the drenches of joy.
Past words coming to life, old life lived anew.
Lost words are found, though plain words are lost in interpretation.
This inked paper offers an escape.
Return I will, not now but the end.  
Let time tick till it sets,
While words tock to infinite.

Our plants are looking puny
their leaves are drooping
and yet still they turn to the light
and soak it up
their life inspires me.

I get up out of my comfy chair
out of my observer self
and water them
and in that watering
my blood is circulating
I am breathing in their oxygen
giving back the life they give me.

I need to imitate our plants
soak up the light
and breathe it out.

How will you water today?

Isn’t it strange
how in this brief exchange
of the creative impulse
we gain
a certain kind of intimacy
with each other
yet we never
smell each other
shake hands
breathe the same air
put up with personal idiosyncrasies
and off-putting voice inflections –
all the things our friends and loved ones have to.

Yet here we occupy hearts and minds
many of our friends and loves do not know
with such closeness, interiority, and connectedness.

What a strange and magnificent gift!

As a child I was told to take shelter in a storm.
"Wait for danger to pass, where it's safe and it's warm."
Was the plea sent down wet steps and the outmatched door
To chase my staccato strides.
I'd lose it, if I could help it,
In puddle waves and wind-whipped tides
Over rocky shores and steep divides
Then stroll down the lane with thunderstorms n' hurricanes.
While the sky cracked with tension and the red oaks strained,
I never felt small nor ever afraid,
Of the forceful rumbles their limbs obeyed,
I felt alive n' emboldened by every squall
Raised higher and higher by the climatic cure-all
Until I could meet it face to face n' eye to eye
And hold its gaze, as though it were mine,
Until the blackened-beaten town and the next day's fight
Seemed bold but inviting, a blinding light.

I flipped through the pages,
taking in every word as scripture.
This is how my body will grow,
this is how to get a boy to like me,
this is who I’m supposed to turn into.

I was just a little girl.
I couldn’t have told you
my favorite color, I still don’t know
what I want to be when I grow up.

I just turned another page.
And I knew.

I had more fingers on my hands
than trips around the sun,
but even so young and so naive
my instincts were stronger
than fiberglass.

Something was wrong.

But I didn’t look like those pictures.
I didn’t hate myself.
I didn’t do it on purpose.
None of the words fit
to what I was feeling
but they were calling to me.

Screaming.

Juliana, you are us.
Juliana, you don’t have to eat that.
Juliana, something is wrong.

I was so young.

How did I know so young?
How did I only find out today?

Little Juliana,
what else did you know?

That brief moment
Walking into the shaded apartment to find you reading in flannel
And everything in me jumps
The camera obscura of my iris snaps,
Suspending you in amber light.
The tapered elegance of your fingers across a page
A glint of Versailles blue-gold eyes
And fortified ramparts of your shoulders.
I will carry this vestige with me
In a petticoat pocket
Until we are old
And your arms do not lift me as you just did
The last strand of your hair is silver
And your cheeks sink with age like your father’s.
These small gems of youth
Of promise
To keep in a sleeve until they are needed
And the mirrors show reflections we cannot change