Real and Connective Tissues

Lately I've just felt like images.
But I still have things to say.
Oddly at peace lately,
more than ever.
I knew it could be like this,
wished it true.
I'm doing the work and I do care.
I do the work because I care,
about healing and wellness
and learning from who I was and who I want to be.
Just me and me and me.
Coasting and gliding
past familiar terrain.
Odd to think of you now,
as I'm fresh and shiny and new.

I don't approach it lightly,
this thing called love.
Still quite guarded to those undeserving,
who intend me or themselves harm.
Hurt people hurt people,
and you hurt in the way I've known well.
It's ok, it's alright.
Just as I'm not fearful of being sad for awhile.
An emotion like any other,
I also know such joy and luxury these days.
The cost of being reborn, being remade.
Of being burned out and burned up,
carefully chose which pieces to pick up.
It's not that I feel invincible or beyond reach
of damning waves and steep cliffs.
But I've scaled it and learned to climb,
bridged the gap between heart and mind.
You don't scare me, dear.
I'm not going anywhere.
Not delusion, nor grandeur.
Here is where I am, as long as it feels right.
Right and here and real and connective.

Nothing but Waves

Perhaps it is true,
that I want nothing from you.
But just now that nothing feels like everything.
Like really something.
Like energy and fire and power and flame.
Peacefully powerful flame.
Like you and me,
riding waves and crashing dreams.

Cloud Surfing by Trash Riot

Her Love is Tempered with Fear

tem·per

/ˈtempər/

verb

gerund or present participle: tempering

1. 1.

   improve the hardness and elasticity of (steel or other metal) by reheating and then cooling it.

   • improve the consistency or resiliency of (a substance) by heating it or adding particular substances to it.

     synonyms:

     harden, strengthen, toughen, fortify, anneal "the steel is tempered by heat"

2. 2.

   serve as a neutralizing or counterbalancing force to (something).

   "their idealism is tempered with realism"

   synonyms:

   moderate, modify, modulate, mitigate, alleviate, reduce, weaken, lighten, soften "their idealism is tempered with realism"

3. 3.

   tune (a piano or other instrument) so as to adjust the note intervals correctly.

Living this life. Thank you.

Blood Oranges and Sweet Nothings

Beaming. Walking in even late, the smiles couldn't help but pour out.
They know, they know something is off. Something is new.
Smiles, smiles and eye glances for miles.
Hair in braids, carrying a pie.

All this corny shit. It comes to me, quotes and temptations to pontificate.
I know not if it be fleeting or longer and drawn out.
And the odd realization is, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
So present and in the moment.
Gratitude seems an over-utilized verb as of late,
but I can't say I've ever quite been here.
Out of my head, yet settled right in my body.
Grounded, yet floating high.
Here and now, but capable of dreams and future fantasy.
Feeling free and non-possessive.
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
Falling, but standing up tall. So tall.
Lady Gaga and cuckoo bananas,
wide-eyed and curious and determined still.
Still. Still me. Still all those cracks and fixes.
All of me with pieces and parts of you.
Beyond where I once used to be.


Otherwise inconsequential dances tell tales,
maybe realities yet unseen.
What's it to you? What's it to me?
Everything and nothing and something
really something.
Even life changing. Could be.

And the goodbyes.
The goodbyes.
Did I tell ya about the goodbyes?
The challenges that change ya.
Elevate you to new and freshened levels.
Demand the most and see you at your best.

Meet you where I'll meet ya,
where we meet and you meet me.
On bridges and edges and the precipice.
Maybe it's not true for every person that beyond fear is freedom,
something bright and blustery
demanding, but not at all.
Out of my depths, and swimming just fine.
I've learned to pace my breathing down here,
to make my own flotation devices.
Roll myself into that ball,
complete and lovely and craving you still.
Filled up beyond the brim.
Thirsty and eating it all up,
bit by bit and each moment,
closer and closer.
Not afraid really, not even a bit.
I'll dance with you, if you want to dance with me.
Right here, right there.
With you, darling, anywhere.
I'll leave it at this,
whatever may come, be it nothing more or more bliss.
All of it and all of you. Lovely you.
Thank you, I mean it. For existence.
For sharing and giving and blood oranges and sweet nothings.

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other,” it said.

The Angry and Beautiful Truth

I think the anger is buried. The anger is buried and it carries a weight
that I don't even know to acknowledge.
I'm angry that you're gone and missing
and maybe still not getting help.
I'm angry that no one ever put up boundaries that made a damn difference,
that money was equated with love and caring
and that we now have none to give.
I'm angry you didn't know better and thought I was mean,
that I didn't care. That I wasn't willing to enable and shield.
I'm angry that this week was your birthday
and that I can't say it to you.

The truth is a brutal bitch
and the truth is I miss you.
But I can't be with you.
I'm angry that I have become some default secretary and gatekeeper of data.
It's not what I wanted for me and for you and for us, all of us.
I'm angry at so many enabling people,
at toxic behaviors and beliefs perpetuated for so long.
I'm angry that we were made into adults as we inhabited children's bodies.
That other adults meant to guide us acted like children, so we couldn't.
I'm angry for the pain in the world and that things really aren't fair.
I'm angry that that's not how it works.
That cycles of abuse perpetuate until someone is ready to feel it.
And I've sat through the fiery remains of all we were, what family became.
Examining and cultivating new definitions. New realities.
Without Mom and without you, dear sister. Without Grandpa.

I'm angry that she can't remember and even when she could,
didn't have the tools to wrangle you or to know the love she deserved.
I'm angry that they told her if she didn't like how it was she should leave.
For the cycles of abuse, for desecrated definitions of family.
Of love and caring and closeness.
It became insanity and chaos and meanness.
I used to be so angry for the drugs and drinking,
but that's old news now.
I realized I can't really be angry, not at her.
She doesn't remember all the times it wasn't safe.
She also doesn't know just how much I love her,
doesn't recall all the beautiful times and moments
that defined and guided me to the woman I've become.

And really, I'm angry that I'm not really angry at all.
That I carry this weight around in my body and being,
not sure of where it has settled or how to view it most clearly.
Anger only serves a purpose for a bit,
then you decide if you turn to wine or vinegar.
I've found that to ring very true.
Because what I'm left with now is
gratitude and gladness for the things that remain.
For my dearest brother and father and stepmother
and memories of goodness to treasure near.
I'm grateful even now to want to be alive,
because there were surely times to pain was too great,
too near, too overwhelming to bear.

I'm grateful to have stumbled upon the closest thing to prayer,
to have the ability to send you love and warmest wishes.
To wish you the very best
even as I know I can't be near you, can't see you or speak with you.
I'm grateful for the times I channel strength
to get organized and respond to inquiries of where you are.
I'm grateful at learning to find contentment in the gray spaces,
of not knowing what tomorrow brings,
if you'll survive or cease to exist. All of it must be ok.
For any outcome, I love you still.
Always have, always will.
Dear sister, dear mother, dear universe,
give us strength and love and the abilities to carry on.
To hold tight to one another and ride this storm through its end.
It's ok, it's alright.
Much of life is alarmingly not right
but I'm emboldened and assured that this too shall pass.
It has and it will and we survive, still.

There's so much beauty to behold and I'm finding it, bit by bit.
For friends and family and loving friends that are family.
For glimpses of sunny skies and the agency to breathe in and out.
For free will and the best damn brother, Will.
For knowing I'm quite a strong and resilient person
and for finally believing it and claiming it as a badge.
For the patience and ability to sit still,
for letting the tears stream down and heal my own wounds.
For channeling the hurts into good,
and showing others an example of what growth is or could be.
For survival and all the ways we stand tall,
while holding strong to the truth
that life really is suffering and total shit and awful
and still,
here I am, here we are.
Thriving and striving and seeking for love, still.