A Dream

Touch me again and let everyone 

Watch.

They are all only strangers. 

Muted and fading into the background of 

This.

This incredible love story that hasn’t been 

Written. 

We’re a painting, frozen in longing, your hand on my back, mine on your thigh, both of us full of breath but unable to

Breathe out. 

Against my skin. 

Move your hand around my waist and pull me nearer. 

Let there be another touch, and another, and another. 

Let there be a spectacle of love and lust and adoration and let them all 

Watch.

An illusion of control

Sometimes I feel the comfort of routine,

and other times I see only the arrogance

of presuming to know,

moment to moment,

where I will be.

Missing Someone

A moment later, he was gone and everyone was sad. No sadness as visible as my own, but all of us sharing the same breath as branches carry the same wind but sway in varying degrees. I am like the long narrow branch that overextended towards the summer sun and now looks as though it may not last the winter. The children are like the small greenwood branches deep in the undercarriage of the tree, sheltered from the turbulence of the air, too small to resist anything, too young to be brittle. 

My King

My King does not come riding on a dragon or a steed. He did not lift a single sword to make another bleed. 

My king does not wear armor or prepare himself for war. He gave his body over to be marked by blood and gore. 

My king was not too proud to fear, to beg a different course. But he, my king, died anyway, and yielded to the source.

My king does not need glory, nor sacrifice or fame. He gave the world a gift whether or not we know his name. 

My king is not a dead man, is not a man at all. He is everything that came before and all that will befall. 

My king is queen and she is him and he is you and me. His kingdom is within myself, though mortal eyes can’t see. 

My king is every color skin and every tongue on earth. He passes through our world with every death and birth. 

My king is someone I’ve always known, even when I hide. He’s rested in my soul, been patient as I lied

My king is dead and risen, today and every day. He lives again with every breath no matter what I say. 

Show me the place

Show me the place
where the forest meets the lakeshore,
and all their differences reconcile in the rocks and sand that wed and divorce them simultaneously,
where the easy morning light creeps over them with equal tenderness
and leaves the shadowy depths of both lake and woodland to their secrets.
Shimmering surfaces, uninterrupted landscape, boundless horizon….
Show me the place
where rock meets sky and its clouds bend to kiss and soften the jagged edges of the reaching stone, where the diving wind carries nameless birds in patterned waves over the cliffs and swiftly, effortlessly climbs back up again.
Show me the place
where the hunted are free, where the stag does not flinch to hear my company, where solitude does not beget loneliness, and my breath is not stifled by buildings.
Show me this place.

Yin

I don’t remember falling. Did you ask me? Did I ask you? Or did we both just answer a calling. I remember when your eyes met mine. The first time. The last time. Time is interrupted. And I’m orbiting within the blue. Bathing in your kindness, your calmness, the life you’ve lived through. In those suspended moments, I’m alive. I haven’t just survived. I’m seen and I see. I’m loved and I love. I’m finally really arrived. In the present.

It’s a high place to fall from. From present to past. A bitter contrast. Thoughts move too fast, and I can’t attach any feelings. I’m lost in the cost of repairs, in the price of affairs, in the multiplying layers of confusion. Is it delusion? Do other people feel this conflicted? Maybe I’m addicted to the fire.

Can the ocean in your eyes hold me when I’m blazing? Can you see past the flames and stay gazing? My god that hue is amazing. Let me linger, before you look away, take your fingers, and touch me while I stay, in your waters. Let me love you here and now, let me kiss your furrowed brow and make you happy. Don’t look away. This is all we get. Don’t look away. This is almost perfect.

Fuck Titles

I finally decided to pray

Dear God I’m not okay

I’m listening and I’m looking for signs

I keep on cleaning, keep on cooking

But I’m blind

I see nothing divine

I keep on going through the motions, daily devotions of hope

And fear

Why can’t you just appear

And fucking guide me?

Everywhere I look is a reflection of my grief

Where is the reprieve from the heartache?

What is possibly left to break?

For my sake, for their sake, for fuck’s sake

Let me rest

I mean, you know what is best

Or do you?

Do you care or are you indifferent?

A complacent God, an omnipresent fraud

I’m still praying…

Change my mind

Show me kindness, heal my blindness

Let me know how the fuck to heal

I don’t want to feel

Can we make a holy deal?

My pain for – anything you say

I’ll pray every day

Dear God I’m not okay

A space on fire

There are thoughts,

Visions,

Sensations,

That crash into me

With such precise timing that it’s as if

I sent them myself.

Like somehow, years ago,

I knew exactly where I would be standing now.

And she,

Years-ago-me,

Was determined to keep this fire burning,

To maintain enough agitation in my core,

That I would forever seek new forms of

Solace

And therefore grow.

And I do.

I receive these thoughts and visions and sensations and

Let them take up space inside me until

It burns too hot.

Whiskey

And neglect

Have fueled this wild conflagration that now demands

My attention.

I turn inwards,

Face to the flames,

And look

For whatever I’m supposed to find.

I kneel,

Bow,

Reach,

Twist,

Balance,

Focus,

Breathe,

Sweat.

I let the fire transform me

And try not to be afraid

Of change,

Of emerging somehow

Unrecognizable.

I will, of course,

Be me.

And maybe no one will know I was on fire.

Maybe my fate is to be alone with myself

And to discover peace there.

In a space unwitnessed,

Unappreciated,

Unloved,

Unknown,

By anyone, but me.

Horse Creek Reservoir

We built a fire next to horse creek reservoir
The frozen water bubbling with dormant life and summer secrets
And we stared into growing flames and apologized
Without speaking
For letting the fire ever go out
Both of us wishing we had burned alive
Instead of drowning on the periphery
Of greatness

By morning I was alone trying to light the ashes
Trying to reanimate even a spark on the cold mountain sand
But the time had passed for such forgiveness
And I wept
For twice as long as I burned
Until my memory of you sank deep in the water
Dormant for as long as this
winter lasts

Lost in music

My fingers tear across the hard brass strings.
They ache to find the right note
the right chord
to trigger my memory.
I found you once in a diminished B 7
but you vanished and moved on
and I’ve been playing ever since.
And what if you’re a melody,
Lost in a pattern in these goddamned frets.
Then I’ll learn to write songs
like I learned to play guitar.
I’ll find you, I swear,
and I’ll play you until I fall asleep.
I’ll play you until I bleed.
I’ll play you until I remember
or hallucinate the feeling
of your beautiful, calloused fingers on my face.