This life is
Such a mystery
I’m puzzled at every twist
A Rubic’s Cube
I’ll never solve
My answers, always miss
Enigma
living life out loud
This Kandy Kitchen Called Life
Sometimes I feel like Lucy
Life, just like those chocolates on that conveyor belt, is going by so fast
Time is speeding up, so I try to stuff as much of the chocolate as I can
However I can
Decay
There’s a wound I hang on to
Like a cavity I won’t get filled
I finger it with my tongue
Test it out each time, anew
Is the pain still there? Yes, it is
This old friend, this pain that feels like me
Soul Echoes
Who’s there, yearning, in pain
In the dark of my past
I look behind and see
The silhouettes of the many
From whose dreams I was born
I feel their unrealized needs
In the needs of my present
What they have not let go of
Holds me now, outside of my life
I see you, I say
I’m sorry, I say
This is yours, I say
I lay their burdens at their feet
Look them deeply in their eyes
Thank you for dreaming my life
I’ve got it from here
Both Sides Now
I lean heavily on them
My dominant traits
A desire to color inside the lines
Follow the rules
Play it safe
They serve me well
Except when they don’t
So I am strengthening others
Going outside the boundaries
Breaking the rules
Taking risks
Gonna have an ambidextrous spirit
Shade
A tiny world of experience
A blink of the eye
A split-second connection
Like breath, but different
Connects me to my innerscape
Reinforces my sense of self
In the often-overwhelm
Of being in the world
Composition
Too many voices within
An unwelcome cacophony
Disparate threads collide
Influence my life strategy
Others’ conversations
Nag and berate, then subside
Get still, they said, and listen
You will hear your Self inside
It’s the quiet one underneath
Just make some space within
So I tried to push the static aside
I didn’t value what it had to say
Tried to drown out those others’ voices
That had somehow become a part of mine
And in doing so, I lost my way
But now I know their message is important
They just need to be heard and known
Like a feeling just wants to be felt
They need to not feel all alone
So now I listen to the threads
One by one, I unravel each song
I give back those not mine to those who sang them first
Tell them I’ll always carry their song in mine
No longer at odds, there is now harmony
My voice resonates with many voices as one
And the music of my soul makes perfect sense to me
Compost
Lay me down on a bed of pine needles
Remove my clothing, piece by piece
Place twigs and moss in my hair
And put daisies on my eyes
Evoke the spirits of the trees
Invite my ancestors to be in attendance
Sing from a place within you that has no name
Leave me knowing I am free now
Let my body return to the earth
Mingle with the leaves and the forest life
Know me, leaving, that I am everywhere
Love Poultice
You kissed the scars
The carvings he made
On the inside of my thighs
Ugly remnants of his violence
And just like that
I felt the wound heal
Red, raw angry skin
Became baby-smooth again
Remembrance
“I’ve forgotten how to be in my own body,” she said
“I feel like I have woken up in a foreign land”
I took her by the hand
Led her down the the sea
“Sit down and let the waves remind you,” I said
We lay back, and with closed eyes
Became one with the ocean
The undulation, the caress and push-pull
We let ourselves be swallowed
And we became mermaids again
Bodies arching, diving
Arms moving through the water
Embracing the flow of the tide
She started crying tears of deeply relieved joy
And so then did I, to see her find home again
Our salt tears mixed with the salt of the sea
And when we finally returned to the shore and found our legs again
We took the ocean with us in the sway of our hips
And the pulse of our hearts
Beyond the Skinny Branches 