Sandwich.

 I wonder if its odd or unusual to feel both inextricably connected and profoundly alone all at once.

There is a feeling in my ....body? My spirit? My awareness somehow, that there is far more to the story of being than I could ever imagine on my own. A way in which I am... we are... tethered to the everything by an imperceptible thread no wider than the silk of a spider's web.

And yet, in the density and tumble bumble of this earthly existence, even in proximity to those who appear to love me. Like me. Want to know me. Value me, there is this invisible chasm. A moat of distance that can't be seen with eyes, but feels like the distance between galaxies. Maybe more.

How is this dichotomy possible? Both awarenesses as real as the other.  

Is it my mind that demands duality in battle with the All that knows there is only one thing?  That I am a drop of the everything that holds the hologram of it all, even when I can't see it?

Maybe.  

I think I'll make a sandwich.

Anymore

 I don't live in the finger of land that pokes into the Caribbean. Azure blue kissing shores all around.

I don't live in the place where iguanas share my space. Sunbathing along my pool and sleeping high in the fronds.

I don't live surrounded by the brightest of greens, the pinks and oranges and yellows and blues and purples and greens and greens and greens,

I don't live near the secret places that delighted my senses and my soul. Places where we recognized each other. Places that gently touched my soul and danced with my heart.

I don't live near the people that I met. The ones that made me laugh or felt like a safe place to fall. 

I don't live next to a person that doesn't see value in all people, and the house that yells at passers by with the flags that speak their dark truth.

I don't live where holidays bring sounds of war for what feels like days.

I don't live where the highway of water is filled with boats, claiming that their way is the only right way, making those who see it feel small and unclaimed.

I don't live near the places that sell glitter and gold, and where the people that prop up the diamond signs are spoken of like detritus.

I don't live in a place where the air carries rigidity and individualism and soot, making it hard for a spirit to breathe.

Anymore.

Passport Approved

 

What has happened?

Has it changed, or has it just changed for me?

It's as if beneath the star spangled banner, under which we have been taught that woven into our flag is freedom of speech, celebration of being, safety and protection, and integrity to the bones of our beginning,

lies 

rot.

fear.

anger.

hatred.

disgust.

supremacy.

religious dogma.

violence.

There are many that look at my horror with a smirk. They have always seen it, felt it, lived it, breathed it, and worked 

every.

single.

moment to survive it. My white skin, my suburban upbringing, my inherited wealth, my lack of need to assimilate... 

as the scent, the look, the way of my being is ... approved.

My US passport stamped. Nothing to alter or fix or be suspicious about.

And, now, my way of being hurts. For I see how it has left so many people, humans, loves, souls behind to flail in the waves of oppression as I fan my face from the comfort of the boat.

Pages

 The pages of the calendar, covered with marks and dates, events and names

flip

flip

flip

I can see them in my mind. The wind blowing them away, rain drenching them, the sun drying them and leaving them like crumpled autumn leaves

Where was I in those pages?

I can feel myself, but I don't see myself when I look at them.

As I have sat in my spot, watching the pages curl at the edges and tear away from now, 

The body I am in has changed. Softened. loosened. Whispers of ache that feel familiar now, but  new at the same time.

Holding a cup of hot something, I watch, knowing that one day my calendar pages will be gone.

The pages of others will continue to fly away, filling the universe with dates and events and people's names.

Maybe that's what the stars are.

Fireflies

You may think that I have lost
touch with what it means to say
I love you
to you.

You may think it has become a reach
a plea
a desperate splaying of a
cavernous
and wounded
heart
to manipulate you into
wrapping me with
soothing arms.

You may think that it has
become an empty attempt
at chasing
fireflies of experience
past
to
hold them in a ball jar
and watch their glow
encapsulated.

You may think that it
carries not the fresh spring of
now, but
the tinny
metallic taste of water
held still too long.

You may think that it does not
run in field anew,
but lies in a huddled heap of sorrow,
anguished at moments past.

You may think that I have lost
touch with what it means to say
I love you
to you.

And even if all of those things are true.
There is more.

For the words I love you sing a
symphony of every longing
every joy
every hope
and dream
and laugh
and depth
and peace

that has been born, or has suffered between us.

It plays
a melody grounded in
roots, holding
all
of
those
things

from zygote to death thrall and
onto wings anew.

Beyond and because of
us.

A heart born a lifetime ago, reborn through devotion's pain.
Earning its patina and rooted
nonetheless,
takes flight.

I know
because





I love you.

I love you

Her:  I love you

Him: I love you

Her: I love you

Him: I love you. I love you. I love you.

Her: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Him: I love you

Her: I love you

Her: I love you

Him: I love you

Her: I love you. I love you. I love you.

Him: I love you

Her: I love you.  Do you love me?

Him: I love you

Her: Do you still love me?

Him: I love you

Her: I love you. I love you

Her: I love you

Her: I love you

Her: Do you love me?

Him: Yes

Her: I love you

Him: I love you

Her: How can I know that you love me?

Him: I love you

Her: I love you

Her: I love you

Her: I love you

Her: I love you.  Can you tell me that you love me?

Him: I love you

Her: Again?

Him:

Her: Please?

Him:

Her: Do you love me?

Him: I do

Her: I love you.  Please tell me you love me.

Him:

Him:

Him:

Her: I love you

Him:

Him:

Her: I thought you loved me.

Him: I do

Her: Why don't you ever tell me?

Him: I did.

Her: I love you

Him:

Him:

Her:

Him:

Him:

Her:  I love you

A Small Frog

A small frog hopped through the yard.  It could hear the water in the pond, the sounds of the insects. It could see the green leaves, and feel the moist dirt under its toes and the yellow sun soak into its gentle skin.

And then, the frog saw the most beautiful thing. The most amazing, intoxicating thing that it had ever seen.  A flower, of pink and red and orange that sparkled in the sun. It sang a song so beautiful. It swayed in the sweet breeze and bent its crown low for the small frog.  The frog wept and crawled beneath the petals, so grateful.  It kissed the stem and breathed the fragrance into its lungs. The frog had never felt so good.  He danced around the flower and wrapped his long, tender toes around it.

The small frog did that for a long, long time.  The little frog began to fear that if it wandered from the flower, he wouldn't find his way back.  Or, that it would be gone and he would never find it again. He missed something, but he couldn't remember what it was. So he stayed and breathed and breathed, and danced and danced.

Soon, the fragrance of the blossom became weaker, the song not as clear. He didn't understand, and he was sad. He realized that he wasn't twirling in glee anymore, but the beautiful flower hadn't changed at all.

The sun and the leaves and the breeze and the insects were still there.
Right there.
But the little frog chose the flower, and would not look at the other things as he hid in the flower's shade. The small frog didn't realize it, but his little body had become fragile. His green skin not as vibrant.  His eyes not as clear.

The little frog had forgotten that the flowers are just part of all of what is beautiful in the yard, and that small frogs need all of the beautiful, not just the flowers.
Fearfully, he hopped to pond, and felt the sun pierce through him.  He filled his small frog belly with insects and rolled in the lush, green grass.
It felt good.

And when he looked across the yard, he saw that the flower was still there.  He could still hear its song, and smell its petals, and feel its beauty.

And he was glad.

In An Instant

I wonder when I'll go.
I wonder what it will feel like.

I wonder if time will pull me in a slow arc over
expectation of loss
and days and days of goodbyes
too painful to say out loud.
Or if I will be swept away in an instant
leaving only a heap
of the me that I thought I was.

I wonder if I'll know
that night meanders toward me and
if I'll welcome it with a peaceful resignation.
If I'll hold the hands of those who have
walked in my life's heart
and let their fingers slide slowly
off of mine.

Or if, like a whip, I will find myself
somewhere else
watching.  Goodbye already outside of
my grasp.

I wonder what it will be like
when I go the way
that all have gone before.

One day
someday
one day

I'll know.

Alphabet

Arisen from the 

Banal of

Creating

Day to day,

Every moment

Flying by.

Going from 

Here to there,

I wondered where you were.

Joker

Kind

Lover

Mellow

Never ending something,

Over the 

Presence of all I had known.

Quiet wondering as to whether a 

Real

Sweet

True love might be

Under the 

Very next stone.

Willing it to land on the

X.  And then, there came

You.

Zing.

yellow light

yellow light
against the fence behind my house.
yellow light that beckons night.
yellow light that reminds me of color, and the sinking of it into nothingness.

yellow light
that haunts me
and
calls me
just the same.

Tapestry

Sometimes something reaches in and pulls out
the threads attached to
the
feelings connected to a person
the people
the ones
who have taken up residence inside of my heart.

They aren't fleeting. Or temporary.
They've woven themselves mercilessly into
who I am.

The feeling is so hard to describe.

It's a wailing of my spirit
a longing for
a needing
a knowing
a
dance that whips my hair behind me and knocks the breath out of me
while it breathes life into me
just the same.

Sometimes it hurts.

But mostly it makes me grateful
to be alive
in this life.

Grateful for

every             single           thread

that has made up this

tapestry.

Rainy Days

Rainy days
just make me wonder
where the sun be shinin' now......

Rainy days
they bring asunder
the sadness that fills our hearts
sometimes....

Rainy days
grey softness  covers
as I hide beneath its heather mist
and thunder rolls
singing our heart's
felt demise....

Rainy days
they
make me wonder
if everyone else is feeling it too...

Rainy days
the make my heart cry
knowing
that it just has to feel this way
sometimes.....

Ever Think

Ever think you've got it all together
and you just keep moving
toward
away from
here and there to where you think you
need to want to have to
go.

Ever think that you
put one foot in front of the other like you've always been
told that you should
and trusted what is coming next
watching it work
not work
fall apart
smoothly sail
but you don't really
know.


Ever think you've got the tools and
you know that
from the outside
from the eyes of all the others
that are watching you from their vantage points
into the view master that you've created
and you wonder if they can tell
that it doesn't feel as
nice and easy and perfect and charmed
as it looks through the lens of your iphone.

Ever think you thought you knew what you were doing
and then
a page turns
and you realize that
you have no idea
what you're doing
at all.

It Laughs.

I spin my thoughts
grabbing air
with certainty and
forming it into the shapes that I want it to hold.

Futile act,
and the wind

it laughs.


I reach into the careening stream and
will the movement to promise me
that it will travel just the
way that I want it to.

Determined girl,
and the water

it laughs.


I stretch my arms into the sky
my paintbrush in hand
sweeping color into the
above
sure that it will turn the
very hue
that I dream.

Bold attempt,
and the clouds

they laugh.

Sanctuary

From when I was nothing
in the moment I became

something

cells breaking into building into me.

From nowhere
somewhere
where
I came into your hiding place.

my sanctuary.

In a moment that
not even you knew
a silent burst of me
from dream to being
I was held in warmth

soft
love
red
dark
you.

my sanctuary.

In a secret not even you yet knew
your body my walls
my buffer
protected me from all that might harm
as I grew
from a something
into a something
into a something

new

my becoming
certain and loved
in

my sanctuary.

As my being grew
larger
able to hear you, feel you, know you.
The walls whispering that I might have
to soon leave
and see where it is that I came.

Violence and tumult
pushed pulled
forced and longed for and
loved and
coerced
softness gave way to harsh
and soothing darkness to light.
I mourn

my sanctuary.

My passive fish lungs failed
and in a heave of death
this planet blew life into my body.
So confused, wordless questions.
Where
Why
How
Is this the end of

my sanctuary.


Newness of angst in tears
down my tiny face
and in the face of
who's arms
surround and sooth
her breast my nourishment
her skin my clothes
her voice my song
I have fallen in love with

my sanctuary.

As I learned my boundaries
you were there.
My voice
you were there.
My song
My fears
My pain
you were there.
My growth
you were there.
My art
you were there.
My mistakes
My learning
My falls
you were there.
My wings
you were there.
My leaving
My returning
you were there.
My choices
My hurt
My children
My successes
My risks
My failures
My life
you were there.
My life
you were there.

my sanctuary.

And then, as I had chosen you so many
years before
I chose you again
and I choose you
again.

my sanctuary.

In my heart, you began to release
the stronghold that you have always had
on life.  On yours. On mine.
In slow steady moments lost to forever
I have watched you take steps
away from
who I have always known you to be.
I long for

my sanctuary.

As I sit close to you
and hold your hand.
As I hold close the you that you will always be to me.
I love you more than I
ever thought
possible.

and I know
beyond any shadow
that

You will always

be


my sanctuary.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day

I've always said that days that are calendar-ized are
man made. Meaning given not by life, but by someone else.
Yet, they come around as the sun rotates and I feel air as my butt finds metaphorical earth
after my legs are kicked out from under me.

I feel silly being public about missing my mother.
You get it.  I say it enough.
She's been gone for 37 years.
Get over it.  How much can it actually pain me at this point?

Sometimes I want to ask myself those very things.

and much of the time, it doesn't hurt.  but then a day comes
and the calendar says that we are all to sit and think about
our mothers.

And I can.  I do.  I am.

She was so beautiful.
Everybody loved her. That's what everyone says.
She was likable.
She was talented. She was loved.
I didn't have her very long.  My sister had her for even less time.
And I don't have a lot of memories.

I remember her making dinner when American Pie was on the radio
as Carrie and I sat at the round table with the bright yellow vinyl table cloth
waiting. The walls were wallpapered with yellow zig zag fabric.

I remember her hair. It was so pretty and simple.  Her face so warm and pretty.
She didn't have to try hard at all to look that way.

I remember her making bread dough ornaments with us in the kitchen for Christmas.
We sat at the Shakey's table in the breakfast nook.

I remember eating spaghetti at that same table. The whole family.  Candles were lit
for ambiance. Could that be why I'm so nuts about soft lighting?

I remember snippets of more.  The memories are like snapshots that I might find in one of the almost too faded and worn by years gone by to really be able to look at anymore photo albums.

She was a good mom.
Maybe I don't have enough data to know that for sure, but for 10 years, she was a really good, warm, loving, all-in mom.  It broke her heart that she knew she would die when we were young. It still breaks mine.

There is more to Mother's Day.

I have a step mother, Maxine,  that has been a lovely and stable presence in my life since I was 12.  I have aunts that I love like mothers. I have Anna, who is as much like a daughter to me as I will ever have. I never met my mother-in-law; she died when Eric was 21. I have a step-mother-in-law who is sweet and lovely.  My sister is an amazing, real mother to Hudson and MyLinh. So many of my best friends are mothers to their heart-filled kids. One of my friend's mother is fading to the unrelenting sorrow of Alzheimer's.
The world is filled with amazing, painful, gone, sick, loving, courageous, tender, nurturing, real, complicated mothers. Just the thought of all of the mother stuff takes my breath away.  In a good, and in a not good way.  All rolled into one deep breath suck.

I have a hard time just saying, "Happy Mother's Day" as a blanket statement.
There is so much wound up in the word mother.
My wish for all of us is that we hold those relationships, those memories, and those feelings close, and give ourselves a break if it's not easy.

I miss you, mom.

Honest

I still think about what it could be like.
If you were someone
that wanted
to have something
worth having.

I still start to plan on calling
and wishing
that we could talk about
what happened.
why.
what if.
I'm sorry.
Let's change it.
I love you.
We can start today.
Yes,
I've always loved you.

I still hurt knowing that it's rarely been you
that reached
or called
or remembered
or tried
or asked for forgiveness
or just made a fucking effort
at
all.

I still wonder what you've been thinking
all of these years.
Why my heart hasn't

mattered     enough    for     you    to     love     me.

Why you haven't reached or called or tried or remembered or taken
responsibility
for the fact that you were
the adult and
it wasn't my job
to keep you in my life.

But I did.

I still long for that feeling
when I was a child
and I looked at your
cool
strong
charming
dazzling smile
intoxicating handsome way
and thought
you'd be there forever.
Just like that.

I still sweep up pieces of my heart
from all of the
days moments years events milestones
that you gave away to someone else
and instead
sat in the dingy tv glow
with your lover in a bottle
while


i


grew


up.


I still wish for the father I always hoped you'd be
and
as the years
stack upon one another like
bricks and boxes and dusty repeats of things I have seen
again and again and again.

I wish
I wonder
I long
I weep
I try to make sense of how you could love me so
little.

and

I wish you didn't make it so easy
to try
to
forget.

Feet Grounded

I saw you in the corner of my eye
I was simply doing little things that I do
nothing special
nothing expected
stepping forward in contented banal.

and I felt you sweep softly into view
familiar presence
and grab my hand.
Your eyes caught mine as if to ask
if I might join you
and without time for response, you jumped into the sky
my hand held tightly in yours
my body slid into upward motion
and we flew.

For days and weeks it seems
above the everything
safe together
wings laced as we felt the wind at our faces
and the perfection of love
only laughter and flying and joy
with little thought of the
whats and hows and dos and needs and nails and hammers and wallets and calendars and.....

we flew and flew.

One day, our feet touched down.  Our eyes connected, we laughed
at just how breathtaking it had been.
And
the whats and the hows and the dos and needs and nails and hammers and wallets and calendars
beckoned.

Still our wings reach to touch, and we fly with one another.
In and around the hows and the dos and the needs and the nails and the hammers and wallets and calendars.
The air still at our faces.

It is finding the laughter and the flying and the joy
with feet grounded
and trust that the sky is certainly there
where our love lives.

I will always reach for your wings.

Trouble

If I were a child,
being parented by myself,

sitting low in a high back chair
finger wagging at me
by my very own self.

lectured for
patterns repeated
again and again and again
asked and pleaded with
warned and cajoled
threatened with consequences for

choosing yet again
to do
say
react
whine
scream
throw tantrum over temper tantrum.

If I were a young subject
sitting in front of a very large desk
an ominous me sitting a front.
my smallish legs dangling still from a chair
much too large
hands shaking on my lap.
Hearing that big voice tell me that my
choices
my attitude
my failure           once again           to do what I have been asked.

If I were that girl
getting a talking to from
the part of me that knows better.....

I think I'd be

in

trouble.

Feel it

I hope you can feel it.

The center place in you that is connected to something,
everything....
tethered to the everything.

I hope you can feel it.

I hope that when you wake in the morning
when you look at your children
when you touch your lover
when  you make a new friend
when you sweetly care

I hope you can feel that you are touching

love.

That word just never captures it.
Maybe it's because it's been so tired by the uses that we've given it.
When really,
it's not elusive
or small
or tinny
or what you find in $11.75 movies.

It's the

everything.

when you close your eyes, and there is nothing else but you
and what you know and what you feel and who you love.  It's there.

I hope you can feel it,
because it is so beautiful.

I hope you can feel it.  

The color and the love and the flow and the peace and the patience and the quiet
that resides
everywhere you look.

I can feel you not believing me, as life can be hard
and pointy
and painful
and lonely.

You're right.  It can.

But it's there.  I promise.


I hope
you
can

feel it.