are we
what we do
or
what we don't do
or is not doing
enough of an action
that
all you do
can be counted toward
all you have
made sure
not to.

It seems to me
the more things change
the more they stay the same.
I wonder how the rules evolve
but we keep at the same game
and though tired at competing
we're addicted to the bother
for when we lose we need to prove
and when we win we need another
and though we're all exhausted
we are spurred on by the lies
and i feel i've lived a million lives
and tried a million tries.

C. Cimic says 'every morning i forget how it is'

thats the most difficult part
of
the experience.

People think that living with
chronic illness
at some point one would fall into a routine about it.

but it's all the same.

and each morning I forget how it is
until I am reminded.

Mary Oliver.
Got saved by the beauty.

as do I.


it's the only hope and prayer I can believe in.

We walked each other home
And then found
A home
Outside of each others hearts.

I sometimes stand near her side window.

Smell her cooking's.
Hear her lover's loving.

I leave quietly.

No longer at
Home. There

But still at home in my wilderness

She said
you are enough. you are loved.
You are
So much of what you fear can
Never be.

She said
There are no mirrors I can
Hold up
For perception once skewed see all
mirrors spotted

Your eyes.
So fickle and short sighted
That you
Can’t see what lays before you
Or just beyond.

A blindness
To all that is beautiful.
You **** hope
Before it may give you
Another chance.

you can't be what you're not.
even more.
you can't not be what you are.

I'm the zebra in a stable,
the salmon in a pond,
the only blue eyed brunette
in a group of all the blonde.
I'm the coke in an ice cream shop
the green leaf in the fall.
It seems as though I may Belong
but really don't at all.

I write in words and ink but live in blood and tears.
That's really all the difference.
Because my written thoughts are black and white and clear.
Ink.
And my life is a whirlwind of energy and ****** oceans. Intense and swirling waters. Constant waves lapping up the shore.
Blood.
Beautiful. Ceaseless. Sometimes dangerous.
And words written in ink may seem more perfect but life's written in blood. So I dare to write in blood.
Because blood is warm. And  life. And connection.
And I want to provide warmth, life and connection more than perfection.
Because it's what I want to receive.
They say that blood is thicker than water. But I think that blood may be thinner than ink.
Because the perfectly spoken word can be as warm and connecting and life giving as the complete and imperfect  human beings that I meet.
When in loneliness and hurt and low  in energy. When the fear is in meeting with other people, in connecting with them.  When I can't tolerate the warmth that might come from risking connection. Maybe because I fear burning up from the heat.  and maybe for i  feel like a candle that's been burned to it's end. And I  am afraid that I cant endure any more burning.
But.
Ink. On paper. When brought to my nearly dying flame, suddenly causes flames. I catch on fire.
I've found connection in people and paper.
I've found love in blood and ink.
Because in both I've found you and some new parts of myself.

A broken heart bears witness to grace.
because the person you've shared it with now holds a part of it.
And though the person you've split your heart open for
might never even know
you know.
but this is the kind of broken heart that needs no healing,
because it is how we heal the world.

"Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person it is nearly indistinguishable"
(David Ausberger)

First the awareness.
hits you.

most likely.

in the place.
that hurts most.

The awareness.

then settles.
in that soft spot.
between heart and mind.

At times at peace.
often pulling them apart.

Dreams are
hopes
            others have deemed unrealistic.
And
have then warned
you
not to give voice to.

For the devil
will lay his
clawed fingers and
black eyes. On
the delicate fabric of.
hope.
So dont ****
your dreams,
they say. But
keep it Silent.
Secret.
Shamed.
They so fear the
devil that
they **** their own
dreams. Sacrifice
their motivations and the most beautiful Privilege
of being
human
on an altar of
idols. The human
ideals.

the most beautiful thing
that god does
to people

is that he gifts them

to each other.

Go easy
On her Heart

I know it ain’t
That easy for you

She lays bleeding out
In your empty excuses

You could’ve known
And should've done

Different
If not
Better

it's good to know
they say
the world within
and the world around
because otherwise
your world
is without

and regardless it'll be
whether you are
knowing
or unknowing.

You comment in that kind of
Amusement
About the heart I wear on my
Sleeve
Except that what’s on my sleeve
Is not my heart
It’s merely it’s
Shadow

We move in and out of our
Best and worst places

Hopefully, more graciously

So though it’s not different
It is.

Is a
try
try
try
try
try
try
try

and
try

I went for a walk
in the
graveyard
It was quiet
but it was
home.

to only be
like
God
To live among the Stars.
To dwell among the People.

That the third element of the periodic table is what can untangle an angled mind.
is that the force in the world is the force in you.
and that it all comes down
to the basics.

Shimmer
of eyeshadow
Pink
Lipstick on
white
cotton Tzitzit.
our own little

Jewish Romance.

We get into a taxi. I sit near the right window. He is near the left. We can only look at each other. Smile. Talk. His hat lays between us. God is between us. He cant touch my clothes or bed or me for twelve days. god honors his daughters by making her sacred, even to her own man.

We don't do much of husbandry and wifely things.  
flashcard conversations.
Scheduled nights.
Quiet dinners.
But the quiet holds a calm energy.
a  gentle love
that my fearful heart drowns in.

they tell me to
relaaaaaaaa-
-x.
to allow things
to juuuuust
be
and I wonder
how iiiiiiii
can
because i'm not ready
to face the consequences
that might come
after.
and I want it.
but not yet.
and I wonder why only I had to give
patience.

I keep my truths like swords
safely in a scabbard
and pull them out in dangerous times
when my honor's nearly shattered

I say
i am anxious.
Worried.
Sad.
He tells me, many feel that way. Many
go through this. Many
find there's a way out.
Riding through.
And i know he means the anxiety and worry and sadness
that is handled.
I wonder if
my eyes still hold traces of year long stretches of depression. If
my face is lined in all the places anxiety set itself in. If
my jaws and temples and cheek bones speak. If
the tenderness of my belly still serves to remind of three overdoses. if
my heartbeat tells its story in its endless ceaseless rhythm.
I want to just press him close so he can hear for himself
what i cannot
yet
say.

they sent us to a therapist.
said the answers
are bigger
than the questions we cant word.

but the questions aren't
big
nor are it's answers.

it's the size of my heart.
my wants.
my needs.

they think im the problem.
I always knew I was.
I just hurt
more than others

and I hurt that
the execution was set
before I even got to the courtroom.

so the witness stand felt like the gallows.

and I held on to my pride.
and swallowed it whole.

sometimes the only way out is through.
they say.
I wonder though.
because I don't know what is at the other end of
through.

Her grasses may be greener
but what you may not know
is she bleeds each night
upon her field
in hope for it to grow.
Her grasses are all poisoned
but look right to the eyes
that sees only
the product
of a thousand desperate tries.

"sometimes profanity offers relief denied even to prayer"
-Mark Twain

god.
I need a Bible.


written in four letter words.

relief.

I wonder how the dark makes mirrors of windows.
It's sad.
That when i look out, past my existence, into the darkness, all i see is a reflection of myself.
Why do the nights not allow us to see others?
Where does the dark hide goodwill and love, that it so fiercely doesn't let us find them?
And i wonder about windows and mirrors.
for is glass ever so transparent that all you will ever see is through?
Or can transparency be tainted by transient plays of light and dark and sun and moon and stars. By ourselves and our perceptions that we limit with the games of lights and shadows that our minds play.
and i think that if darkness makes mirrors of windows, empathy makes way for clarity and understanding.
For i was staring at my reflection in the night dressed window when my light went out.
within was now as dark as it was out.
And in the darkness i was able to see what i couldn't in the light.
the fickleness of glass, and the lies that mirrors tell us.
To make us think that we are alone in a darkness when we venture to look out.
To blind us of everything by reflecting only our selves.
inevitably its the imbalances; of light and dark, of inside and outside, of myself and others, that blind us.

Met a robin
in the graveyard.
She was singing.
to the ghosts
Unknown witness
to
The love and honor
We grace to our
Dead.

there's no whole spirit in words
that lead only as a rod
that they make of man a lesser man
of god a lesser god.

Shame tells it’s stories
In third person.

She said
I’m married for two years.
I have anxiety.
I like watching figure skating
Competitions.

We narrow our life down to sentences.
And we wonder where the past has gone.

They wonder about whether
and how it can happen
to the sweetest
and gentlest.

but King David
had a daughter.

and ****** in his family.

Just keep loving through the healing.

and know even a princess
hurts.

beyond the wild blue yonder
within the forests deep
I search with wild abandon
for what I cannot keep

for to even scrape
the edges of the sun
puts worth to the chasing
that's a cyclical run

for beyond the wild blue yonder
churning oceans weep
a world that is at once
wide awake and fast asleep.

This
Body.

This humanly.
Thing.
It keeps me settled.
In a skin
too tight.
Or is it  simply
Too big?

This thing that takes me through the world.
When i rather
hover over it.
or fly.  

This thing that
Relays information.
I can never
understand.  

I try to make it
understand too.
In miscommunications
It never understands.

This body is a home
i haven't
moved into.
Where i know this is my place.  
But cant unpack my bags.

And its taking
twenty years.
To only
settle in.