I get to spend more time alone figuring out
what makes me tick
rearranging thoughts, visions of life and
getting lost in streets that seem older than me
opportunities to ponder life and live it are my companions
I find them agreeable, even mysteriously charming

Light of mine
I hold on dearly to you

Metaphorical winters
are worse than any sub zero days

Warmth
glinting of the soul
I embrace you with both my hands
and I give this living all I have got

I love to see how life flourishes
everywhere it finds a way to thrive
I love looking at the same people with new eyes
I love getting older. I love forgiveness and I love that we are all
not the same

How magical is life that I still want to open my palms
breathe the dust, pollen,  

and carry flowers from the fields
to my gentle resting place
How magical that we suffer
but that woe is never us

Some days I feel you, right in the center of my chest. I do not know how else to describe it.

my once in a lifetime
sets like a sun over me
as I learn to love
someone else slowly

the emptiness of a room spoke
to me. For over a year, it dragged
me into a closet, it buried
me in winter sweaters, ruthless
wired bras, and band shirts reminding
me of him

my once in a lifetime sorrow sinks
into the past as I reach
for someone else’s hand, grasping
tenderly I see my sun rising

it is now a once in a lifetime thing, too

i hang in there
i choose to trust you
i choose to give this a chance
i choose to hang in there
i chose to keep finding
the renewed strength
because choosing you is worth it to me
in choosing you
i also choose me

She is a seamstress pulling
strands of words from the ether
into the wooden loom beneath her

there is a calmness
a cooling fresh calmness
a just always unfolding
reassuring calmness
just laugh
get up
and linger in your purpose
and linger near the things
that meet you fully

everything is spoken into existence
life begets life they say
and so I wonder what part of life dram me into existence
called me forth from the womb of imagination
who saw me before i was someone
and called a person like I onto this earth

They, do they realize I have had the same friends for 20 years now
And that inevitably we have stumbled through youth together
oscillating like sonic waves
closer, further,
sawtooth
we have been human
humanness so imperfect that we hurt one another with our carelessness
but they always stay there in discomfort with me
on park bench
in grocery parking lots
in side streets alley and took responsibility
their action
and allowed me the chance to speak the them and atone to mine

they might think it was impatience, immaturity, abandonment but
it was love this great big leap of love for myself that I took
this courageous willingness to state what friendship meant to me
and when it fell upon deaf ear

I could see him standing again in the alley “ saying we have nothing to be sorry” or something fuzzy that resembled nothing to say sorry about.

Did he not understand I had sold all my belonging, moved across the world to stand there, did he not see my naivety, my willingness and my faith in him, my wild belief that I could break any norm,

Did I not see this heavy wistfulness, my lack of love that I would bet my life on crumbs, on song that promised love, did I not see that two others a woman and girl might deserved to wake up to who they loved, did I not see all the ****** up swirling dysfunction in my head,


The last time I came to see him,
I smiled because he is so good at what he does. He radiates.

–And I thought of the troublesome times I have come to see my dearest friends through my short life
and how they and I
–we stood there in discomfort but finally patched it up,
took the muck and held it. Tried
got angry, cried, asked for forgiveness, or stood silently until we could agree to meet again, until slowly we could atone
The gift of friendship that we always offered after mistake and mistake–


But he left ...
and I kept dancing at least there was music playing

At least my intention was to liberate
, to come and to see someone
look at them as something more that a fiction of imagination, see them with flesh and blood and not keep them clouded villainous or a story too skewed in my mind  

and if my intention got stuck under sheets of thoughts and misunderstanding over lack of phrasing, over more of youthful stumbling it is because it comes with the territory of being this young, this tender, this foolish, this whole bag of everything that is me
and i am not ashamed of every mistake I have made
slowly I am learning
appreciating friendships
the renewed bonds
The 5 years, the ten years, the 15 years, the 20 year long connections I have worked with all my might to feed with devotion
passed all my insecurities, past all my self doubt, past my own pride, past my self to see them standing then just as they are

some part of me waits “ for what?” I ask
I think back to the night I saw you
you were good on luck
work was good and you were busy
too busy to chat,
too busy full of good luck to make room

I thought it was good so I smiled and sat silently waited for you there.

But when you came you sat across the table as far as you could possibly get from me
too busy in thought you didn’t even really say a word

Then I felt like an inconvenience like a pole people moved around
so I left

I came too far
and I gambled too much on you
jumped off the cliff thinking your love would be a net

I left that day feeling half dead.
I couldn’t feel my myself. Couldn’t cry for the next few days. I just wanted it to be a horrible nightmare. A bad joke.

So I ask that part me “ what are you waiting for” is it the punch line ?
And it tells me “ I am waiting for my love”
and I just cry...

Swirl my heart in light and love have me dissolve into them never to accept separation
have their presence shower those I love
give me strength in this lifetime as minuscule as it may be in the span of this universe to be of service
grant ‘s endless devotion so I can care for in this one humanely life for all those I hold dear
so I can offer them beauty even when there is pain in our hearts, keep me rooted
open me so all that is left is body used to it highest potential
who dares to love, fall, rise and feel the extent of what it means to human

There is still the loveliness of today that roams through the quiet moments and the mystical dream of what this world could be and what it already is
All things change and nothing is ever set that’s the real magic

Every morning
and every night
I wake up and then go to sleep
having to make a choice
whether to shrink my heart
and my perception of the world
to only that which I can see
to become wounded and scared

or to become wiser and more in love with the kindness that holds me together
that cradles me at night and when I travel through towns amongst strangers alone

to keep allowing the beauty I see in eyes of old women and their silver grey hair
as well as the laughter of friends nearing my age laughing uncontrollably at each other’s words
make me believe in growing older and more tender
and in how loving and attentive one humanbeing can be towards another
how simple it is to show care
how important it is never withhold light or love

every morning and every night I choose again, and again

and again

I close my eyes, ball up my little fists and whisper “ do not shrink; take courage heart of mine” again and again
and again in my empty room I do not feel alone
I see more than lack
and sorrow in my life
I see the capacity of the empty space to hold; its abundance is clear

Wake from slumber

today nothing weighs

and what we have is, is what we need

and what makes our hearts sing

tells us where we ought to go and around who

we ought to be

when we listen

the song of change is all that can be heard,

not the perceived “strong” or the perceived “weak”

can wake from slumber complete

and be able to navigate

with ease this reality

only the ones who accept change

can make it through this

which we call life or so it seems

Chameleons of living

I look in the mirror and I try to change color...
I am unsuccessful but I laugh; slowly I know the world is changing and so  am I. I try to greet it all      with little to  no resistance.


Today nothing weight

as the intervals of presence become longer as the intervals of thinking which interrupt it
become shorter
I slip deeper into this living

Poems are do not need length
they need depth

I am ready to delve into you

To feel the edges where your words flopped over and bent into themselves

To say more than “don’t worry”
to pull up a chair and read you literature          to soothe you –coming from all over the world; wisdom cannot be monopolized
nor can love

I am ready to see the laughter bubble in you
and share in the exalted episodes of ecstasy; heaven is in the never ending now

Among my prairie of tears, I planted
sweet corn singing

Look at little things
profoundly–
they will do more
than whisper

I scrape old paint off of my forehead's wall
I am smoothing it out as we speak
I got a new finish-my words of self-love are the final varnish

You are in mine
too
So much so
that I quit trying to get you out
of the veins
that flow like rivers
throughout the entirety of me

I should have told you that there were no coves to run to on this beach’s coast; when I think of you, there is only sadness. The waves crash and the rocks are all ragged, what you hide is yours forever, your responsibility—it isn’t my boat or oar to tend to and maintain

Wahh
I amaze my self
at the way I laugh nonstop
with my friends

how I am still so curious
and in love with learning
how I sink in deeper
and deeper until I dissolve

I have not only returned to myself
but I have leaned in further

ripening and softening
right here right now is the best
not yesterday not in some years
right now :)) and it makes me smile
and it makes me want to dance without any background music
because I have worked hard
and changed so much to be who I am
took risks, fallen and gotten back up, this heart has not been timid it’s been a steady monk
and it has circled back to now
and now is so good it makes want to shout

If you wake have it be with peace and in a lot of silence that has no fence, and stretches as far as the eye can see.

You are bright and clear
as a morning without fog
so I walk to you

This is enough
walking down the stairs as it opens up to a wide corridor, these people, this place and me
as I am –enough

and all my dreams in the bending
of my wrist
all of my heart can be found
spread out inside  pulsating chests
within all the people around me

My whole existence a blink and simultaneously
an eternity in the shared
look, that give my loved one
eyes to eyes endlessly suspended
in this sea of living

over our small dinner table I could be finite
and I could be infinite

As dangerous as walking a long road with the wrongs shoes
and trying to adjust them over and over
as if somehow that will change their material
   their essence
   everything has its own way of being
just because the shoe fits does not mean it can help you make the journey
joy is a compass and you shouldn’t wait until sharp pains
arise over and over

I awake with a dream of you, that carries over into the next day.

I keep it warm and in my reach, so that if winter ever seems too cold the thought of your smile might warm me starting from the inside out.

The river is the home where the well soothed water flows
and it runs with a purpose: to the sea
It is no longer frozen in its own block somewhere up in the mountains
it is no longer isolated in a small lake

it has taken the best course to find the greatest vision of itself: the ocean  
watch the water flow by and watch her flow with it

the more my tongue moves
the more arms I give to my words
and the more they take a hold of the twigs on the sidewalks
and the more they become life lived
oozing odes and homeric verses
suckling sunlight and holding the stanzas
from Sunstone in their palms

–precolumbian whispers
and sunsets before sumerian law  
hint at a time when poetry was one with the body
poesy inherent in all things
when no compartments could hold life and
all disciplines were limbs of the same majestic creature
sighing with relief over its infinite realm–  

and the less I need to chase words
in order to taxidermy them
and then place them into curiosity cabinets
and the fewer words you will see on the outside of  me
and the more adjectives you will see fused into my skin

the longest wavelength reflecting over my cheeks will become the longest poem I'll ever write

We forget that we can call beauty
and if it does not arrive
we can make it
we can witness it
we can be part of it
we can choose that finally our lives deserve
to be instruments through which beauty and all loving goodness flows
authentically humanly
stumbling some days
harder than the others we devote ourselves to consciously creating more harmony within our own beings

We all must grow
and we all need to be challenged
to sit within ourselves and face the fear
face what stands in our way  
towards becoming more loving
and at the same time more authentically ourselves

archive past mistakes
and learn to forgive ourselves
for not being wiser
–wisdom is a gift of time
with every experience carved into us
with every partnerships with friends
family and lovers aimed at the growth of spirit
we heal

everyone shows us we are whole
That divinity is our inheritance as they walk us to the door of our own soul


Nothing, no one, no possession is enough –none will ever be–
because you were born complete

We all make mistakes it’s a “tell me yours and I will tell you mine” kind of deal
Its not about not making mistakes its about fessing up to them
No matter if one is a week late, months late, years late, or decades late

We are all gifted
in different ways we are made
as infinity plays and giggles
expressing its abundance in form

but it is so hard to remember when
the strictness of dogma
and judgement get in the way

art is powerful
but an act of kindness is just as profound


we are all gifted
all these little desires
make us just right
and prepare for what is meant for us
what feels so familiar it cannot leave us

the sun whose radiance
beams over me sets off the production of vitamin D

the water that runs down my body as I shower
does more than caress me
it cleans me and it becomes the base of my ****** fluids
60 percent of all me is water

the air that I cannot see is a constant visitor
entering and exiting
one failed appointment or canceled visit
and I would be dead

we are always loved by all the things around us that unite to make us possible
what more than the love of this world for these tender bodies
and its temporal gift of a vessel
for our awareness and existence

Deeply, fundamentally how could we not be loved?

And when they tell us how foul we  have been
The many wars we have waged
How ****** and separatist our histories have been
when they cry in full rage
full of resentment towards our direction

We will say “baby, that is less than half
of what we have been.”

What about the silence
what no one could describe
–no mouths,
no language deep,
or high enough–
for its daily beauty was (is),
too profound

Fibers of life
made from those soundless instants
woven in clear thread
holding the seams of this existence jointly together

Present at the second a mother reaches out her arms
to meet those of her crying child: soothing, healing, comforting, warmth
–no words could raise a flag and reign  
in absolute totality
over its meaning
over life

Just like adjectives cannot describe
my smile greeting yours; our sacredness,

Our brilliance is here in the absence of words
If you are to judge us; judge us by the quiet moments
(that you too can touch and that survive us all)
judge us by the mighty stillness
(the root and anchor of it all)

Weave again,
I am worth the re-weaving of a life
as many beginnings as I need I will hand myself

Weaver of my own fate; friend to my own mind; I encourage dreams
and I feed in me light

we cradle, what is to come
so let us not hold back our visions
and our kindest of dreams

“Hope”called by many names
is the true muse
–it is the bird in our hands–
a torch passed down on this long and arduous journey

our desire to light the next one
and dispel the cold nights of hate is vehement
we cradle, what is to come

The sun is setting, and I'm a sucker for the glimmer
shining through the leaves.

****, I love their sway so much; I try to imitate them.
Over my living room carpet, I attempt to dance in my humanly way, jiggling my thighs like a branch being shaken.

I endeavor to fill my steps with joy
as they fill theirs with the sun's felicity
because Dear I know I, too am alive.

I know I grow perhaps not taller, but deeper  
in my sense of belonging; in knowing this body is home to the infinite cavorting in a material form.

So, I bump my hips to the left and giggle; it's time loosen from the bough like my green kin –this journey is to be enjoyed when possible  
under the sun.

Ten rivers lift
and become clouds
over the ocean of my heart
Light, I am light enough to float

We jumped and dodged mops
and chairs around the house so that we could in fact deliver the antidote to our dying playmate on the other side of the house. Then upon our arrival we opened our palms to reveal the loose pills of sweetart rolls that would indeed cure the our peer’s fatal illness as they giggled, and we choose what game we would play next.

We must rise each morning and welcome that sweet sensation that we have arrived
however long it took and no matter how often we lost the trail emerging from our heart towards the world
Today we sit in our bodies and we abide
calm, strong, kind and unmoving
we reveal in our beauty and we joyfully smile at all the things that brought us here
“Yes, I see you” we whisper to the throbbing parts of us
And say, “But, this life is so much more that, that I cannot let you run the show” and we reach for what makes us warm inside, all that heals us and all that opens it arms towards us in loving gratitude we thank and embrace

we were born
the same year. we have three
white hairs near our forehead. we will
become two silver foxes,
you and I.

you ask me
if we can take the elevator
to the roof.

the cool air is irresistible.
i stare at you,
as you pull your shirt off,
over the roof top
and I proceed to pull
mine off too.

there is no difference to me,
that you are labeled as a “man” and I
as I “woman”.
I am too old for gender norms to keep a sweaty shirt over me, when I could cool
down too.

the cool air is cool.
my chest is a chest.
you and I exit the web of fiction
and emerge naked of them,
as if rescued from a sunken ship
–we inhale the air fresher
because we chose.
we chose.

Silence as you gasp and before you scream

Silence

A sigh is another place in which one can find the quiet residence of a lexicon

In complete silence women pray;
some do so in the zealous quietude of their rooms
where the silence is like a mime
sending only signs

Silence comes while the musicians wait attentively on their condutor to count them off

Silence is what we endure
when we believe we do not have a tongue


Silence

When a moment is full of beauty our mouths and minds lay cusped in that second’s ineffable existence

Silence

The great friend of fools and the great companion of the wise.

We looked at the state of our nation and there was only silence

what followed was drowned out by all the noise in a place
where there was no room for silence

Holy water rising from your skin
as you scrub circularly
skin cells are dethroned
–there are no rulers here...
   ...we stand here side by side

The soft sun rising
reflects from the small containers
inside the shower caddy
the many colored creams and the one deodorant you keep lopsided
seem agreeable in size
–different shapes look good together...
   ...we stand here side by side

When you look around you notice
That the warm water that rose
liquified over the walls making it seems
as if they were sweating those little droplets
that accumulated all round the bathroom
fogging the mirrors
– the same thing takes many forms...
    ...we stand here side by side

Unraveling the trangled string of a swimsuit bra takes patience. The old wire ones were too suffocating even for something as slow breathing as a breast
two nippes hanging in the cold
await the earth of cloth you are to unravel
–present and future moving closely...
   ...we stand here side by side

We sunk into the melting ice dissolving over the Han River
changing icy thoughts to free flowing water

everything was water
clear, cleansing and clearing

We talk about our cultures and I tell them I come from very expressive and outwardly loving ones

that I am hugged and kissed on the head by my older cousins male or female
that even now immersed in a different culture
when I come to consider someone a really good friend, I want to hug them and kiss them on the cheek
that I tone myself back so much!

that I was taught to be loving and direct

That I want to dance when I hear some music! Dang! Like I really, really, really wanna groove

That I struggle with perception here
because instinctively I feel:
that to not be warm
feels like someone is intentionally
being cold: a sign of indifference

and to not be direct
is intentional disrespect :
seen as if you are wasting someone’s time on purpose by beating around the bush

that I always have to stretch myself to try and understand
that I must give up my notions of what is okay
and give up what something as simple as outward displays of affection or directness mean

It means pulling myself at the seams and seeing what remains underneath all I was taught beneath the performance dance these cultures schooled me in
their religions, their power systems, their moral codes, their values

what is underneath is truly me
just as human as any other
same same in every part of town
and in every corner of the world

wet without rain is the color of my eyes right before they get blurry
and the saline waves  cover the horizon as far as I can see

for this second everything looks expansive
the sea at night
my pupils floating like boats over the tide
reveal that if I trust my hands
the stars above will offer guidance and the will moon lift the tears off of my face

why can i not sail comfortably through this hard weather
not deny how it pulls and sometimes feels immense