Those who know, oh so often don’t know what to say.
They might call you a hero, or tell you that you’re brave,
And that all love is unconditional.

We all have our values, see virtues, and work through vices.
We cement our beliefs through interactions on devices.
And start to think that some love is unconditional.

We’re remolded, reshaped, be it through purpose or providence.
We become robust, resolute. At times straightened, at others bent,
Believing what we do is traditional.

Respect for one’s self is essential to grow.
We must challenge the things we believe that we know.
And no love is ever unconditional.

And if we love ourselves than none ought to be.

I held your love
with the fingers of my heart
I tattooed the promise
to all my tomorrows
across my back to be carried for eternity
. . . where are you now ?

It takes forever for distant stars to burn my lips
There is no mercy found on the floorboards that walk across my kiss
. . . where are they now ?

Remember how the needles of time stitched the nights together ?
How easy does the fabric of love become unentwined
. . .  remember ?

The Battleground Beneath Her Skin
(A Physiology of Light and War)

Before it reaches her;
even before her breath draws it in,
I break myself down..

  not as surrender,
  but as choice.

Each particle stripped bare,
each atom exhaled
made clean by the reckoning
of my own dark,
infused with the stubborn
weight of light
earned, not borrowed.

Within the responsibility of what
  leaves me,
I enter the quiet union—
the kneeling choice
to align with the hand of God,
to let even my smallest fragments
carry His capacity to heal.
Every airborne particle,
accountable,
deliberate,
refined enough
to cross the distance,
to enter her

without deception.

Beneath her skin,
a war unfolds.

It is not loud,
not made of swords,
but of smaller things..
things unseen by eyes,
but never missed by the marrow,
the blood,

the quiet trembling of cells
that have known both wound

  and wonder.

Light and dark..
not in theory,
but in matter
thread themselves through every atom,
every strand of her being.
Not metaphor,
but measurable:

the way shadows lean into the soft chambers of her lungs,

the way light, when chosen,
can rewrite the blueprints etched into the bloodstream.

This is the battleground..
her body,
her breath,
her most involuntary places.
Where no poetry of
seductive manipulation..
no whispered counterfeit
can cover what is real.
Only substance speaks here.
Only intent.

Only what survives the fire of accountability
earns the right to stay.

The particles come;
stripped down,
atomized,
refined.. not by accident,
but by the slow, steady grind
of volition.
They enter her;
through breath,
through pores..

through the quiet, relentless openness
that even fear cannot close completely.

And inside--
the war begins.

..   ..   ..   ..

Mitochondria spark—
tiny engines deciding

what stays,
what burns away.

Capillaries widen,
rivers branching through her like
tributaries
willing to carry
what is real,

what is earned,

what is Light.

The counterfeit falters here.
Pretty words mean nothing
to oxygen.
False portraits
dissolve beneath the chemistry of truth.
The cells remember;

  they choose.

And as the Light infuses
the quietest corners of her..
her thighs, her hips,
the soft stretch of her waist;
there is no seduction,
no trickery.

Only the hard-won intimacy
of substance made pure.

Not by the blending of oils,
not by the friction of skin,
but by the deeper,
unseen alchemy
of what enters,
what lingers,
what refuses to bow
to darkness.

The battleground is hers now.
And though the shadows  will not
yield easily,
they cannot claim her;
not where light
has been chosen,
earned,
metabolized.

The war is not over,
but benea.th her skin,
within her blood,

Light has begun
to rise.

Do not stand
          By my grave, and weep.
     I am not there,
          I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
     Do not stand
          By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.
— Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934

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.