Now, there is sweetness.
Finally.
This year brings a birthday.
It is wrapped in
peace.
Two years ago
I was encased in a tarp,
in the damp weather,
of
The Faroe Islands
I pleaded for your return.
The sweetness of a lifetime
was held in those two years.
Not everyone who begs for
answers
walks away whole
or healed.
Sweetness
of a lifetime
carried for two years.
The season has come around again.
At this time of year,
It holds memories
of transformation.
I remember it was
When the hummingbirds left,
when they began their
Great Migration.
The air changed a little each day,
growing just a little cooler,
a little
cooler.
Before the hummingbirds left,
they returned,
Their wings a blur of motion.
“Give us the skins
you’ve shed,
the pasts
with no place here and now!”
they said.
We took off our skins and
layers of ourselves,
all the fragile surfaces
that took our breath,
that hid our eyes.
Then we let a stillness come.
A sense of calm where we could say,
“This is how I will remember you!”
The clock in the cottage
keeps time in its own way
It gets cold at night
and feels stifling by noon
I hang my shirts up to dry
on the hooks hanging from the ceiling
I’ve been sitting here for a while
with this clock that never tells the truth
just thinking to myself
“my god, this is so very perfect.”
can this hold
hunger
returning now
but
i don’t ask
shadows
of hands reaching
to face
of naked flesh
of hands to body
of being
and of becoming
I speak a foreign language.
It feels like there are endless syllables and countless vowels,
And I speak it alone.
All I want is to feel good in my body and connect with someone else.
But I feel tangled
in a language that only I seem to understand.
When I speak, it feels heavy in ways I can’t describe.
It brings out meanings I never meant.
I kept my desire for pleasure and true connection to myself,
afraid of how much
my words might weigh on someone.
Then gentle fingers touched my lips and quieted the sounds.
A mouth met mine and took my words away.
Every syllable and vowel slowly faded.
As each sound lingered,
A voice, speaking my language, said,
I hear you.
I know your intentions.
I understand.
Speak without fear.
Speak honestly and
rest here, open and true
free from worry.
my longing for physical pleasure
and the sense of real connection came back.
With the language we both understand,
the language we share together,
We can show each other who we really are.
We will trace letters with our tongues,
and with soft breaths on our necks, we will write our stories.
under the covers
like children,
gigging.
we could build a fort,
line the insides with pillows
and innocence.
i lost this somewhere.
i tried to find my way back;
i wanted to explain,
to apologize.
but our language is
different now,
our tongues do not
meet as they once did.
yours is dry,
a language of
such bitter fruit.
mine is spliced,
and broken
with a lifetime of apologies
left unheard
and unanswered.
i’m returning,
slowly.
i am under the covers,
gaining innocence
in the fort i’ve built.
like a child
i’m learning a new language,
one that no longer
only apologizes,
one that is
no longer boxed by
worries or shaped
by fears of losing you,
for it is you
who have lost me.
your fingertips
to me
are more than flesh.
they speak
of how we
arrived here;
from shy and
gentle,
to eager animals
with fire
under our nails.
it is no wonder
we still retain hope,
that our fingertips
aren’t calloused and
hardened.
in the early dawn,
we spend hours
tracing each other’s bodies;
single, graceful lines
with delicate fingertips
of fire.
i sat folding petals between
my fingers;
delicate around worn,
gentle through rough.
i asked,
will you remember
me like this?
“this is how i
will remember you!”
you responded,
with fire and nails.
will you remember
me as a lover
who placed lilies in
candlelight?
as a lover who
held their scent for us,
for our desire;
their scent for our craving,
their scent for our lust?
will you remember me
like that?
“this is how i
will remember you!”
you said;
with spit and venom.
i know now
you never had a lily petal for
a tongue.
you are too bitter
to house something so
beautiful in your mouth,
and too angry
to hold something so sacred
in your mind.
this is how i
will remember you.
i am distracted tonight
cars hum as they wind along rt1
the garden houses crickets
a thousand of them
and a dog barks endlessly
i want this
intimacy in the
common place
bodies together
in the ordinary
of life
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