One night after
a day of
let downs and
all the rest
I parked my car
in its spot;
let the engine run.
I couldn’t
step out
or turn the
engine off.
You came running
down the stairs
to my door.
You reached in,
turned off the car,
guided me out.
I thought maybe
that could be
enough
Fleeting
yet powerful
moments of love.
Tag: vulnerability
Fireworks
I wanted to
write
in biting
verse
Asking about
your party
and my friends
in attendance
I’d make some
metaphor about
Independence Day
I wanted to
lash out
and ask
how the space
felt as you
hosted.
I’m still angry -
I’m still grateful.
I’m not going
to maneuver my
schedule around
your’s, anymore.
And I won’t
reach for you
in drunken texts
or in venomous
poems.
In the end
all it is
is missing you
and us
and the summer
before
And if I can’t
let go
I hope you can.
I hope you find
better
I hope it’s
more than
fireworks.
Oh,
didn’t I tell you?
I repel
the explosions
and the smoke
Sometimes
I hate them.
The empty sky
and hidden stars
once the show
ends.
But you’re
not them
and you’re
no performance
You’re sun
in February
and lightning
in June.
You are joy.
“How was your party?”
I’ll ask, pointedly.
“Did you see fireworks?”
And if you ask if I
saw them, too,
I’ll nod and smile
in the same
restrained way
you smile at me, now.
“Sure, I saw them,”
knowing damn well
I didn’t even look.
Split
“Stay present,”
He advises.
Lovingly;
Selflessly
“I don’t want
you split between
two places.”
I want to laugh
You see,
you’ve been with
me, in the
mountains of
West Virginia.
Along the shores
of the
Great Lakes.
I saw you in
the mouth of
Mammoth Cave.
When the fireworks
reflected in
the D.C. waters.
I haven’t left
your hometown
in weeks.
“I’ll do my best,”
I assure him.
I’ve been trying
to untangle my
feet
wrestle them into
one place
For over a year.
luggage
behind every shining paper and mention lives the truth of the esteemed the person lives in the world of stories ideas regrets and wishes day after day and into the night adventures failures dreams and terrors do you think these meet her ears and fall to the floor burrow beneath the skin she is not infallible. "Go live - I'll keep these stories safe." The esteem exists in the trust between people in vulnerability. Therapists listen they try their best to live fully knowing truths of life so many attempt to keep locked away unpacked in luggage
Rising
Eye contact
the intimacy involved
in a gaze
that does not look away
even when my own
breaks
from the vulnerability of it.
Falling for him isn't
falling at all.
It's a form of rising
into something
greater than myself.
Rising into
a choice
of selecting
healthy thoughts
to believe
over maladaptive
pervasive
patterns of painful ones.
My body opens for him
and not simply to please
but to be pleasured in return.
He told me in some ways
it feels like I'm
a part of him.
He is steady
secure
he is calming.
I like the idea
of my own self
being a part
of him.
And he of my own.
Falling for him
isn't falling at all.
I don't feel a need
to be caught.
I feel the impulse
to rise.
Reflection
She says to me,
“You get to figure this all out.
What a beautiful
challenge to overcome.”
She suggests I look
not to the trauma
or the pain
but the fear.
Fear of being left.
Fear of being seen.
“You look through lenses
scratched and clouded.
You feel through fear.
Until you know your ground,
until you know
what you want
and expect nothing less,
you’ll continue to question.
You’ll continue to feel doubt.”
I look to her
tears decades old
decorate my face.
“So what now?”
She looks at me with
a knowing smile.
“You already know.”
Reading
Captured: the first time reading my words out loud.
Under construction
What is art
if not
navigating conversations
Observing patterns
of thought and behavior
Responding in ways
that can be received
by the person sitting in front of me.
This is the craft
you’ll find it
ad I listen
In the space that’s held
for a person
to freely express all that’s in them.
The light and the dark
the in between.
My craft is understanding
trauma and its presentations.
My art is understanding my own.
The Restless Crescent 