Growing Up

To watch a child grow up is to nurture a tender pocket of beating flesh into a conscious willful being.

To watch a child grow is to know the softest spots in a person and notice how these areas harden in response to the world.

To watch a child grow is to see how quickly life blossoms and transforms. 

To watch a child grow is to touch sweetness and know it intimately, only to let it go. 

To watch a child grow is to witness the expansion of knowledge and the sponge that soaks it up and squeezes it out in a conglomerated form.

To watch a child grow is to hold space for beautiful messes and wrong turns, sacrifices both expected and unexpected.

To watch a child grow is to unfold the folded pieces of your heart and write new messages on the inside.

To watch a child grow is to hear the whisper of the future as it echoes off the present.

To watch a child grow is to see how life arranges and re-arranges itself around the fiery light of love.

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This Is Where We Land

This is where we landOn the edge of today The cusp of Tomorrow Where hope crashes Against now And thoughts manifest In real time Along the map Of desire Latitudes of beginnings Longitudes of endings No finish line Only circles No score Only love When your feet ache Sit on the earth Let her hold you When you're hungry Eat Then eat again When you're sad Look up Drink something Sparkly When you're tired Sleep Say no Say yes Say Whatever You Damn Well Please; You are alive You can Dance Kiss Throw your arms Around the nearest Beating heart You won't live forever So live Now.

Let's Be Romantic

Let's be romanticLet's stay in bed all day And count countless Stars at night Let's see how much Of my skin Can touch Your skin Let's talk about All of the ways We are different We can tell New secrets And old stories In new ways We can draw Constellations By connecting The freckles Maps of future Lifetimes We can imagine All of the different Ways we will meet And fall in love Whether or not We will ascend Or go extinct We will talk about Everything Anything Except for one thing: What happens If we fall out of It.

What she doesn't want

The lies came down in sheetsHeavy like someone walking on the roof But it was only the beating of Rain from low clouds The kind that never really lift She mistook your admiration for love You could only love her from afar You never loved her real self Her fractured self Her selfish self Her self that digs holes to love in Her self that wants to be found Her self that fills in the holes without help You didn't have the patience for Her shameful self Her victim self Her self that rises like cream Her self that doesn't know what she wants Only what she doesn't want.

Ungrateful (A Poem)

I have two good legsI hardly notice them I love my husband I always want more from him I adore my kids Sometimes I don't like them They are the only reason I know for sure I matter Sometimes I get sick But I am strong And smart and beautiful And insecure I am wasted space A tangled mess of power Pushing without organization Working without focus Deficient of attention Pulling knots tighter Not looser I am angry And I am grateful Blessings Can be curses Hope can do nothing If we don't lean upon it We are trapped Between narrow perspectives Like a tiny ant Searching for sustenance In the middle of a football field Where all directions look the same And he runs Away from the food Away from the others Because he doesn't know. He doesn't know. I don't know either.

We shouldn't be allowed to love so much

We shouldn't be allowed to love so much We are going to die

We are going to break each other

And leave the pieces still scattered

All it takes is a strong grip

The right set of circumstances

The wrong eye contact

A chance meeting

A kiss that landed wrong

A stretchy good bye

A sticky gaze

A flash of recognition

Serendipity

Hesitation where hesitation means only one thing

The brush of a finger

The glimpse of a shoulder

Saying the wrong thing

Saying the right thing

Saying words you never meant to say but can never take back

Going with the flow even when you don't like where it's taking you

Changing course

Going separate ways

Going home together

Falling apart

Staying home together

Staying together

Inebriate

It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake

Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain

She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger

An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness

She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.

Invisible cloak

My heart swings open.

They climb inside

Squirm

Get comfortable

It sounds like

The womb

Smells like

Heaven

Looks like

Beauty

Feels like

Somewhere hurt can't find

An invisible cloak

Of soft supple folds

Bound together

With a sheath of power

A gauzy squeeze

Ripped with bruises

Grasping

Gasping

For time

All they do is grow

Bloom

They are never the same

From one minute

To the next.

Neither am I.

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Kaleidoscope

My girls need me.

They need me to pay attention, soothe, be steadfast.

But I am erratic.

My attention is scattered in piles like fallen leaves in the autumn.

Cayenne crimson, turmeric orange, ginger yellow.

The colors of my temper, spicy like the evil twin

who lives somewhere in my head not heart.

The earth spins and the leaves die and

emotions run like wild horses and

no one can control any of it.

I see it in my daughter.

Four years-old with emotions loud as a train wreck.

She opens up her heart when its bursting and

spills her frustrations all over the universe.

Like fallen leaves in the autumn.

More than I am angry I am glad

She expresses herself with the freedom of a person who is safe.

Wild horses do not thrive in cages or in crowds.

But in wide open spaces

our emotions have room to dance and turn

an ever-shifting kaleidoscope

its beauty a product of all the colors.

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Summer's sticky pace

What is already open?

Heart.

Hunger.

Love an ever thickening pulse that directs every move.

Ambition an intravenous substance that keeps me moving

Even at summer's sticky pace.

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Unfurling

She opens to this plane of being

Unfurling unfolding uncurling

Like the spiral of hair on the crown of her head

She stretches her limbs longer today than yesterday

Grabbing and kicking at an understanding

Of what it means to exist

Here and now.

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Infinite tunnel

Everyday I open to the love that pulses through my veins

A love that comes from unfathomable depths through infinite tunnels

I fear this love will turn me mad and still, I love on

An interesting shade of beauty shines with messy precision

I cannot conquer the messes nor match the precision

Either I open to this beauty and it trickles through me

Infusing everything I feel, say, touch, hear and do

Or the beauty paralyzes me

I can't move lest everything fall to pieces

Opening contracting closing

Closing is part of the opening.

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my full moon super powers

my full moon super powers--

Fly. See all of creation from up there. Skip through space to embody unknown dimensions. Walk to the other side of this planet. Understand the nature of beauty. Feel history as it pulses under my skin. Read a book by picking it up. Traverse the highway of time. Float. Levitate. Hover. Become everyone at once. Speak without words. Communicate across blank spaces. Shapeshift. Tumble through clouds. Read my heart aloud. Hold conviction as strong as the ocean. See God in the looking glass. Memorize the map engraved upon the deepest layer of spirit. Live the loftiest existence of my soul's imagination. Catch my baby's cries with unconditional kisses. Hold them forever. Grant grandiose wishes with the wink of my eye. Erase conflict with the nod of my head. Become the wind. Exhale abundance. Hear the echoes of animals. Unpeel the scars of living. Disappear. Reappear. Remember. Turn inside out. Show my insides to the kindred. Love all the children. Breathe in the babies. The crown of each head. Wrap my arms around the ocean. Unwrap the meaning of now. Sit in the stillness of sun. Bloom. Keep faith between my fingers, always close to my fingertips. Intuit without doubting. Play life like a movie. Slow motion. Rewind. Fast forward. Repeat. Open. Heart, mind, soul. Of infinite boundaries.

Photo credit: Alisha Sommer

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Leave

I know enough to know

That perfection is fleeting

Misleading

And things could fall apart

If we turn our backs

For a second too long

Tsunamis start

Long before land turns to sea

Hence vigilance

Warning systems carefully constructed

No one will protect you

But you.

Break away from

A static hold

Set the alarm

Lock the door

Leave the house

Adventure outward

Lose your way

Lose the key

Break in through the window

You know the code

No one can keep you out

But you.

Collective Unburdening

Where we come from

The edges are supple

Not rigid

Blurring into the ether

And each other

Where nothing is separate

Not even our minds

Our ideas bleeding

Together

Spreading infections

And immunity

And tolerance

And maybe love.

Maybe love.

Collective unburdening

Divulges

A sparkling collection of

Modern thought

Where love of all colors

All iterations

Can be tolerated

Differences celebrated

Repression

Oppression

Confiscated by the past

Condemned by the future

Like crucifixion and the gallows

Gone

But never

Forgotten.

The work

Stop and start and stopfickle compulsions of the head making night-time final decisions based on a lucid dream. You think the work has feelings for you like a lover who leaves not love notes for remembrance but withered hopes and layered cuts. Flowers blossom faithfully in spring but never when we're looking change only perceptible after it's changed everything. It's a miasma of missing things even while doing everything it's never enough of anything stuffing holes with beautiful distraction. Pressure chips away at the beauty no one ever saw the potential we forgot to use the hours we'll never get back.

Birthday Party

Written for Tipsy Lit Prompted: describe a family tradition that has changed over time. Mother bakes a cake and the children play games in the great outdoors. Maybe they sing, maybe they have candles, maybe they don't. Gifts are bestowed upon little dimpled Johnny, the birthday boy, gifts that are handmade with care. A bear knit by grandma. A pretty picture by sister. A picture book by best friend. Flowers from mother's garden. A car built by father out of wood. A car built by brother out of sticks and sweets. This was a good old-fashioned birthday party.

Johnny is now Grandpa John. Allison, his granddaughter, also has her birthday parties at home. Her mother hires a professional party decorator to impress the adults and her father pays a magician to mystify the children. Because children need to be entertained. They suck on lollipops and juice boxes and when her mother brings out the buttercream cupcakes nearly the size of Allison's head, cacophony breaks loose. Every classmate and old friend and cousin within reasonable driving distance runs at top speed in a different direction. But the parents are on their seventh bottle of champagne by then, so they giggle and chatter on.

It's a party for everyone! Everyone but Grandpa John who sits in the corner with his hearing aid turned down, observing the madness with amused, grateful eyes. When Allison finally sits before the piles of shiny gifts, she is so high and happy that she barely stops to look at each present she opens. Her friends, on the other hand, don't hesitate to put the gifts to good use.

When the last one has been opened, the exodus begins. Hugs and high fives and coats and extra cupcakes shoved out the door. Wrapping paper litters the floor like a rainbow-colored blizzard. Little Allison falls asleep upon the snowflakes, lips and cheeks red as cherries.

You've Never Felt For Me

Take me by the hands

Let us intertwine our

fingers Like our ugly

lives and Overlapping

toes Like the city we

love to memorize Up

here on the roof

Kiss me with everything

You've never felt for me

Then shove me over the

edge Let me spill across

the sidewalk Somersault

Into another dimension

You will be forgiven I will

be forsaken No one will

be alive to know What

happened But for you

And your uncrying heart

Please spare me from

Yourself My knees are

purple from begging

You who've molded

my theories Like putty

and Taken the sparkle

from my eyes To keep

in your pocket Where

it will live Even after

I'm dead and gone.

A Black and White World

No one wants to live withinA black and white world

Where white skies Turn water black

And vapor mutes color We want vibrancy

Blood dripping crimson Bruises shining purple

Butterflies flying In streaks of orange

Lemony drops of sunshine Against indigo depression

Jade valleys to contrast With red hot love

Harnessing the energy of One luminous star, it shines

Whether or not we notice Until the end of days

Fear not, my dears We will arrive together.

Follow Me

There is no time, shouted the wrinkled man with a folded spine, wildebeests running across his eyeballs. He wished he were one of them. Getting the hell out of there. If she gathered everything she wanted from her cabin, they would be sacrificed to the sea. Anna took a long gaze at her jewelry box and gilded picture frames from the doorway. The old man hissed at her as he hobbled towards the exit. Really, her hesitation lasted the smallest of moments, but a split second becomes eternity when you can hear the ocean gushing towards you, when you're already in the belly of the ship, below water, practically daring the ocean to swallow you whole.

He wasn't ready to go home to the angels. Though he'd lived a long and full life, he couldn't ignore the feeling that he had many more good years on the planet. He had great grandkids with full heads of red hair and the most achingly beautiful granddaughters an old man could imagine. He had no wife, he hadn't had one for a while, but he had children and true friends and a house down the street from a deep blue lake where he fished every day from May through September.

The girl stepped back into the room. She was drawn to her things like Sleeping Beauty to the spindle. She had gold in her eyes and the devil on her shoulder. The man yelled from his belly, stop! You're going to drown! But the sound came only from his throat. Spindly and quiet. He'd run out of that kind of power decades ago.

He hated her. She didn't deserve to live if she believed pretty things to be bigger than a life. What did she think would happen if the ship went down? Did she fancy herself a mermaid? Did she think she could outrun the ship, the weight of the ocean, the force of God? He staggered towards her, purple fingers stretching for her ivory neck.

Follow me now, or you will die. 

And then he turned and fled. He wanted to look back but he feared this would kill him. He did not see his life flash, rather the faces of his children hurtled through his mind at an alarming speed. With each face, he climbed another rung of the ladder. He was the last person saved from the ship.

Photo Credit: born1945 via Compfight cc