Can I Be Fragile For A Moment?

Can I be fragile for a moment?

The sun is running away from me.

I am left in constant night,

My eyes held wide to catch the light.

I feel feelings lurking among the stars;

In the bits of dark between them.

They watch and wait for me to blink,

But my eyes are strong and dry.

If you hold me, will I cry?

Will I laugh and never cry again?

There's More

I am the open book,

The clearest water.

But there are gems 

and darknesses

Hidden in the 

depths.

I guard them by 

not guarding.

They flash through 

my eyes without 

finding expression,

Swimming in my 

sea of words.

The fun would be to 

spear them--

Watch the Poseidon 

of my heart rear 

up with trident 

blazing.

You didn't know I had a god in here.

Neither did I.

Everything But Marriage

My mother's love
Interesting interests
A fabric stash
Leisure time
A book collection
Loving roommates
Close friends
A real job
Three trees
A Vespa
A good voice
Opportunities to sing

Beautiful little things
like
My appendix
An Eiffel Tower
A sister statue
Caribbean coral
A conch
A hat head
A guardian angel
Magazine pages
Paintings
Grandma's golden bird
Mamacita's radio
Dragon chairs
A safe and cozy place to keep them

Friendly community
A pond right next door
Little dog
My mother's BJs membership
Delicious foods
Simple tastes
Chocolate mousse recipe
Costume pieces
Trusty fanny pack
Not thinking about my bank account this summer
Loaning money to friends
International friends whose absence tugs at my heart
At least my heart is being tugged.
Children who love me, who have loved me
like
Noah
Ryan
Andrew
Connor
Irene
Sylvain
Sophie
Children's books
I can read
Bigger books full of information
Library access at Harvard
The plan of salvation

The Death of Wisdom

That was wise.

I had thought ahead.
The future seemed shapeable.
Choose now, love then.

What an illusion.
What a desperate attempt.
A future of good feelings born of logic.

Mind and heart were always opposed.
What was I thinking.
There can be no truce.

this is not my sorrow

THIS IS NOT MY SORROW

THIS IS THE SORROW OF A MILLION HEARTS

I CANNOT HOLD IT BY MYSELF

I WILL BEND AND BREAK ALONE

I WILL SHRIVEL AND SOUR

THE WORLD WILL IMPLODE

THE HORIZON WILL DISAPPEAR

AND I WILL BE LOST

ALL BECAUSE OF THIS HURT THAT I CLING TO

WITH THE EARNESTNESS OF GRAVITY

BUT

I FEAR THE EMPTINESS OF

WIDE OPEN SPACE WHEN I LET GO.

Untitled by Dideric van den Berg

Once through a misty glade,
trudged a soldier bereft.
Soulless wanderers joined,
like to a weaving's weft.

Which direction forward?
Our wanderers question.
The whole is made,
By crossed direction.

He answers smooth,
No pause to think.
It doesn't matter,
Just don't blink.

Or you shall miss it.

Accept This

We haven't talked in weeks.

An unconscionable distance

Except that

I used to drift this far from you in one night.

My mind was never tethered to your heart.

So it is good that we are done.

We were never close enough

Except that

I remember coming back to you because I wanted to.

No matter how many weeks away each night drifted.

Something In The Air

I can feel there's
Something in the air
Not enough to live on
Not enough to choose with
It weighs on me
Soft and sweet and hopeless
Like the future isn't there
And the past is just a memory of
Something in the air
I wish that you were here
That you were still my
Something in the air.

Heat Lightning

Breathing in like my lungs are new.
Gasping and sighing with laughter.
No pattern and
No rhythm but
The flashes of beauty
On the horizon.

Wrong

Wrong?
No, nothing's wrong.
Everything is exactly as it's always been.

Untitled by the girl in the dress

One More Drop

One more drop.
One more graceless fall.
I land down here among the broken

Pieces I had cast away long ago.
All the sorrows re-stick
Like boulder-heavy burrs
To my sweater-soft heart.
Why do old wounds re-open?
Look how the bloods all run together.

Portal III by Pamela Hunt Lee

Goodbye

I keep trying to say goodbye
To this past with a future.
But now I am the present
With nowhere to go.

Untitled by Veronica Olson

Her Choice

I think I made the right decision.
But each word of that sentence
Is like a knife to the heart.
If the mermaid had decided to
Leave her prince to his princess
And walk the earth the rest of her days
Rather than drown her sorrows
In a foamy ocean death,
She would have learned to live
With the knives in her feet.
Learned to live with her choice.
Her choice, not his.
Her choice, not fate.
Her choice, not right.
Her choice, not wrong.

The Little Mermaid, illustration by Helen Stratton

Good Morning

I woke up and didn't think of him for a good fifteen minutes. But all of my thoughts are the same color. I find myself in a Brave New World that started at "yes" and exploded at "no" and any thought that I think now includes him by default. 

I stepped through the mirror after all. There was no way to stop myself once he placed me in front of it. The shards of glass at my feet are real, but so is my solid reflection as I look back and realize that forward is the only direction for me.

The Desert And The Rainbow

I have not had my fill of you.
I am hungry and thirsty.
If you approached me tomorrow
With open arms
I could never keep myself from them.

I would drink you in
Like the desert was inside me;
Me and my dry wasteland of a heart.
You the flash flood,
The deluvian ocean,
Come to drown all faithless thoughts
And wash away the detritus
Of my selfish soul.

You'd paint me a rainbow
Like you always do.
We'd sleep under it, together.
Washed-out me, mist-thin you.

Sleepwalker by Brooke Shaden

Most Likely To Succeed

"most likely to succeed";

i only made the grades.

i finished lots of school, but

i haven't got a trade.

you started out so low.

you've never finished first.

you've hardly ever finished!

perseverance unenforced.

i see you and i tremble,

i flinch as you implore.

your living seems like losing.

i swear that i need more.

but i am not much better;

i have crazy dreams;

my roots are surface shallow;

my hold looser than it seems.

so how can i point fingers,

require all from you,

when i just want some babies?

i won't be doing what you do.

your weakness might be magic.

your talents, buried deep,

might blossom out of nowhere

though i said they wouldn't keep.

do you think that i'll feel foolish?

will i look back with regret

when you're making all your millions,

and i've lost our stupid bet?

the fact is i can't tell.

the future's dark to me.

you might soar above the clouds 

or be sunk beneath the sea.
and what about us then?

could i be part of that?

the gamble that you offer:

whitest white or darkest black.

it isn't that i know 

that you will never measure up;

it's just that i am sure

that promises are not enough.

i watch your scattered flailings,

and i wonder if i see

a genius left untapped

and a soul that dances free.

don't let my worry shake you

from your faith and earnest hope.

i'll cheer you on forever.

and maybe one day we'll elope.

Icarus by Frank Frazetta

The Poem Product Of A Contemplative Day

You were right.
I hurt you.
I needed to back away to see it.
But it is not enough to see it.

I didn't relax.
I didn't believe.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I didn't comfort you when you needed it.
I couldn't because I wasn't comforted.
I don't say that as an excuse, merely as a reason.
Cause and effect.

I wish that I were different
For you.
I wish that you were different
For me.
But we're not.  We are us.
And you are not the kind of responsible I need to feel relaxed.
I am not the kind of relaxed you need to feel loved.

You are right.  I'm not absolved.
But both of us are only ourselves.
I wasn't doing it on purpose
Anymore than you have grown your talents slowly out of spite.

Now I really wish that acknowledgement were the key
To unlocking the beauty of US.
I don't want to let you go.
I want you and me, I want us to stay.
I don't want to take off this ring.
I don't want to start again.
But I don't think it works that way.
Just wanting to be good for each other
Doesn't change who we are.

Yes, you can say the atonement can change people's hearts.
But is it our hearts that need changing?

You are plagued by self-doubt that you battle with idealism.
I fear being abandoned in the trenches, so I arm myself with pragmatism.

Maybe yes, maybe Christ can take our fears and soothe them.
Maybe he can take your idealism and match it with motivation.
Maybe he can take my pragmatism and match it with faith.
In fact, I do believe He can and will, if we let him.
But we have been too chaotic, too dashing up against each other.
There have been too many issues in the way.
We need peace.
We need time.

Oh this hurts, to think that you are just a friend.
Just-Friends of the other sex tend to fade with time.
And you will find someone else,
And your eyes will no longer meet mine with a light in them.

But maybe
Just maybe
We can become who we ought,
And we will meet again (soon?),
And we will match up just right.
Anxiety, fear, and frustration will make but brief appearances
In contrast to the brightness and love and peace
That will fill us, together.
Same time.
Same pace.
Same place.

That is my hope and consolation.
Because I love you.
Truly,
A__________

Ambrosia's Love Letter by Michael Durst

I Believe You, I Believe You Not

Dearest, I believe your simple dreamings.
Lure me in with promises of blessed days,
Sweetest nights.  Call down the grace of heaven.
Banish every care and teach me peaceful ways.
When you see my mouth grow tight, catch me
Up into the clouds where life is spread so broad.
Rivers always meet the sea and rain will
Always fall, so close my eyes with kisses now.
I don't need to know or see the fruit to
Taste perfection in your orchard dreams.

Fragrances by Elena Oleniuc

Reacting To Gravity

The feeling of standing in a rocking boat,
Toeing the edge of a cliff,
Bouncing too high on a trampoline.
That feeling.

That feeling belongs in dreams, not in my reality.
I refuse to be intimidated by my own uncertainty.
I decide how to react to gravity.
I know I can
Because sometimes in my dreams
I fall and fly and climb with no fear
And no stomach lurch.

I Told Him To Go

Behold

My life will never be the same again.
You change my future
And also all my possible futures.
The options without you
Lack you.

Behold the power of choice.

One Of The Falling Ones

The cottage is full of soft warmth.
Summertime is seeping in.
You step out and turn to me,
Standing expectant in the hot sunshine,
Surrounded by bright dust motes and chickens,
Tulips by the gate.

My hands linger on the door frame
The grain familiar and worn under my fingertips.
I smile and push off and out
Towards you and the sun.

But my feet meet no ground.
The chickens and their yard dissolve.
You are frozen in the memory of the previous instant
And I fall.

***

A dream.  Last night.
One of the falling ones
When your body believes in the shock.

Love Is The Pits*

I have no better words to say than
I Am Confused.
I always thought Love grew
Whole from the ground.
All you had to do was
Find it,
Pick it,
Brush off the dirt,
And take a bite.
Now they say that if you find Love like that,
You will soon be left with a pit again anyway.

It turns out that I have a Pit in hand.
I ate the fruit too fast it seems.
I'm a nervous eater.

And suddenly I see a lifetime of pits (piles and piles)
If I don't plant this One and grow a Tree.

The Fruits of the Earth by Edward Detmold

*apologies for the terrible pun

Firefly

Blink

roses and happiness and children and morning smiles

Blink

dark feeling of absence

Blink 

connection and belief and learning and progression

Blink

heart-pounding emptiness

Blink

blessings and eternity and work and reward

Blink

hollow, empty lies

Sometimes I Am Running

Sometimes I am running,
running towards you with eyes and laughter bright,
pressing you close to me
(you are never close enough),
filling all of space and time.

Sometimes I am skipping,
daydreaming of your handsome face
and crowns of flowers
and names of babies
and secret gardens.

Sometimes I am spinning,
half the time facing the way I came,
getting dizzy
and starting to stumble,
hoping that reality will grip me soon
and hold me fast.

Sometimes I tiptoe,
eyes wide like a doe,
waiting for the sudden danger
that will send me fleeing,
tail up,
to the comfort of the familiar
single solitary world
you are slowly luring me out of.

Sometimes I cannot even open my eyes,
and I am standing still
waiting for the hand
to wind the key
to turn the gears
to break off the rust
around my heart.



But sometimes I am running.

Destinations (Imagined) by Brooke Shaden

Upside Down

I was born in the air and I've been reaching for the ground, never knowing that I was facing upside down.

The pocket in my heart is full of demons just for me. If I never let them out then I will never be free.

You are good and you are beautiful. You are happy and you're true. How could I ever think that there is better than you.

I've been looking up and down and out, I've been holding all the hands. Now I want to shed my skin and start again.

I was born in the air and I've been reaching for the ground, never knowing that I was facing upside down.

(I want music for this)

If This Is Not The Ocean

If this is not the ocean,

The waves will soon stop pounding

My heart against these rocks.

The undertow will soon stop pulling

My heart out to sea.

The salt will soon stop wetting my cheeks,

If this is not the ocean.

Then I'll crawl out

And dry off

And gaze out,

Blank-eyed, 

Over the puddle

That I so narrowly escaped.

Rosary Of Reasons

A litany,
A mantra,
A rosary
Of reasons.
Security,
Remember?
Identity
and depth.
Don't forget
the things
he lacked,
the things
he didn't see
in you.
Close your eyes to his eyes and his arms and his silence and his self and
Remember.
Repeat.
A litany,
A mantra,
A rosary
of reasons.
Each bead
another breath,
another minute,
another step
not in his
direction.

Playing Catch Will Kill Me

He just plays catch.
Singular thoughts, back
and forth.
No!
Don't do the same thing!
Jump for it!
Dive to the ground!
Somersault!
Leap into the air!
Then run at me, screaming
and waving your arms.

See my words.  Taste them.  Touch them.
It makes me feel alive.

Would You?

would you marry me?
we could
date and
fall in love and
live with Quakers and
move to Europe and
sail the ocean and
find our families and
start some babies and
build a house and
play and
laugh.
would you marry me?

Blue and Black

This day is almost over.
These few hours.
I have not spent them on you.

I am not a tree.
My limbs will not hold still to gather
flakes or other debris.
I am not a prairie,
flatness unbroken.
I am pine trees and spires,
rolling hills for the shadow to nestle and the light to play
on.

I look for the sky to my line.
I have reached and stretched today,
tossed my laughter upward
and felt it echo back.
Is there more up there to you?

Settling

Settling is the worst slander.
We are not meant to squat where we find ourselves.
We shudder
At that.
But settling,
Holding on to what we've got,
Is also the noblest goal.
Stop casting about in the empty sea
Stop leaving
Start staying
Start eating
Start living