dark waters of love...

for my love.


intermixed between the voices
i hear you
whispering alongside my body

your sweat by exhalation
covers me in a mist like love

my body aches to move
and go
but you ask
for me to stay

you write letters
obvious
and precise on my skin
and you read my words unspoken
through rhythm
and just knowing

and speak them aloud to me.

as these days move onward
and i fall apart then back together
spilling about myself and all over you
i don't have to describe my messiness
to you
but i do

and you take it in
and take me in
and you do what you don't know how
and what you do know how
to me
and for me
and with me

and you watch me struggle
and sway in this seemingly biggest fight of my life to date
and you stand in grace
and reflect back to me
what i am not
and what i want to be.

then you spit fire for a bit
and let me revive you

this is our dance as of late
it is unpredictable
and senseless
though very necessary.

i am growing and it hurts
and you are witnessing
and it hurts

and we are somehow simultaneously
syncronized in our opposite-ness.

a love recognized and breathing softly.
through saltiness
and blurriness...

napoleon complexion...

a conversation
with an old friend
who i have given permission to know me in ways i'd rather not divulge.

he just knows
because he's witnessed 13 years of me
because he is more than half awake.

i trust him as much as i understand him
which can be more or less depending on the day and time of the month that we speak.

he reminds me
that i may never get what i want in these things
that i may never understand what i want to have.

that i must learn to accept because that is all that is left.
the grief that has been a constant next to the disappointment
and frustration.

how we learn to just take things for what they are
takes more work than i think i'm capable of manifesting.
but like a difference of point of views
i take the road
and search for similar results in a new destination.

i take one step closer to understanding how these things work
and how ties can be broken
must be broken
severed
and buried.

that is the only way i can survive.

he speaks and i busy myself with fixing things i can actually touch
and see
i add parts
and drop others
and though they crash to the floor
they are not broken
like
the figurative yet real
situations that suck me dry.

the fact that i still have a heart
convinces me that i can navigate most things.
the very real truth in my existence and will to love
is a testament that these seemingly biggest of things
have not broken me

but only made me understand
that there are no limits to the complexities
of family.

i can't escape but i can come to accept things for the way they are
and the way they are not present in my life.

the one lesson i most needed to learn came from the lips
of a stranger
who i let know me
witness me
and save me just a little
in this moment.

he says to me-

can you stay?
can you leave?
can you fall for a while?
as you learn to just accept?

folds in trees...

dog eared bent and unbent pages remind me.

i wake each day to learn the hard facts of life
i wander from address to home
street to life
chair to wall
memory to forgetfullness
to learn what breaks us all in an un-noticed moment-
grief
pain
loss
and
misunderstanding.

there is conviction of the heart that lives here in these parts.

i search for a commonality
in every corner that i park myself
i look for the condition
and the one connection
that binds us all

sometimes i find it
and other times i lose myself in trying to create it

i wake up and i seem to recreate the dilemma
that plagues me here in this life.
the lesson of persistence.
but a wayward persistence that undoes itself in the making.
i have fought hard to learn these lessons
and though we've spoken about it-
it eludes me now
and the lesson is temporarily lost again
while i am out there searching for myself
again.

desperation can make a predictable fool out of us
what we want
what we think we deserve
and what we fight for-
all intermixed in the cloud of privilege and greed.

i never quite understood the later parts
and how they are largely ignored in the psyche of most.
i never quite understood how dismissive people can be as well.
if you can't register something genuine
then how can you fool yourself into believing what isn't?

i am simple
when i'm complicated
i work on a system of levies
and tides

you won't find me anywhere but in the waters
floating
sailing
sinking
and
swallowing

there is a notice
a red flag
that presents itself to me
time and tide again

the lesson i'm forgetting
and denying
and not privy too
often enough

it lies in the curly
and the tangled
parts of the cut off parts of me
but it's growing back
and i'm coming around again to notice-

it tells me
and this time
finally
i recognize the letters
written in slow
big
letters
on my back.

they say:

you need to listen to the voice inside...

forgiven...

i don't do well with these sorts of things
heavy
and hard

i'm happier in the abstract concoctions of the imagination.
cryptic signals
broken meanings
and lyrical misinformation.

i keep dreaming about her
and in each dream there is a connection unrecognized but clearly apparent and felt.
i recognize the undertow of emotion but she is misled in her hesitation.
i don't get what the dream symbolizes.
should i delve into getting to understand her better
or into getting to understand myself?

last night the same lingering emotion was represented by another familiar person. on some level they sort of remind me of each other- one a childhood friend and adult aquaintence and the other a passerby in my work life.

i am baffled and confused by these emotion filled misunderstandings and omissions of truth.
what is the world telling me from behind a thin veil of tubular repression?

my past has been showing up on my walks lately.
i'm not the type to ignore someone when they are within earshot of me so i speak
and the moments pass and the familiar gestures are presented and responded to
and then we part
and i can't recall much of where i was coming from or what i said.
i've just been in that sort of haze lately..

god only knows that so many of the colors have come to fade away in my life recently.
i am here in body only.
yet i feel my brother all around me in spirit- only missing a body.

i won't lie and try to make anyone believe that i'm more than the less of what i usually am in this temporary disjointedness. i am a proverbial directionless woman at the moment and though it gives me an excuse to sit and accomplish little or make much effort (which is all i'm capable of) i recognize that the moment is full of promise as seedlings of future expansion is within me and i'm looking towards tomorrow for that new beginning.

i am giving myself permission to fall a part and be erratic and moody and selfish for a while until i figure out how to move forward with the new normal that i have been thrust into. i will falter and yell and give up temporary hope of making something of this incredible loss that i could have never predicted that i would feel and then i will remind myself that this happens every minute of every day all around me- loss.

and i will wake up a little bit more every day
until i am me again
and when the day comes that i feel alright
then i will move with a little more grace-
but until the day comes
forgive me for falling a part...

standing corrected..

it will be there first.

and it will be unrecognizable to the part of you that you've come to know
and mostly rely on.
and in the in-between moments you may think you've figured it out
or mostly gotten past it.

but it will be there first.

there will be a semblance of what was whole
but in reality
what you believed to be true
was not.
and not only was it a lie
but it was a messy lie.

there were words
and there were motions
and neither really connected
to what made sense at the time
before or after.

you watched like a child
believing the sort of fairy tale
that you had hoped it was
was nothing but a facade
and mislead expectations.

when you're ready to let go of all the lies
and start looking at the truth of the matter,
let me know.
i will give you the harsh reality
using gentle words
and pretty pictures
to make it easier to swallow-

and it will be there first.

the strength that you have prided yourself on having
won't fit the bill of this magnitude.
it will chip away the familiar
and will test every bit of sanity and resolve that you have come to expect that lives in you.

you will be broken
and unrecognizable to yourself and those who think they know you.
you will remember it much differently
and not at all like it is
and was
and will continue to be-

and it will be there first.

but in the days you will be given
and the time
that you will take
things will change
and
become more clear.

you will shed the broken parts
and new understandings will emerge
if you can stomach the patience that it will take.

there will be breakdowns
and fits
and moments lost
in the abyss of learning and transformation

but it will be there first
i promise you.

and you will recognize it once again when your eyes open
and the light is a little brighter
and you feel a little lighter.

i will be there to show you what still remains
and how much of what you thought you lost
is less than what you've come to find.

give it time
and recognize that even fairy tales have plots that are believable on some level.

don't lose faith in these moments
because they will return you to a place better than now.

you are bound to come around
and it will be there first..

dissonance unrefined..

phrases,
they come to me randomly
and in no particular order.

some of them i write down
and some of them i watch float by and out of my conciousness.

i am fragmented on a good day
and emotionless on most.
i recognize that things are moving quickly around me
but i am stuck in this disconnect
this place where over used words
and empty reality cliches don't phase me.

i am connecting to little right now
and they tell me that's ok-
that it's part of the grief.

but no one told me about the anger
the wrenching, soul crushing anger
that would spill and
leak
and
ooze from my pores.

i was not prepared for this sort of thing
and in the most crippling of moments i am seized by it-
unable to move
cry
or even
speak.

the fury is uncalculated
and sore
and oh so eager
to spill-

there is no way to rub this out
or give it a name

it feels stuck in me
and i can't shake it or wash it off.

but you see brother
it's not just about you
and how you left-
or the unrecognized moments
or conversations we had yet to have.

it's about everyone else
and what i've seen.
it's about not understanding
this sort of thing.

i may as well justify it
and then go on justifying it forever
but i'm not that person anymore.

i just don't know what to do with this.

you 'checked out'- as grampa wrote down in the address book of grandma's when she died;
before any resolution found it's place
you took the easy way out
when you look at if from the vantage point of the one's left behind.

i didn't see you as a quitter before and it's hard to start thinking that way now.
i know you wouldn't want me to see that way,
even if for a minute
but brother there was so much we didn't learn
so much i didn't teach you
and so much i didn't tell you that you taught me.

these feelings are knocking me sideways
and though on a better day i know this isn't the end,
but merely a new obstacle for us to overcome and get through-
i just wonder how people are gonna get past it..

a correspondence to an unwritten letter...

i can tell you that i won't recall what i'm about right now, later
you will have to promise me that you won't remind me either.

without focus i have been wandering for weeks
nothing much registering
my moods have been in more places than the most traveled nomad.
i am without
much more than the currency that my reputation holds
which may or may not be worth much to some people right now.

dreams come in heavy heaves
placing me somewhere familiar and unfamiliar the same
in the most lovely of moments i am surrounded by beautiful people
i am being pursued by a beautiful woman who can neither see through my thinly disguised confusion
or imperfections.
i am comfortable in the longer of moments we share
but there is always something bigger pressing, calling out to me to figure out.
i somehow keep getting caught up on the beautiful woman in front of me and fail to see the lesson i'm there to learn.

when i wake i am full
and i am a little bit empty
wanting so badly to fall back to sleep to hear the words i missed
to see the things i didn't catch at first glimpse.

like an aged man with a dying libido who must somehow prove he is still viable
i live in a moment with a grandiose self sacrifice of blindness so that i can avoid the awful truth of what i have become.

sometimes it is bearable and sometimes i do not recognize whose feet i am standing on
or who's rough hands i am holding..

just the same i fall asleep each night and search for some meaning that i missed the night before.

i tell you, i won't recall this shell of a person that i have become- to cope with the madness i've seen of late.
and i'd rather, sweet friend, if you spare me the reminder of the empty pictures that you take of me through this time.
i know i will return from this dark journey brighter somehow

just give me time
and don't remind me of where i've been...