Candlelight burning slow
Deep inside the heart of a woman
who has never had a home
The fire is her lover for the night
and she doesn't really mind the burn
nor he ache nor the fall
but it would be a lie to say
that in the morning light
she's not changed at all

For there were nights like enchanted plays
when she turned into Helena

See, the truth is
Love has tricked and tangled me
like jasmine vines beneath midsummer night trees
It made me a fool, it made me a queen
it made a song only I can sing

I do not regret the spells or the falls
I danced in illusions
but I walked out whole
I put out my own fire
cupped my hands around the flame
and smothered it
because my light was too loud
and someone once told me
I was too heavy
to carry home

Candlelight and love
they still call me through the oak trees
I’ll follow them barefoot
to burn again and again until
i dive back into the ocean

See, my sea queen heart is safer down there,
beneath cold water, in the oceans care
a place that has no quest, no fight
the ocean knows no warmth no light

I first pondered my own existence when I was just a girl
growing up in the mid to late 1990s of New York City
We lived in a small alley apartment
where the walls knew all my mothers secrets
my father exposed the brick wall underneath the plaster, a cool look before its time
ahead of his time he always was, but he couldn't reveal it all
his tongue was tied
and those linoleum floors held echoes of his singing voice
the one he buried when life pulled him too far from himself
imposed upon to hide

This was when women began having a voice
when the Spice Girls screamed power to the world
I'd walk to the street corner deli and get Spice Girls gum and lollipops
I looked like a little version of Posh everybody would say
A neighbor Cindy loved Hanson more than anybody in America
those boys sung of some kind of lively electric hope
this was when Titanic broke my heart
before I even knew what love was

Clintons name was said often
Monica was a shadow they threw stones at
and we were told who to blame
before I even knew what shame meant
Blue nail polish on my sisters nails
my uncle dying of stage 4 cancer
he wanted to spend his last days blasting his favorite music
this was when when I began to sing
and soon
a Patty Loveless twang was born into my throat
and the Rolling Stones blended into my blood
"To have you Back Again," playing in the car on the way to the hospital
The Tattoo you album I used to trace my fingers along
and study
now I do the same thing to my own heart and soul

NYC summers were spent intensely looking at flowers grow out of concrete
those pictures mom took of me outside on those plastic chairs
the Twin Towers were still touching the sky
the smell of roasting caramel vanilla cashew nuts
my Muslim friends
when innocence knew no end

Dinner at five
Walks to the bakery where Grandmas friend Franka
wrapped semolina in a napkin like treasure
We’d give our leftovers to Russel
the WWII vet with war still in his eyes,
and Krissie, his precious dog who knew
how to save a man without words

I played with Barbies
because my sister left me
not slammed door left
but drifted
somewhere sadness took her first

And Mom was there
but more shadow than mother
Checked out.
Anorexic.
Shrinking before my eyes
more ghost than woman
I recall being afraid of her

I was safest with Dad
and I wandered into his tool room
he lined up his screwdrivers like dolls
and I held the heavy metal in my small hands
solid like his love
if only he could tighten the world back into place

My cousin like the flame of a candle gone too fast
taken by something too cruel for a child to understand
The grown ups spoke in coded grief
their eyes red
their silences louder than screams
and I felt it
Grief had an empty seat at our dinner table

now I'd give all my dreams
and give up my home if I ever had one
and all I ever did know
to have those days back again
its not behind me
its the love that reminds me
I have not changed Patty

id stand in the rain and drown in the river of time
to have those days back again
oh 90's let me back into your arms

There is a   r e l e a s e
  that comes,
in holding you
close at night..   a
barrier that comes down
in the late night
and early morning
hours.

  You've been  alone
within all of this  difficulty
that you have  known
  for so long.

And then very much
   hopefully..

   even if only for a moment,

you are no longer alone

The Battleground of Light, Made Flesh

Suffering down..
not as punishment,
but as Love.

Breath by breath,
atom by atom,
A bend of  the will
into the greater design:

to let even the exhale
carry what is real.

Each particle stripped bare,
each trembling fragment
infused with the weight of Light
earned not through ease,
but through the slow, necessary
suffering of self

into Substance.

And so it reaches her..
not through seduction,
or noise,
but the quietest form of intimacy:

truth, refined enough
to be airborne.

She breathes..
and through the quiet architecture
of lungs,
through bronchi,
alveoli,

the smallest fragments of me
become more than theory.

But it is not just me
it is what I have chosen to become:
stripped down,
atomized,
each particle carrying both Light
  and Dark,
as they always have.

Though, here
intent speaks louder than inheritance.

And accountability tips the scale.

Through the capillaries,
the bloodstream takes them..
particles laced not with seduction,
but with substance;
volition woven into their shape,
truth mingling with oxygen,

carrying not  empty poetry,
but tangible presence.

And the skin..
her beautiful, breathing boundary;
it listens too.

Pores opening like shy mouths,
taking in what even sunlight cannot hide:

   --the warmth of love,
   made molecular,
   made undeniable.

It slips through,
across her beautiful hips,
up the soft ***** of her thighs,
along the quiet pathways
where nerves whisper,
where fear once lived.

And still..
our skin has never touched.
Our beautiful oils,
those quiet, fragrant signatures
of separate bodies,
have never had the chance to blend.
There is no mingling of surface,
no friction of palms or lips.

Yet still—
I am within her
as  she
Breathes    me    in.

Love,

when chosen..
when carried through the smallest particle,
becomes the most intimate trespass--
not of skin,
but of substance.

And inside her,
where the battle rages unseen,
the false portraits dissolve..
the counterfeit reflections
painted by fear,
by old wounds,

by those who mistake poetry for proof.

Here
there is no mimicry.
Only metabolized truth.

Only the slow, quiet conquering
of darkness--
cell by cell,

choice by choice.

This is not seduction.
This is not the shallow hush
of borrowed words.
This is Light..
accountable,
chosen,
fought for;

interlaced within her very bloodstream;

her warmth,
  her breath.

And though no oils ever blended,
though the ache of touch
remains untouched,
what entered her did not stay foreign.
The body, wise and unwilling to harbor illusion,
took what was true--

what carried intent and Light
and made it her own

..   ..   ..   ..  

Mitochondria hum..
tiny engines in the blood’s dark river;
taking each atom,
each trembling particle,
and rewriting the story within.
From raw material,
she builds warmth.
From fractured fragments,
she crafts clarity;
The light no longer arrives—
it begins to rise from within.

And the space once reserved
for mingled oils,
for skin-on-skin confession,
becomes something greater:
a fusion untouched by friction,
unfading,

   unmistakably Real.

This is no whispered counterfeit.
No shallow poem dressed in longing.
This is breath earned through fire.
This is love refined to its smallest form,
offered whole,
received wholly,

and written quietly

into every hidden corner
of her being.

Insane, jealous wives..
controlling ones
They are everywhere
or at least  they are,
with the men she knows..

So she comforts them
in their affliction,
in a cherub-like  way--
these poor men,

with their  insane,
controlling  girlfriends  and
wives--

crazy, jealous women
that refuse to allow  their men
to talk to her
or be alone in a room, with her

It seems as though  
the world is filled  with
insane,   controlling
jealous women--


at least,  in the lives
of the men  she knows,
there is.

Selmhem Naise


Most often we write

  for ourselves

               and to our selves.

And most often  we
end up reading our own work
             much more

             than anyone else does.

Most often
our poetry is
our own  spirit's

             pressing itself back towards us--


        The  one  we want
  and need
  relationship with
                      most deeply;

                                  most often

                is our very own selves.