My heart is heavy because
I know I deserve love
But no one stays
I wonder when it will be my turn
To feel like a child -
Wide-eyed; wholeheartedly, innocently Love
I am tired of being a door
Opening their hearts; teaching them to Love
So they may give it to someone else
Must I weave a net?
But I thought love was free
How do I be as fluid
When my Love is like a stone;
Solid, sinking, ever-rounded by their passage

Now blinded by the world that let us see
there is confusion in our bodies as we breathe

Wipe my tears away and
tell me that I'm weak
tell me that I'm weak
Put me in a box and
tell me not to speak
tell me not to speak
Blame me
Blame me
Blame me
I'm only half alive

Mysteries, riddles and magic
I could close my eyes and find you by the frequency of your soul’s vibrations
Dare me, dead sober
Tie my hands behind my back
Make me senseless
The clarity I have is out of body
What I feel is formless
And you don’t have to stay
But you don’t have to go
If you don’t want to
I won’t try to change you, chain you, rearrange you
It’s okay if you don’t want it
It’s a gift, not an ultimatum
I’ll set it down at your feet
Walk away, bow out, pray
This is weightlessness
Ego death
Reincarnation

I won’t forget the way you shared your bed with her while I carried your child in my womb
I won’t forget the way you bulldozed my grace and love just because I would rebloom
I won’t forget the way you left me standing in the streets of Montreal—the reckless, frigid free-for-all
I won’t forget our heart-to-hearts, fall-aparts, fresh-starts
I won’t forget our once shared-dreams, fire-water color schemes; tip-toeing, balance-beams
I won’t forget your lack of self-acceptance; your fear, resistance, dependence
I won’t forget the way you disguise your loneliness; insecurity, disappointment—
your selfishness; inconsistency, vacant empathy
I won’t forget your impatience; porcelain ego, complacence
I won’t forget the way you’d kiss my feet; plead for forgiveness; make promises, repeat
I won’t forget an honest memory of you—instability, volatility
But I will only ever wish you depth, perspective, and humility

It was nice to have weather that was still;
I wondered why
there are some questions we should refrain from asking
and why everything is connected
to everyone and why everyone is influenced
by something—or someone
It was easy to breathe
It was clear that there is always time for indulgence
and it began at the end and
ended at the beginning
Mamihlapinatapai
My exit would be simple
Wholesome simplicity

Words not worth wondering how to spell how it feels
If only you’d seen my soul, you would see it on my face
Nestled in the needles of your chest I bleed the colors of a rainbow

The first one read, simply, that you were finally going to die
It was short and sweet and it was a beautiful goodbye
I read on to hear of pain, of catheters and of humiliation
Your tone was calm as you spoke of rosaries and salvation
but your less than poorly cracked jokes tell me that you're tired
from sewing buttons down the back of vertically slit night gowns
unable to conjure up the strength to feed yourself to gain pounds
I received a letter each day for six days
I opened up a letter each day for six days
I hesitated reading a letter each day for six days
until you said how much these letters had brought you peace

I love the way it looks in my head when I close my eyes
It's easy to forget why I come here
What were you expecting?
"I never expect anything," she said
He sighed and returned his head to the pillow
She sighed and tilted hers so that her chin kissed the air
We are not who we once were and we never will be again
One day
we will be older,
slightly more sophisticated,
and tired from the time in between
We are divided, simultaneously separated
into One
Stolen time and broken rhyme
Distorted
Disfigured
Derailed

Open letters in my hands, saying something in a foreign language--
confessions and apologies; What do you want from me?

Sweet like honey
the words drip from your tongue
Burns like fire
as each lie inflates your lungs
Warm like summer
your smile holds all my pain
Slices like silver
as my love pours out my veins
Sinks like stone
to the bottom of my chest
Stolen like gewgaws
from my nothing that is left
Broken like promises
never more than gasps of air
Left like faint reminders
of the scars I proudly wear

Bloodshot eyes glued to starlit skies,
we can't even see past our fingertips
Trembling hands holding onto what they can,
can you feel the words leave your lips?
"I know there's more to living
than experimental breathing"
Burnt-out minds can not find the answer--
Who are we and where do we come from?
Now our bones have turned to stone
and we are too weighed down to move

Drowning thoughts drain emotion
Turning tides swarm the ocean
Single gasps of air linger on the surface
Reflecting shadows of intended purpose

The electricity in our bodies flows like the gentle river
under the bridge that we are setting fire to
Up in flames;
We watch it burn

I feel nothing

Mind numbingly still

Glazed eyes will ****

Glazed hearts

Vacant sigh

Breathe

Nothing’s wrong

I feel nothing

Skin warm

Stars form

I feel nothing

Nothing’s wrong

Breathe

Vacant Sigh

Your stare can rip my clothes off and even peel back my skin
bearing my fear of love and revealing my love of sin
When I look into your eyes I see your soul
I love your skin and bones
I love your skin and bones

I truly love
Sleeping alone
Eye contact
Silence
I love watching people be themselves
I love walking a fine line, on my tip toes;
tenderness so soft you almost can’t feel it
I love being untouchable
and I love being touched
I love breakthroughs
and things of substance
I love walking through the woods—
getting lost, laughing, and turning around
I love the art of healing
I love fluctuation and dynamism and change
I love being free – unobliged, unbound, unassuming
I love the sober thoughtfulness of melancholy
I love love, and I love loving love
And I love giving myself time, as much as I need,
to understand my magic

Who do you think you are?
Walking around,
walking around
showing off your scars
like they’re battle wounds
from a war you won
What war?
What war?
Marking X’s off your hand
just one more to go
until you’re a free man
From what cage?
What cage?
The one that’s in your head that locks you up at night

I hold back my words like I hold my breath under water
My head is a cage, a butcher to slaughter
Sit and listen, sit and listen
I fight back my words like I fight this war within myself
A collection of emotions collecting dust upon this shelf
Sit and listen, sit and listen

My shirt is inside out like my heart is in my head
and these sheets are just as tangled as these webs
The words that we have spoken in this single, silent hour
reminds us that happiness will eventually go sour--
like the milk that you left sitting out
and the loneliness you cry about

Love too much
Loved too little
Lack of words
Losing time
Lay back down

When I was a child my mother and father taught me to love
       My innocent heart was a sponge
I soaked up the love in every color and in every smell
and I would touch cheeks wet from tears of sad eyes
and wonder why love made them cry
I rung out my love into eager, outstretched palms
and never thought it would run dry

A blank page, so much space to write everything that could be said
-- yet nothing should be.

Sometimes silence is the only true reflection of something that can't be bound by any combination of lines or sounds.
When words cannot give me the peace of defining that which overcomes me,
I fall into a void of dulled existence;

I call, crawl, scratch the walls of the mind that bound me.
My heart screams and breaks itself to free me.
I fall, lay flat on the back that carries me;
look at the walls that stare at me;
feel the emptiness of my own echo chamber.

I remember that I am not skin and bone,
that I am planets and galaxies;
that I am a universe imploding;
that heartbreak is a human condition and that love is a string of energy that binds our stardust particles.

I remember that everything is temporary, and I remember that you do not define me.

I’m overflowing
Radiating high vibrations
My body cannot contain it
My hands are shaking
So I run, give them to the earth beneath my feet
and she drinks them
and I hope they dissolve into what you need
and I hope she returns it to you, with no trace of where it came from
Because all I need is to give
and it doesn’t matter what form that takes
As long as it makes its way back to you

Can you believe time gets away like that?
Who are we?
I don't know where I'm at
I'm not alone--
just on my own--
collecting grains of sand

I don’t want to write about you anymore
I don’t want to see your face - or hers
Because there’s a deep, dark hole in me,
carved out by the things you did - and didn’t
A chasm; a hall of caves; a graveyard
I don’t want to tell them
I don’t want my scars to define me
I don’t want to be an urn, holding the ashes of my past lovers,
but I am afraid those embers will never die
I don’t want to tell myself that I am worthy of love
I want to wake up and see it in someone's eyes
I want my chasms and caves and graveyards to echo in triumph
But my shadows’ shadows know that I have not yet fully healed

What is the balance between tolerance and temperance?
Between what we want and what we need?
Certainty and doubt?
We all waiver
When instead
We should close our eyes
Tilt our heads back
And swing
Until we are undoubtedly beckoned to leap

Inside the stillness of this morning
The earth is humble
You sit crooked-legged on a splintered row
I see it clearly
You hold the child of a tired woman at your side
You do not know her name
The child clasps your arm and falls asleep inside the smudgened earth upon your chest, a hard days work
This is a feeling you have never known
And you sink, too, into the child’s bony cheek
You see me now, upside down, in clearsight
Our breaths align, weeping, not in sadness
For we know it’s all connected
And you close your eyes and smell her hair
And the hair tickles your nose
And I open my eyes and see a purple sunrise
I take a deep breath
You exhale
A shiver
The gratitude, the boats, the ripples
The altruistic beauty of something so much greater than yourself

I’m a chiliagon, a rubik’s cube -
Not to be unriddled or unwound
I’m a disproportionately curvatured polygon; too spiritual to be mathematized
I am art, not the artist, and I have transcended my pain and fear because I walked with them in darkness, in depth, to understand not to conquer them
I am a mirror of mosaics and I have reorganized my pieces so many times trying to make sense of how they see me and I’ve learned that they only see themselves
Because we are all teachers and students and
There is so much to learn
About ourselves
Through each other
So open your eyes
And walk with me
Through this great life of self-reflection
So that we may understand
And transcend
These bodies that ground us

Premonition: foresight, flashes, freedom from the past
I’ve been chasing dreams; starting fires, spreading fevers
Would’ve helped you reach your own if you only would’ve asked
Contrast; backlash; now that I am blooming you look back
But I no longer need an explanation
Justification; indignation; extrication;
I have let it all go
No strings, no contingencies, no more holding on
I hope you know I’ve had three dreams about you this week
But they don’t make me think, or wonder
I don’t know why you are missing me – right before
You ask for her hand in marriage – but
Those are your demons now – because
We no longer share anything
Other than regret
For different reasons

Heavy
It’s the only word I have
The only feeling

Lately
I’ve been
Quiet
Patient
Listening
Preparing myself for war
In ways you wouldn’t understand
Because I feel it coming: the calm before the storm
I’ve healed myself from ruin: ash, dust, craters
And look at me now - a palace; a temple
For to lovers who pilgrimaged, and prayed
Humbly, I’ve built walls that break clouds
To protect my heart
From men who hunger for praise, and power
And flesh
Lately
I’ve been
Slipping into shadows of castles in the sky
Where only disciples who’d give their lives
Can see the door

I want to be a gardener; to sow seeds and watch them grow
I want to be a mother; to pour my love into a little heart
I want to be a painter; to capture moments with a brush
I want to be a dancer; to melt into your eyes
I want to feel the warmth of a thousand suns
I want to swallow the ocean until it's still
I want to be euphoric
and captivated
and passionately entwined

I want to be your soulmate; to never let each other down
I want to let go of all my pain; to turn it into beauty

I want to kiss away your fear
and teach you self-forgiveness
and breathe your recycled air

I want to live life slowly and make time for getting lost
so that I can be constantly re-found.

Arrhythmia
the push and pull, the dissonance,
the heavy trawl of weightlessness—
the irony of freedom.
I wonder where souls like ours end up—
on a bookshelf, in the bleeding hearts of poets
or dead, forgotten, wishing we would have loved one wholly instead of many in parceled fragments.

Interrogate my sincerity
When I say that I am ready
Beat your chest when you know it’s true
There isn’t a war I’m willing to lose
When my heart is the battlefield
Choose your weapon
And surrender

Twenty-five years; the choices we never expect to have to make
Rights and wrongs blurred, smudged, blended; sugar-coated; deep-fried
Anticipation is no use; left field; no clue
We grow or die
The mind is a cage, or boundless
Love and pain – are reflections – the same
And you have to know both – or you’re chained – to one or the other
Twenty-five years; the tunnels are winding and I’m looking for my shadow
But it’s just me; my mind; my body; my choices
I dropped the map – it didn’t make sense anyways – I started following my intuition
No rules; no business; no more pleasing others
I am self-seeking
My language is forgiveness – my rhythm matches water
Twenty-five years; I have a heavy but wild heart
I am whole and wide-eyed; grounded; awake; fearless and free
Liars don’t shake me; the past doesn’t chase me; I know what I need

Sometimes
Sometimes
Sometimes
Late at night
I think about you

And I piece together the way we danced
between each other like sunlight, moonlight, sky

It doesn't hurt anymore
When the reels roll behind my eyes, closed
Open — I feel open, now, and free

And I will always love you
Because I choose to, because I can
But I don’t want your love
Because now I know it was half-hearted
And it doesn't matter why
And I forgive you
And I am breathing such deep breaths, an infinite belly
When then, I was purple, choking, so desperate to be seen

Now I know: Boundaries
Now I see: A mosaic
And it all makes sense
And I’m sorry
For holding on

The feeling of freedom
is just as fleeting
as the time we had
but it returns
in flickering bursts of bright flavor
that I swish around my mouth
and lick from the corners of my lips
to remember
the remnants
what it felt like
to be free
and loved
by you

I laugh, a wide-eyed hum
You look right through me at the rose-tinted sea
The sunlight swirls across my skin
I close my eyes
We refract
And create a rainbow
I walk forward
Into the great expanse
Out of yearning
Out of the need to be seen
And become infinitely, immeasurably illuminable

Do not fear, my dawn, open your heavy cloak
Dismantle your darkness and let me in
I have reconciled the kingdom of my heart
and I am kneeling to the greater power at be
Will you bow your head with me?
Will you set your sun?
Will you unveil the stars behind your eyes and stand with me in awe of the mystery that surrounds us?
Let us bask in the omniscient harmony of syncopated stardust symphonies
I will unflinchingly embrace your daybreak, unarmed

I choose to draw the veil this morning
Drapery of pleated needlessness shields my heart with disenchantment
This full-rimmed moon taunts me with the truth
so I grind the fabric between my teeth
and make myself a promise
I will not feel sadness, anger, nor reprise
I would rather, this time, for a long while, be empty
because I need time to become as the moon is now.

I won’t hurt for you
I won’t ache
Because I swore I wouldn’t tether
And pain is just an anchor
And my heart is an albatross
building nests in dark places
until the season of our return to the altar
where we will dive, head first, fearlessly,
into remembrance of this white-winged dance
I will moult the dust of summer,
scorch the hearts of those not made to burn
Because the ego must dissolve
And you must lick the ash from my phoenix lips
And let me go

I've been down the rabbit hole
It's full of black and blue secrets
I clawed my way out
Now they live under my nails
And I was always a biter
My Mother was always a fighter
But I just wanted to love
And she broke my heart

Guess I'll be writing more letters
Cause I don't say goodbye
I tie up my lovers with maybes
A string they call fate like a challenge
Now my sky's full of kites
What is freedom?

Grace, kindness, empathy;
Softness you never can quite touch
Making supple of razor corners
I forgive you
For anger is heavy and the world too cruel to hold your ego in my heart
I will not un-live you
Shadows of un-answers will always dress my boughs like Christmas morning
But I hope one day this sets you free