We could hide

We could hide up high
in a linen closet where
the snuggley folds lie, snoring
'til the hands that come to seek us
send us tumbling as they shake
our slumber and our bedding
shake our shoulders, show us
clocks and say, "It's noon now"
We could hide up in the blankets
'til they never come to seek us
in the morning, weaver weave us
we'll be sheets, we'll be blankets
on the shelf, the linen closet
strings and knots and sheets and blankets

i wish it was this simple

Your absence can turn blue skies into thunderstorms
You ruin me
I walk around doing things I enjoy
I speak to people I love
I succeed, I progress, I press on but I struggle against the weight
You took my heart clean out of my chest
But did you run away with it? No, not a thief with so much honor
You filled it up with memories
Made it heavy every time you walked out the door
Caused it to swell with pride, excitement, joy
And, with a few words, you shackled it to my ankle
And here I stand
Waiting for you to return
And chase away the clouds

perfect for me

I'm literally looking to the stars now
your sign and mine, those twinkling lights
dance past the moon and blue-black sea of dark
they whisper confidences in the night
I could not have picked you from a crowded room
to be my compliment, my confidante
they're saying low, how long I've wished to know
your identity, the best of me, astrology

what have you been up to?

look at me and tell me if you see someone you knew
this coincidence is prayer disguised as fate
today I'm searching for the "me" that I will leave behind tomorrow
like a shell left by the waves upon the shoreline

most mornings I roll out of bed at ten past five a.m.
to catch the last of midnight's sweetness turning over in the sky
I lift my eyes to heaven gradually
like great weights over my head
but still I thank the Lord above for one more day
on earth instead

it's not that every day is perfect
like you and me they have their faults
but I love each day I'm living
because of all that I have lost
I've lost friends and I've lost family
I've lost time and I've lost youth
but today I choose to lose myself to love
and loving you

icing

Everyone knows the icing does not go underneath the cupcake. It does not go on the side. You can't put icing on a crumbling cupcake, then it gets all the crumbs mixed up in it and makes a mess. You can try and fill in a hollow cupcake with the icing, but there is never enough to fill the inside and cover the top, and that's no good. If you're going to make a cupcake, make it the right way: one whole cake, with just the right amount of icing on top.
And that's basically how a relationship works.
Be a whole cake. Everything else is delicious, but it is just icing.

The Ministress' Black Veil

A veil to hide one’s face from view, is this not what I’ve done?

To make something appear as other than what it is?

Black, for the reflected objects thrown between the eyes beneath

And the veil before. Black, for the times they refused to shine.

Black. Because there was a time they could not see at all.

Redemption is the story in reverse, all tragedy so.

Once I was blind, but now I see. Once I could see, but now am blind.

How do you find your place in life when you aren’t sure of which direction you face?

One mind becomes another when we change it, but

Until it changes again, we can never know how it was wrong.

Any mind we are in is the right one, regardless of right,

Because any mind we are in is the only one we can see.

How could I, God, how could I have been so wrong?

Is the mantra of the blind made to see, or do they?

Change is the only constant; they will always see something more!

Or less, perhaps? Because who can tell, fickle humans?

Perhaps we are all always reaching toward the light, or at least ought to

And with each handful of earth we excavate as we crawl on hand and knee

We are apt to think, this is the one! The last barrier to my sight!

Only to find that mountains lay before us yet in their might, majesty

This clod of earth was childhood, this was high school, this

Was anorexia, this was depression, this was failure, this was

Illness, this was fear, this was those who stood in our way, they

Are behind us now. Because something is hard is never a reason to quit trying,

The opposite is true. For the child learning to walk, for the boy shrugging

Off the bully, for the girl cramming food down her unwelcoming throat,

If they were to stop trying, their struggles will have not only been fruitless

They will have been destructive. In this way, traveling toward the light

Is so closely related to delving in to the dark it is difficult to distinguish.

They are veiled, but not in iniquity. Only to shade their faces from the onslaught

Of dirt raining down upon them from before, the landslide

That threatens to push them back to the start. But these

Are the times, the times when holding on seems most impossible,

That it is most important. And maybe those of us who have it “easy”

Should spend a little less time kicking dirt behind us,

And a little more looking out for who is there. Which applies to all;

Behind every climber is another in the unending human chain

Behind every veil is another pair of eyes that long to see

The Love Song of _. ______ ________

“Why is every song a love song? It’s the only place where love is still alive and well. And why do we always sing along? Because these are our hymns”.

Hymns, we sing. By definition, obviously. We all sing. By nature, inevitably. Inevitably, we hymn. Sing –

to the untouchable, to the better, the highest. Sing – to the beautiful, the handsome, the hottest. Sing – to the only one we could ever want until one day they’re no longer wanted. Sing – because we have no choice. Sing – because emotion chokes us. Sing – when we can’t breathe, we can’t talk, we can’t see, we can
sing –

Because we can’t help it. Life is racing by us faster

And faster; at once it’s a rope that tugs you along, then

No sooner than you can get a good grip it’s a tumbling stream

Of water running through your hands. It gives me no end

Of aggravation, and you hear me scream and cuss because

Sometimes I just can’t hold on and that’s why I need YOUR hands.

That boy over there? He’s beginning to look like a man now

But on the inside he’s shaking, every day inching, closer

To graduation and he’s scared, scared stiff

To stare life in the face. Sometimes he swears there is no way

He will get on in life and that’s why he needs HER hands. That girl?

There’s no place she goes without her friend by her side, who

Has a kind word on her lips and an open heart always, who

Yesterday found a lump, and tomorrow will know how long and

Sometimes she swears nothing in life is fair, but if it had to be someone..

She knows she’ll have a hand to hold. There are women and men,

Who walk in and out of each other’s lives like specters in the broad daylight

And maybe they will never know what it has been like

To really live their lives? But that won’t be me in twenty years, I won’t

Be the one to lay back and be swept along, the current to comfortable chairs,

Luby’s lunches and early bedtimes, that won’t be me. I’ll be the one, you’ll see me,

Latching hands as I go, building a force to be reckoned with, leaving no one behind,

A wall of bobbing persons in the river, each one of them my friends, my loves,

I will latch hands with the lonely and the broken, the happy and the exultant,

The forgotten, the bothered, the busy, the mindful, my sisters,

My family, my darlings each, each and every one

Damming up Time until it must stand still, it simply must because

Until it does, we will.