Sun
kissing (down) on
my face; the feeling
of it feeding my soul
through my skin; the feeling
of drinking warm draughts
of goodness in exchange for
nothing
but my full attention.​​​​​​​

-

Whatever's
not indigenous to
my mind
or strung into the bloody sinews
of my heart
is lost to me

before
or
after

I have it in my hands.
Holding on
or reaching out
is nothing.

Only
what was mine
from the beginning
is mine still.​​​​​​​​​​​​

​from 'Inside' in Its Inside-Out & Orange

3.

​Nothing
is forever.  That will be a poem;
that life; that fight and failure and struggle
to get up; that

falling and bending;

that weeping and heaving;  that giving
and giving and
giving;
that knife in the hand

to cut the ties of the soul

to it's guilt and it's overdone
memory;
that flight to freedom.  That life
will be poem.​​​​​​​​​​​​​

2.

We stretch only to the frayed edges,
the feathery band of
warp without weft,
the unravelling of the night bringing

uncovered

cool morning:
a gap in the fabric & an end
to that piece of weaving​​​​​​​​

in
and
out,

a chance to look at the pattern
and decide what to choose
for the next beginning.​​​​​​

1.
​
All the loose ends
On the frayed edges
Of our darker days

Solidify

into a (slightly) lighter
coloured line of hope
above the flurred horizon
of unquiet wakefulness​​​​​​​​.

A lightening
of the weight
of those ​blanket days
we couldn't sleep under
anymore,

pressing down like a heavy child
on our knees, numbing
our legs and keeping us
in our uncomfortable places.

Now that the line is drawn
through our frazzled lives
and appears
(only as we move away)

we finally have a border
to darkness, a whiter edge
to that long furry colour.​​​​​​​​​​​​

The woollen scratches of our pain
and their fuzzy confusion do not stretch
anymore as far as

the eyes can't see.​​​​​​​​​

Sometimes loneliness comes without
expectations,
visiting.
​Not drinking tea or sitting down, just

standing by the window, looking out,
down
the street,

as if planning to go every minute,
but staying
hours and lifetimes
without ever quite
leaving the room.​​​​​​​

​from 'Inside' in Its Inside-Out & Orange

Tonight
I can write:  "I loved him
more than my own soul,"
and know that at last I am safe
from my too-much-love:

Everything is safe that is past.

Tonight
my (tenderer)
Soul is relieved​​​
and cannot help singing softly
to my (bigger) Heart:

'He (dis)appears!'
into yesterday

and I stay here;
not quite remembering everything about his sometimes-love
and that I left him not-quite-alone.

I breathe out my love-endings
from broken cocoon-lips​​​​
like butterfly-kisses
blown

from my softer Soul
to my stronger Heart.​​​​

 ​​​​​

​Inspired by Pablo Neruda's Puedo escribir los versos