Her eyes were luminescent
I saw straight into her soul
All else had been but stripped away
She was left to be simply whole
Her dying body housed a loving heart
And from that she shone and she was
I came to know that all that matters
Is our humanness – our goodness, and flaws
I hold you in my heart
My forever-talisman
No one else can see you
But I know you are there
My scarred and broken one
My deepest, darkest night
You will never know despair again
You will never suffer alone
You are what keeps me whole
You are what keeps me sane
you’re still here, in my heartbeat
I breathe, and I wonder
is there breath where you are
when I sleep, I look for you
long to look in your eyes
my sister, my selfsame
my identical heart
Your hands
I see them first
Long, tapered fingers
So sure, so sensuous
Your fingers holding the tuna
As you slice through it
My first thoughts
Make me blush
I want to be that food
I want to be touched
The way you touch it
I want you to slice me open
Arrange me
Take me into your mouth
Become one in your body
You provoke
I provoke
Push and pull
Until someone breaks
Who’s at the helm
Who’s fighting whom
Is it your ancestor or mine
Vying for survival
Where does our love go
When our history floods through
Happiness
Always just beyond my grasp
Until one day
I opened up my hands
And in it flew
Just like that
Lay down next to me
On a bed of pine needles
Underneath a silversmith moon
Let me tend to your wounds
Take you into my body
Gonna wrap you into a cocoon
Of warm skin and breath
Pressed breasts and lips
Leave our selves, become one in our spoon
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
Forlorn once was I
No hope was in sight
I’d fought hard to live
But felt I’d lost the fight
Were it not for my cats
Wouldn’t’ve made it through
How sad that’ve been
For I’d never’ve met you
Today I bid thee farewell, my special unhappiness
You have been a steady companion lo these many years
You have held my hand and held me back
Kept me safe, yes, but also kept me on the outside
Looking in at my own life
I thought you were a force beyond my grasp
I thought you were put inside me
That I was a host and you had taken root
Turns out that like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
I have had the key all along
All it takes is this: my decision to let you go
I am sovereign over my own self
And I no longer want you here, in the driver’s seat
So farewell, my old friend
I am sure you will raise your voice now and then
But I choose to no longer recognize your power
So you may wish to find a new dwelling
My heart is full of other things now
There is no space for you here
Beyond the Skinny Branches 