The first thing I do

The first thing I do every morning when I wake up is fill myself with garbage. I fill myself with emails and phone calls and tasks on the computer. I fill myself with ‘to-do’ lists and errands and planners and papers. It’s like eating ice cream for breakfast only it’s not tasty and it’s not sweet.

There is an emptiness now where the emails used to be. With them, my identity is gone, like socks from the dryer, to some unknown place. I need to stay in my room for days and wallow under the covers. I need to shut out the world and her screaming demands. I need to give myself permission to be silent and missing, like a phantom soldier not yet home from the war.

Lie to me and tell me you love me. Tell me you miss more than my efficiency and competency. What will become of me now that I’ve left you for a moment? Will I join the pictures on the wall of exiled ancestors that came before me? Will I become a legend or a rumor? Where do we go from here?

I’m so scared. I’m so new at this – staying with the emotion and feeling – not running away. I want to go to sleep and I want to sleep for days and I want to wake up when I don’t feel anything anymore. But you say this emotion is a gift. You say I am finding my voice, unleashing my power. I can feel the latent force within me. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. I have always tried to keep it at bay like a dog on a leash. It’s wild now. Its rabid, it’s raging. It’s tossing me in the white waters, throwing me up against jagged rocks. I’m soft like a fish, flopping my way down the stream toward some unknown destination. And I hate not knowing. I hate not knowing where I am going. I hate being scared and lost and not in control.

Squeezing the words out of my impacted brain is like trying to force oatmeal through a funnel. I have to push them out onto the page. I have to squeeze and contract my feeble brain until it produces one letter, one syllable, one meaningless phrase. And where is this going? This writing leads nowhere. I am a tortured artist on a horse with no name. What’s the point?

Salvation. I like the notion of salvation. I like the thought of someone saving me. Bring me joy. Bring me bliss. Then I don’t have to go out and search for it on my own. She said, ‘you don’t have to be good. You don’t have to crawl on your knees. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’ How I wish that were true! How I wish I did not have to be good, did not have to crawl on my knees, did not have to do anything except love what I love.

Acceptance. There is a word that has taunted me for ten years. Accept the things you cannot change. You don’t have to like them, understand them or forgive them. You only have to accept them, without trying to change them.

Adapt. Everyone tells me I should adapt. Everyone tells me I should turn purple and blue and green like the chameleon just to ‘fit in.’ It’s not your problem, they say, stop making it your problem. Calm down. Let it go.

I wish I were a kite and you were the string and you were holding me lovingly while standing firmly on the sand and my ribbons, they would dance in the wind, my head bobbing and weaving like a brightly painted Chinese dragon, my colors brilliant, my body free.

I want to punch something. I want to take the force inside of me, channel all of it into my fist and punch something so hard that I break my arm. I want to break something. I feel so unfortunate to have all of this emotion and yet you say it is a gift. How could it possibly be???

What if I wrote for no reason? What if I locked myself up for 90 days and wrote for no reason? What if I didn’t write a book or a poem or a story? What if I just got up every day and wrote whatever was going to come out? Would it eventually lead to something? Would it be worthwhile even if it didn’t lead to anything?

I have a headache. It’s as if the opposing forces inside of me are waging louder and harder than before. It’s as if the quiet dispute is now a full-on war. I wish I could talk to you. I wish you were not avoiding me, hiding from me, running away from me. I wish you knew how to be my friend. But the irony is that you fill me like ice cream, too, leaving me fat and tired and lazy instead of allowing my wounds to bleed onto the page. The loneliness forces me to write. Otherwise there would only be meaningless talking and gossip and chit-chat and advice.

I think there are worlds within me. I think there are glass cities underwater and serial killers in the desert and weddings on the beach. I don’t know where they come from or where they’re going. I only know that I feel like they are there.

Over the Log and Through the Woods

Oh what a journey…over the log and through the woods…there is so much I want to remember…the girl with the gun in her mouth…the backyard with the LCD lights…the truth of what’s working on me…the flexibility I don’t think I have…I bet they’ll think my sun-kissed sun is evidence of my betrayal…there is no way to win with them…there is so much I want to say…how do I say it all?

Don’t mess with my writing, ok! Don’t mess with my wonder, my curiosity, my innocence, and my joy. Don’t try to take from me what isn’t yours because you don’t have it for yourself. Don’t try to bully me, control me, sit on me with your fat fear and your worry about what I might do…worry about what you’re doing right now! Worry about your arrogance, your emptiness, your ugliness and the way you have to control everyone and everything around you. You’re a hypocrite. You made me feel bad about myself. You made me wonder what I was doing wrong. You woke the big bad beast of shame that lives in the firey pit of my belly…he was sleeping, dammit! And now he’s throwing sloppy fire all over the place. Fuck!

I just want it to be easy…I want it to be easy and funny and happy…and carefree…I want it to be surfing and sunbathing and sharing stories…it makes me happy when you tell me stories…I love to hear your stories…I want to hear all the stories in the whole world.

I’m walking down a wooded path, thick with trees, with brush, with leaves, the branches cross overhead like the swords of soldiers making a procession for me…there is light in the distance, really bright, warm light. There is a cleaning and a beach and turquoise water and I am sitting on the beach and I am writing and it’s my fantasy and it calls to me and I wonder if he knows someone in Cabo that I can stay with? I wonder if I can move to Mexico and live on the beach and write my book? And I wonder if I can find the words if I’m far away and my only job is to find the words that say what I want to say? And I wonder if I’ll ever say what I want to say?...and why not? Because you bully me!You worry that I will run away…you worry that I will take something of yours with me…you worry that I want what you have but I don’t! I don’t want what’s yours…I only want what’s mine. I only want the spinning to stop so I can dive down deep and write the soulful things that need to be written.

Rambling…her book was like rambling, like listening to someone who can’t control what she’s thinking, can’t control what she’s writing…and where do the words come from?…they come so fast. I can’t keep up and my wrist starts to cramp. I don’t want to stop today. I don’t want to stop and be good and write something pretty so that everyone will say, ‘oh, you’re writing is so nice!’ I want to be stupid and irreverent and sloppy and I don’t want to live up to your expectations. I want to fail you…I want to let you down so the pressure is off and I don’t have to try anymore.

I want to get off the hook…I want to get off the big fat rusty sharp fish hook that’s tearing through the flesh in my cheek…I am not your catch! I don’t belong to you…you don’t own me and you can’t tell me what to do…I give to you because I love to give…I give to you because it makes me feel good but it doesn’t feel good anymore…it feels forced…it feels compromised…it feels sad and disappointing and draining…I want to feel good! I want you to love me…I want to shine and I want to glow and the more I fill up the room with light, the more I want you to smile and step back and say, ‘I’m so proud of you!’…and I don’t want to let you down – even though I say that I do.

Find me
At the edge of my path
Take my hand
Help me cross over
The invisible ground
Give me strength, please,
Give me wings

I’m so sorry all of the time I’m so sorry that I can’t do better I’m so sorry that I can’t do more and what a waste! What a waste it is to be sorry all the time…I just want to celebrate…I just want to see what other people see when they see me…I want to know my potential, my possibilities.

Ok, so there is this great story that I have to tell because it’s so great and it makes me smile and laugh at myself. There is this great book called ‘heart of the world’ where these young ambitious guys go exploring in the unexplored parts of Tibet to find magical waterfalls and traveling with them are a strange band of marauders…the most knowledgeable of which is a monk…and at one point in their journey they come across a log and its blocking their way and people are angry and frustrated and they keep throwing themselves at the log and they are trying to crawl over and they keep falling in the mud and they get more and more mad and then the monk tries…and they watch because he is always so happy and they are sure that this log will frustrate him as much as it frustrates them and they watch…as he approaches…he looks at the log, takes a few steps back, and then runs as fast as he can towards the log, trying to throw his lanky body over the top. He hits the log, flies backwards into the direction from which he came and bursts into a fit of laughter…the more he laughs, the more astonished his spectators become…and then he gets up, muddy from head to toe, takes a running start and throws himself at the log again…the log throws him back into the mud, back on his butt, and this time he laughs even harder and louder. After about 10 tries, he manages to flop himself across the this formidable obstacle and he rests for a moment before getting up and continuing on his path with a smile and unbending joy in his heart. His companions, mesmerized and speechless from the display, follow behind him with a newfound appreciation for just how easy it can be, if you let it be, to climb over a log and through the woods.

Raw

Raw like a broken tree branch, sap slipping out
Raw like a wide-open wound

And then...

And then a white trail of smoke slashes a diagonal line across the blue sky
And then the jagged brown mountains poke the delicate pink sky
And then the fingers massage the keys of the piano as he closes his eyes in ecstasy
And then he weeps because it burns when someone touches his neck
And then he shoots a needle into his neck to fill his body with artificial joy
And then I write because there is nothing else I can do to stay alive

We Can Be Happy

I think all people should do what they love because watching someone do what they love makes you feel the love and makes you want to do what you love – it’s contagious. And its necessary. And I don’t think anyone really likes to see another suffer. And I think we’d all much rather see someone be happy because it makes us believe that we can be happy too.

Labyrinth

when the 'desire' for an answer started to dissolve there was room for it to be answered. i noticed that only when i forgot where i was did i find that i had arrived at the center of the labyrinth (question). i noticed that my emotions and fears can cloud my vision of who I really am. i noticed that only one step at a time can take me where i need to go. i found that the view from close-up seems totally chaotic but when viewed from a distance is a beautiful image. i realized that i was often repeating similar patterns but going deeper each time i followed that particular curve. the lines between what was path and what was 'not' path also began to blur. it was all path. i felt empowered at the center of the labyrinth (question) and walked a little taller, straighter and more confident on the way out then i did on the way in. someone asked me when i got to the center if i knew how to follow the path and i announced ' i followed it in and now i have to go back out.' how is my answer symbolic of my question? what does it mean?

Quotes from Writers

Writing is the only thing that…when I’m doing it,
I don’t feel that I should be doing something else.

~ Gloria Steinem


“Writing is like praying, because you stop all other activities, descend into silence, and listen patiently to the depths of our soul, waiting for the true words to come. When they do, you thank God because you know the words are a gift, and you write them down as honestly and as cleanly as you can.”

~Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking


“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain


Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,
My need of God
AbsolutelyClear.

~Hafiz


I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

~Pablo Neruda


"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit."

~Dawna Markova


"Anything is bearable as long as you can make a story out of it."

~N. Scott Momaday

A Girl is Easy to Be

A girl is easy to be.
It’s like playtime, make believe, dress up, fantasy.
Try on mom’s shoes and lipstick.
Discard them for a brother’s matchbox cars or video games.
Play with Barbies’ when the girls come over.
Climb trees with boys when the girls go home.
Ride bikes with anyone in the neighborhood streets until the sun goes down
And it’s time for bed.
Hide out in the tree house alone.
Solitude. Privacy. Simplicity.
Pitch a tent in the yard for a mini-vacation.
Crawl back into house into bed before the sun even comes up.

I drew for hours. And painted. And created things unique.
I jumped fences, and puddles, and roof to roof.
Collected stickers and bracelets.
Dug up worms and caught salamanders, too.
Caught a fish once. Hated it. Sent it back in tears.
Put beads on safety pins and pinned them to shoelaces.
Pretended I was a waitress, a teacher, a shopkeeper, a dancer.
Dozens of key-chains and no keys. Had nothing to lock.
Loved cats and squirrels and rabbits and toads.
Fifty animals on my bed, I once counted, all stuffed and smiling at me.
Silent friends. Confidants. Companions.
Never cared about messy or dirty or watching too much TV.
No limits or boundaries or inhibitions or fear.

But a woman, that’s different.
Every feature, a judgment. Every gesture, an indication.
Complexity. Irony. Self-Consciousness replace playtime.
Videos exchanged for video games. Real cars for toy cars.
Lipstick, a statement. No lipstick, a statement.
What will they think? What are they thinking? What do they see? Why can’t they see?
No tents in the yard. No worms in my hands.
Trees are not climbed. Fences not jumped.
Boots or high heels? Long hair or short? Skirt or pant suit? Padded bra or T-shirt?
A man in the bed instead of fifty old friends.
Beads and stickers and painting seem pointless.
Dozen keys, no key chains. Locks everywhere on everything.

There is an opposite of me somewhere I’m sure.
No tattoos, perhaps. Fake breasts or long hair to the floor.
Is she a virgin, a mother, a Buddhist Nun in Tibet?
Maybe Med school or Law school or the Peace Corps suits her.
She is me and I am her. All the choices I didn’t make.
With every moment, a thousand of me, all living, all multiplying.
A thousand directions. A thousand patterns. A thousand lives unlived.
It’s still like playtime, make believe, dress up, fantasy,
But they all think it’s real. All except me.
The art of being a woman is empty.
There is something greater in the girl it was so easy to be.

To Be Needed

To be needed
To be pushed and pulled
And tugged upon
To give your life
Your breath
You last drop of energy
To someone else
To lose yourself
In the sympathy
In the empathy
The pity really
Relentless and unforgiving
Because she can’t do it alone
Because he depends on you
Because you said you would
Because it’s my responsibility
To be responsible
To be afraid
Of letting someone down
Of being less than what they were
When I needed them
To be needed so much
You forget what you need
Forget who you are
Forget you made the choice
To be needed
In the first place

The Space Between

The space between my heart and yours
Gets out of the car and stands on the curb
Back to you as you drive away
It sits on the train watching walls go by
Eyes blurry with speed, blurry with tears
The space between my heart and yours
Taxis down the runway and thrusts into the sky
Stomach dropping from heights, dropping from heartache
It stretches miles from the landscape
Of your body and soul
Giving me hurt where your hands used to be
The space between my heart and yours
Demands to know when it will have you again
To taste and to touch and indulge in your love
It mocks me with memories of smiles and sweetness
That I left behind when I left your side
The space between my heart and yours
Is only as big as the biggest balloon
That threatens to burst if I am away too long
So let it be soon that I see you again
To erase this space between
My heart and yours.

Small Gift

i read your writing with anticipation
feeling your fumbling and your uninhibited honesty
your search to capture the real and unreal
as if i am inside you
and it makes me feel connected to you even in our
lack of relationship
if we lived in another place and time
i would want to write long letters to you with a quill pen
and wait impatiently for your response
to see what words you would entertain for me

and here is a small gift of words for you....

"only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence."

Rainer Maria Rilke

I am No One

soul longing
soul hurting
i am no one
without someone
to relate to
dying
undying
under the earth
worms and dirt
my true feelings
are unearthing
birthing
slimey and crawling
creatures creeping
stomach contracting
i need someone
anyone
to make it better
stop the longing
stop the hurting
you are no one
without someone
to relate to

Fire in Me

There is a fire in me now
Red hot and wild
My hands are electric with the heat
Stepping up to the edge
Diving into the flames
I found newborn permission to be myself
Like a woman who knows her own strength
And isn’t afraid to use it
A woman who knows her own direction
And won’t let anything get in her way
Like the splendid serpent who renews herself continually
I am shedding my skin
Like the wolf that is fiercely daring and brave
I feel the power that is instinctively mine
Like the owl who guards the darkness
Fangs exposed, claws revealed, wings outspread
I am every creature that has embodied my name
W-O-M-A-N
Since the time before time
I AM BURNING
There is a fire in me now
I am unleashing it
In all its ravishing glory
I am a glowing light for all to see

Why I Travel

It’s as if I let myself go
Permission
It’s as if I am seeing everything for the first time
Newness
It’s as if everything is speaking directly to me
Welcome
It’s as if I am outside the human condition
Stranger
It’s as if I am detoxing my identity
Rebirth
It’s as if I settle into my own center of gravity
Solitude
It’s as if I surrender to the big picture
Openness
It’s as if I stumble onto a path uniquely my own
Destiny
It’s as if I am full of possibilities
Pregnant
It’s as if I can feel the environment move through me
Permeable
It’s as if I become a verb instead of a noun
Being
It’s as if I am living without limits
Freedom
It’s as if I can’t get enough
Insatiable

I Give Up My Sins

I give up my sins
Discard my personal history
Perpetual grief is my lost cause
I am blind
So that Divine work can be seen
Laying down my flaws
Blessings in disguise
I need no forgiveness for who I am
Who I am is a magnet for Divine love
The measurement of my life
My vicinity to infinity
And obstacles overcome
My frequency forever moving
Faster higher faster
To reach the unchanging and changeless
Life space
Where flesh meets breath
And all becomes sacred
I lay down my greed, gossip and hypocrisy
To become something of worth
As I think so shall I be.

Synchronicity

When I needed to cross water
The raft appeared
When I needed to climb mountains
The walking stick reached out to me
When I needed to rise from the ashes
Glorious wings sprouted from my back
And the wind carried me to new ground.
Behold. Synchronicity is everywhere.

ReUnion

Energy stirring
between my legs
up through my belly
into my heart
I smile to myself
knowing you are feeling the same
Waiting for me
Anticipating my touch

The first kiss
like honey and rose petals on my lips
I drink you in
with my eyes
my mouth
my breath
My smile is bigger now
Satisfied and satisfied
to be with you
In communion

Like new lovers
We embrace
Eager and overwhelmed
Seems like forever
Since the last time
Timeless
Love brings us back
To the place where we left off

In a blur you’re inside me
I’m inside you
Sensations like a buffet of pleasure
so many feelings
so many colors
so many sights and sounds and tastes
Satisfied and satisfied
To be with you
In love

Climax giving way softly
To tenderness
To gratitude
And in the quiet
All is said and
Nothing unnecessarily exchanged
You are my healing that makes me whole

Quietness
Sleepiness
The lingering smell of you on my fingertips
I hold them to my face
The intoxicating scent still in my nose
The salty taste of you on my tongue
I suckle my own mouth
Energy stirring again
Between my legs
Up through my belly
Into my heart
I smile to myself
Knowing I must have you again

Mystery

Like sand through my fingers
I know the feeling of you
as something moving and elusive
not sedentary like the stones
or heavy like the ocean
It is always inside me
and yet when I look for it
it turns from particle to wave
back to particle again
playing tricks on my mind
The only way to really hold you
is without hands
without thoughts
just sitting with the orange crab
as the sun dips down
behind the veil of golden water
When I let go of everything I know
I find you there
in the great space of Mystery
The place where all of us were made
where all of us will return
There is nothing I can do to contain it
and yet it all exists within these
four limbs
two eyes
and one heart
Like sand through my fingers
I know the feeling of you

My Lover

There is a hole inside of me
an emptiness that needs filling
a place that is hungry for soul food
I tried filling it with pop culture
with sex
with mindless human interaction
but it drained from the hole
like bathwater from the tub
and now its empty again
I need my muse
My mysterious lover
Who makes music instead of children
Who writes books about truth
Who teaches others about life
I dreamt about him last night
We danced into the cold ocean
We laid down in it and drank in the
desire of each other
my lips close to his ear
using my breath to seduce him
his resistance futile
and when I woke I knew I missed him
I need him
I am withering without him
like a rose cut from the vine
I am nothing but
empty ears
vacant eyes and
hollow heart without him
I must seek out my lover again to
feed me
fill me
deeply
with his starry starry night, his brass saxophone and
his wade in the water jamboree
He is the source of hope
of light
of life
the only one who fills the intimate place inside me
wholly
completely.
There is a hole inside of me
an emptiness that needs filling
a place that is hungry for my lover.

Dear Man

you come to me
begging with your body
hiding with your eyes
I feel your wanting
your insatiable need for me
your transparent deception
is no match for my intuition
maybe you are indifferent sometimes
bored or needing gratification
fueled only by your physicality
but mostly
there is a burning desire in you
for my softness
my wetness
my perfumed perspiration
a desire that cannot be quenched
by any other shape than me
my breast is your pacifier
my emptiness is your home
I am a warm place for you to rest
for you to find yourself
gone and forgotten
and rather than knowing myself as your object
I know myself as your safety
I am mother, sister, and friend
the place where you always return for comfort
when your job, your friends,
your attempt to conquer the world
doesn’t quiet the craving of your soul
inside me you are a real man
pure and perfect
merging with something unmistakably feminine and beautiful
I am that
I am her
only in your honesty and acceptance
will I stop being afraid
that you might rape me or betray me
that you might see
you are only afraid because you love me

if only

If only this embarrassment could be replaced by entitlement
that I might feel comfortable with my own neediness

If only my mind could shed the shackles of shame and self-judgment
and give me permission to be emotional

If only the past would stop chasing me and the future stop enticing me
long enough for me to be in the moment

If only doubt would stop banging on the door of my heart
that I might open it and let in some fresh air

If only I could stop trying to please him in every way
and support instead my own indecision

If only my depth made me more fun, more simple, easier to get along with
that I might stop living in isolation

If only running away really did get me somewhere
and falling in love didn’t stop me from going

If only he knew what it was like to be me
that I might stop trying so hard to be someone else

If only this were all a dream and I could wake up
like the Buddha
in the blink of an eye
that I might see the truth and the truth might set me free

if only

I Missed You

i missed you tonight at the club
i missed your eyes
your lips
the way you watch me always
lovingly
protecting me
i missed your hand on the small of my back
your arm around my waist
your hand in mine
i missed your gossip in my ear
your quick mind dashing here and there
i missed the way you smell
when i get close
and the way you taste
when i steal kisses from you
i missed your smile
and your laugh
and the way you walk kinda funny
always in a hurry
always on the phone
i missed you
i miss you now
in our room
in our bed
in our home that's not a home
unless you're here

i wrote this for you...

Still trying to feel
The fullness of the light
Without feeling
The burning on my skin
Still trying to see
The thing that the light revels
Without being blinded
By the glare of the sun
Still trying to hold
The heaviness of love
In this broken container
I call my heart
Still trying to know
The sweetness of you
Without the bitterness
Of life on my tongue

Fireflies

Like putting on a pair of comfortable jeans
I slipped into my mind today
And with each foot
Stepped into my familiar emotions
Without a second thought
My voice told the same story of me
Covering my head and heart in the thick jacket
I have worn all my life
Then I went out to meet the sea
To sit in her rocking chair
And let the whooshing wash over me
To find some stability in her motion
And lose myself in her embrace
Before I could settle in
The wind gave me a blow to the head
The sea kicked mist into my eyes
In my blindness I saw my Self
Melt down like ice in the sun
And fill up again like a jar full of fireflies
Movement
Energy
And Choice
The invisible conductor of the chaos of light
Orchestrating my life
Making music of freedom
Silent to my ears
In her choppy water I caught my reflection
Saw what I had chose to wear that day
And wondered, for the first time,
If there wasn’t something more suitable for the occasion
Did my thoughts need to be replaced by ones less worn and torn?
Did my emotions, which always hurt like brand new shoes, need to be more comfortable?
Did the jacket of my personal history need to be quite so heavy?
Couldn’t I rearrange the molecules of myself
Inside and out
To look better and feel better than before?
If all the lip service subsided
Going through the motions ceased
And real transformation took root
I decided
I just might be able to shed my skin
Spread my wings
And grow into the luminescence
Of the fireflies
It was my choice, after all,
What to think.
How to feel.
Who to be.
It was my choice to be free.

Waiting

waiting for the elevator
quiet stone building
high ceilings and marble floor
i love fine arts buildings
they remind me of my childhood
i used to dance in a building like that
twice a year for many years
in a grand performance which took
months of preparation
covered in glitter and make up
i would wait in nervous anticipation
in the belly of the building
in the electric dressing rooms with
dozens of little girls charged
with the same excitement
i would climb up and down the spiral staircase
peek onto the stage while other performed
butterflies turning over in my tummy
while others turned on the stage
i loved the wait
more than i loved to perform
once i got on the stage
time and space was lost
in a blur of color and lights
the dance danced me and
i was along for the ride
watching was better
watching was perfect
watching was waiting and
waiting was dreaming of love and applause
and colors and lights
dreaming was divine
maybe if i never got on the elevator
i never would have lost the dream
maybe i am still waiting for the elevator
to pick me up

Connected

I stepped into your eyes
Felt your body from the inside
Knew you intimately for a moment
Heard what I couldn’t hear before
A silent cry calling me closer, deeper
I understood your appreciation
Understood I was the only one
To hear your voice
Step into your heart and feel your desperation
I embrace you
Who you are now
Knowing you are perfection in disguise
Knowing you will wake up from this dream
A stronger more beautiful man
A man with a heart broken open from the struggle
From the suffering, from the pain
I feel all of you
I am grateful
I am humbled
I am in awe of the way I connected with you
With life, with mystery
I am still bathing in the sacred silence of this timeless moment
That is everything to me
My life, my purpose, my love
To give unconditionally
Only to receive it all again
Returned to me in abundance
How lucky I am to find myself in you
And hold your healing in my heart
Like a seed stored in a safe place
There is beauty here
I stepped into your eyes and felt it from the inside.

Broken Glass

Broken glass
Shattered pieces mirror the world
Sharp painful fragments
Scattered and hidden in dark places
Inviting a vulnerable foot to approach
To stab and bleed
To feel what it is to be broken

Brekke Poem

rise up from the belly
forbidden word
fire shooting from my lips
let me be free from the holding
scolding
withholding
within
permit me to be bold
to be bare
to show you who I really am
i want to ride the high wave of the of roller coaster
down into the silly screaming dip
hands waving in the air
palms open
ready to grasp the love I deserve
rise up from the belly
forbidden word
and let the world hear my sound