Breathe. Accept.  You are not the wrinkles in bedsheets or faded stars you dipped dreams within. You are this face, long and crookedly smiling, accompanied by dark eyes with brows that feel the painful weight of time stitching together aches felt in others.  Your hair threads into strands braided with midnight and a heart  straying toward forgiveness.  Peer through the shadows, the unlined eyes, these pale lips.  There’s faith in those contours, desire behind your hips.

words flutter as fireflies
flicking the glass
anxious, incessant,
nagging my sleep
berating decisions,
lamenting shortcomings,
tapping upon every insecurity
until they are spoken, liberated
from the heart's sarcophagus
I watch them fumbling through air
spiraling madly, luminescent
in their liberty, twirling
upon night's velvet cape
then dissipating into the ether
of forgotten memory
as thoughts expire
and settle into the fragrant satin
of freshly stained dreams

you are cinnamon light
shimmering the burnt cheek
of apple crisp afternoons
penetrating your core, ravishing
in possibility, tranquility  
decide how you'll treat today
spend her preciously, selectively
honor your hands with activities
that replenish hungering thoughts
learn your value in words spoken
in your care for others, and mostly,
the expressions you say
to yourself that cultivate self-love
for you are divinely constructed
configured in silken care
and majestically your own
live this day as an elegantly arrayed
promise, gifted for you to unveil
exhale this new beginning

your hissing  tongue
pierces once again
vile words, berating my worth
only I have learned (at last)
to disentangle my heart
from your snare's belittlement
staring into the unwholesome sky
with muted lips
awaiting tomorrow's painted beauty

you speak of her as light
possessed with amber eyes
dispersing your heart's darkness
but can you also love her night
dwelling behind an artful smile
as the moon dips between clustering trees
casting black velvet shadows
a hush between lips, damp with waiting
can you hold her unsteadiness  
with faith-filled hands
patient and calm until her moonlight
shimmers upon your skin again