You are gone*
Constantly on my mind
Digging deeper across the rough edge of this wound
I stay high all of the time
To get away, even then you meet me there
Soft smiles instead of tears grace my face
Wearing it down to the sunny bones of my soul
I always go home alone
Bed empty with the cold ghost of your weight
The sheets, washed over and over
Still smelled like your good morning sighs
Now they linger with the cloying perfume of goodbye
Stressed and stretched to the point of breaking
I tear down and rebuild daily with the dawn
Using the thread from your memory to sew the pieces back together

Seems so long ago...

       That our rings, almost dropped from your nervous hands, would have washed out into the Caribbean to be a sparkling reminder of our love at the bottom of the ocean where now only your spirit can roam.

Happy Four Years, Jeremiah.

I found you permeating my wedding bouquet
Dried scents of longing and what could have been
Are never as bittersweet initially as they are when revisited
Intake breath so deep I can feel red blood cells gorging themselves on the bounty
Tiny dust motes dance along late afternoon sunlight
As comforting shafts sneak through closed curtains
Heart beat slows as though to stretch the moment
Minutes pass, then time seemed to fall away
Breathing you in
Saturating late August with wish-you-were-here whispers
Freed quietly from salted lips as the day dims

So what if I've got tentacles?
Pulling you all in
With a mouth made to ****
Embrace your sea legs
One swim in my silky depths
Will leave you thirsting
For more of my tide
I prefer boats roughly rocked
My caps foamy and white
Salt spray facials
Pearl necklaces
Venus, emerging
Tsunami wave of pheromones
Check your sonar love
I'm headed your way

A strangle hold of memory
Deep roots in rich soil have traveled time and distance
To make fallow fields fruitful once more
An outline of your smile waxes fully in my vision
Weathered fingertips brush gently the dusted edges of dried petals
I can still smell you here among the shadows of winter
Of all the seasons to leave me breathless the cold shell of February
Lends a poetic air to your loss
I'll keep writing of my sorrow, my tenderness
For you will always have a place in my garden
Even if I let it grow wild with weeds and whispers

The subtle slip of your honeyed grip
Fell softly from my anchor
I felt my heart go free, my body leave
The taste of loneliness left it's rancor
Now stars and seasons pass swiftly
Aging lines into easy game
Despair stunned, hot metal gunned
Memories ease the ache of this frame
On down this river I float cold, still
I wouldn't know the light
Tender limbed, my thoughts blend in
As youth flees it's desperate fight
We let our boards warp from lack of care
Mindless in our neglect
Yet hope still gleams between our beams
If forgiveness we choose to elect

What an amazing day
For those who are Gay
A milestone long over due
Equality is universal
Should not be treated as adversal
We ALL should be happy for you

My windows point East
The first touch of soft light
Heavy darkness
Caressing me while still ******
Mist sways in ghost like swirls
Across the scythed field edging the yard
               I am thankful
Deer play, eating the harvest lost by machine
Tie dye Tuesday with assorted colors
Stains on cement
Waiting
A robin's nest squatters are ready for flight
New wings shake nervous feathers
                I am healing
As the leaves unfurl
Warm breezes skate through every crack
Soaking up the sun with sable pelt
Side by side
Both hearts radiating love
Her gentle purrs reassuring
All is well
Summer reinforcing my frame
                 *I am

Age old age old the golden rule is true
However I would alter it a little
To say "Do better unto others than they unto you"
You may find that you will be taken advantage
Used and abused
Do not let this bruise your spirit
For it is not only hope but you that you will lose

I have always been a giver, a maker, a wisher
Spilling out golden sunshine where ever I go
Lucky in love, zesty with life
I wear my happiness like a coat of rainbows
That's not to say I have not had my days
Where clouds threaten to smother
I just blow them away with what wind I have saved
Hopeful tomorrow will not see their cover

Morning yawns over the valley
Quiet right before the light
Then a chorus of birdsong echo's
Through softly swaying tree tops
Rain falls in a steady rhythm
White tailed mother's guard thickets
Snorting gently to reassure their young
It cannot rain all of the time little one
Low clouds linger
Breathing in our atmosphere
To coat withered midnight lungs
In peace
Lush green perks up, unfurls new leaves
Ready to soak up another day

Body. Mind. Heart. Soul.
Slowly each piece is coming into focus
Loss is spoken of in many ways
The shock of it for some is like winter
For other's, a desert born of oceans
given away through tears
The darkness taking those closest with it
All experiences unique
Mine was/is no exception
On the other side of raw, though still sore
In a constant state of Medic! Medic!
When in crowds, looking for just you
I miss you.
A simple idea. A complex emotion.
The daily and nightly revisit of what hope's absence feels like
Baring down on you with the ferocity and venom
Of a hungry cobra, weeks without prey

This is the face of grieving
Vicious.
Cruel.

Yet it's heart is one of softness
For through it all
Every pain. Every nightmare
I have a night sky full of memories
Your smile. Your voice. Your love.
*Grief will never touch those

The heavy melting  of drug hazed bones
Confuses my curiosity with the sober

                              You cut me.
                                      To the quick.

Anger deep mortar holes smoldering through layers
I had carelessly constructed
Breathing through the cracks but just barely
Suffocation at it's most frightening
It is not the burn you must worry about
Just the ache

That is where I have kept these last months
A tangible, gut wrenching desire to be numb
I. Felt. Everything.
Strange dreams weaved colorfully throughout
Waking in a cold sweat
Looking for flowers but all I find is **dirt

I burrowed down
Kept my head below the fault line
Hoping that I would go unnoticed
As a novice I had no shame in hiding
A caged beast that eventually broke free
Soon the seams of my cocoon started cracking
The edges pulling with such pain
My throat burned from the effort
I was still the only one to hear the echo
From darkened corners burst forth into blinding light
A rainbow of late spring brilliance
Reflected back in dusted delicate unfurl
I was no longer an inching segment
I was a butterfly girl

Between our meeting and parting
You slipped away
Holding on was an option
Although the burden of your smile was too heavy to bare
I would have been a slave to that grin
Already bone weary, worn thin
I stepped aside to let another try
Their hand at wielding you
With time and space, I grew
Once more oblivious of your growth pattern
Our vines had tangled
Unbeknownst to us
Silky new blooms unfurl under hot sun love crush
We could be, with what's left of me
Close friends for eternity

I heard you liked them wild
So I showed up not knowing what to do
But willing
The dark seat of your eyes bore into mine
I was nervous and shaking
Give in to me
A coaxing whisper from the shadows
Slid with a shiver over the translucent curve of my neck
How could I possibly find the strength to resist that voice
It dripped full and wet with aching softness
Desperation
My heart skipped beats, fluttered like crazy
Anything for you
The words hung between us
I watched as you ran your tongue over sharp teeth
Debating
Pounce
My head rolls back, moaning
Losing my grip
Harder I couldn't get enough
Too hard and I will rip you in two your reply calms the struggle
Shuddering hard at your touch, fingertips trailing
Your soft laugh at my eagerness is sweet
Full of fire and light
Swallowing me whole in the longest night I've ever known
Give in to me
Falling hard for wishing stars by the soft glowing of candle flame

I don't know you
Not half as well as I used to
Your rakish smile is still the same
You still play this exhausting game

*Perhaps it is I who has really changed

Bad news is always dreaded
Lump in my throat as I hear a voice I never thought I would get used to
The aftermath of losing a husband yet still dealing with his ex-wife
For the sake of three beautiful, full-of-hope faces that are left behind
The eldest is sunshine golden
Great at math, loves to laugh
My precious Kallie-bug
The second child, middle stuck
Kayla, she-who-creates
Is a writer, a drawer, a nurturer through and through
The youngest makes me see myself
Inquisitive, a loner but still so full of love she cannot help but shine
Sweet little Addison
Out of 3 gorgeous girls, 2 of you have been cursed
Your father's disease passed down exactly
We will have to watch you struggle, suffer, cry
I do not know what to say to you, to others
(tears in my eyes)
Besides "hope", we must be so full of it that we can feel/see nothing else
I watched your father slip through my grip
Once a towering presence of a man
Reduced to a slight few pounds drowning in hospital white
I am so thankful you had his love as a child, he was something else
Never would have wished this for you
DKC is not a disease we know well, only that it brings hell
Nor can we promise that what we can do will help
I pray with your mother to separate gods
Each of us knowing that it does not matter
Our tears mingle into one single river through hundreds of miles of cellphone tower  
I will always be here
I will fight until I can no more
My little loves

There are days where I stay in you all day
Wrapping soft sheets around my exhaustion
Hiding from the world
Mostly you are made though
Meticulously tucked and folded
Into an Icelandic grey satin present
My fingers itching to unwrap you
Yuletide greetings all cozy and warm
To a sore frame in need of rest
I accomplish much on these days
Inner turmoil organized
A place for everything and everything in it's place kind of reassurance
Although I would be lying to myself if I said these days are my favorite
There is such extreme freedom in being able to tell the morning to *******
Turn over into your pillow
Stay there.
All day.
Rarely does this urge pass my frontal lobes
sometimes I just cannot help myself

Woke up with fall air crisp and burning it's way
Down into the breezy interior of my summer heart
Mornings like these beg to be alone
The solitary pulse of rushing blood sets the tempo
My steps sure and quick on unforgiving asfault
Colors weave through my vision
Catching the earth in mid costume change
Feels provocative.
We are all peeping Tom's.

Lay me out half naked
Cells truly see-through show a different shade
When they sizzle
Soaking up the great Ra
Thirsty for Atum's kiss
Teasing the just-below-the-surface urge to start running
I'll pick up like my Romani ancestors
Follow the warmth that ensures
Tomorrow will be ever sunny
I may have been born mid-winter
But I hope I always crave the sea
Eyes frostbitten blue before turning to whiskey amber
Breaking free under full moon silver
Still dreaming of my mother's ocean
Knowing that it swells inside of me

When cool winds shift from South to North
I feel you in my bones
A heart escaped this hypochondriac
Even if it is true that something just isn't quite whole
Sea salt rusted pump, sizzle
A cradle for the bawl of humankind
I hold it tight to shattered rib
Breathing in what I hope is starlit dust divine
Know this though, be wary  
She spins like a drunk bumble bee
Will sting you if touched
These eyes see much more than she
For in them they hold a clearer view
Ill abused, you lunged too soon
Another heartbreak for you
I cannot say nor have I way of healing that fresh wound
Seems to me like salt and sea are all a man could need
Racing around mountain ledges (knees raw and skin red)
Sunshine lover I would call you down
Gladly share your bed
You say I am too soft, too wrinkled
Worn down from loss's toll
I know better now than to lose my temper
When all I have ever really wanted was a hand to hold

No one left to hear your curses
No one here to see your verses
Lost amongst the stars and trees
Kneeling softly upon your knees
I would gladly give my blood and tears
To ease you softly into your years
Hopeless though the night may seem
For you the sun will always beam
My hand outstretched with cold blue fire
Offer eternally all that you desire
Filling your coffers with jewels and gold
A lesson that will give you few loves to hold
For in the end you must understand
That I am a God and you merely a man

You take me so high
I taste stratosphere
Sitting coldly aloof inside these midnight lungs
The deep, heavy ache of a bad drug
Better than ***, sweeter than honey
I cannot say no to that smile
Lips curving around my lace trimmed edges
Running gets me no where
Turning away leaves me numb
I just keep coming back
*One. More. Taste.

Words seem regurgitated of late
This is not a place for healing
There is no welcome mat to wipe your so(u)le
Welling up with an emotion that feels very foreign
One I chose to not get on a first name basis with
Yet I hear it
Broooooook
Whispering across my flesh
Sewing it's shadow to my already heavy heart

Unable to purge
My thoughts of throbbing, thick *****
Penetrating me

Had I known your voice would haunt like so many dancing sprites along midsummers plush ridges
I may have said my peace long before you faded over the horizon
Winter was not left with your leaving
Chilled roots perhaps but more late October mysteries I have no answers for
Sending inquiries, soft and translucent
Go unheaded, unwanted, unheard
We were friends once, intertwined with what I thought was a love that had not faltered, just evolved
Months pass with naught left but frosty windows, my face pressed against the glass
Still waiting to see your light weave through the trees towards me once more

Lay down you say in hushed tones
Feeling the air shift
Moonlight on my skin
The rest of the room in blackness
I breathe and hunger for you
Eyes glowing feral, wild
Waiting
Deep inside, I need you here
Pull you close, taste sharp
Incisors lengthen as you penetrate
We feed and **** in tandem
I release your throat
Head thrown back in ecstasy
Your name moaned into the dark
Full and sated
I can feel your heartbeat
Beating for me

Seeing it clearly again
The falling of a feather
Is enough to break even the strongest
When all weighed together

Inch by careful inch
Whittling painfully away
What little I had left
To fight another day

Words no longer flow easy
No rain here to fall
Just dry sandy pastures
Burying it all

Time has left it's share of scars
I remember the depth of each
Uncertainty steals my voice
Throat closing fast
Little did I know that it would stand between us
Tear us apart
Eventually.
I forget now which direction you ran
I only know that you took the sun with you
Turning warm smiles and bright laughter from me
All that remains is darkness
All that remains is night
My life force, slow sticky sap
Seeps from me into tortured puddles of hardened hope
Wounded
I fear without your light these shadows will start to
consume

Wham Bam Thank you, Ma'am
Has never really sat well inside this vessel
Toeing that ever chalked Georgia peach line
We are but passing ships in harbor
Your vaulted sails much more impressive
When full of all that hot air
Once out of range of my compass
The needle spins towards greener pastures
Where I get freckles in the sunshine
But you will never kiss them from over there
Tasting the sweet sweet deep of an Appalachia summer
Muscles ache to leap off of Bear's Den from Skyline Drive
Spread wings and soar above the highest peak
Replace this hollow that has grown thick with ditch ****
Clear it out to welcome something colorful
Someone bold
A healing kind for me

We used to celebrate together
The occasion of our close births
Cause to throw one hell of a party
Now I must go alone in our revelry
The edges water colored with wistful wishing
That you were here to help blow out all of these candles
I miss you in every little way
Jeremiah, Happy Birthday

You sit across from me with your knees in knots. The best place for you to be. At arms length. Where you are safe from the soft trembling of my hands, the nervous pounding of an unsure heart against the bruised cage that holds it captive. Between the pages of you and me the ink has always blurred but  I have opened my mouth and let loose words, imagines that I wish I had kept to myself. Promises that only stoked this erratic flame. Cannot say for certain in the dark if you were laughing or crying but in the harsh light of day you were neither. You were gone.

I never can hold on.

He ripped it open
He pulled it tight
Softness eluding
Absorbing light
He escaped in mourning
He swiftly returned
Partially healed
Mortally burned

The split hit us hard like an ice avalanche
Both spinning off in opposite directions
I can still see her when I close my eyes
Smell her soft sleepy scent on my pillows
Heartsick. Complacent. Numb.
Did not wake up easy today
Dreams,my only reprieve, remain obscure
Trying to put thoughts together but I feel nothing
Emptiness consumes the weak willed
Hoping she is stronger than this
Knowing that I am not
Walls closing in on already cramped quarters
Lonely. Everything reminds me.
I ache to tell her how I feel
Tongue tied writer's block opacifying malignant thinking
Unraveling. Come undone.
I am not who she thinks
Just trapped in here. Prisoner.
My expressionary boundaries solid as my convictions
Steel. Concrete.

We grew up strong in sunlight
Our Mother, earthen goddess, shown like dawn in springtime
Wild flowers basking in her warmth
I have never felt such love
Through the hardest of times
The finest of lines
She loved us without judgement
As age progressed and we distressed
Only fine wine could compare her
We are blessed to know such beauty
I am the woman I am today because of you

I'm burning out, falling hard
A dark star aching for a piece
of memory
I never asked to be confined to blood and bone
Slitting wrists leak black space matter
Occluding desire and thought
Contorting, morphing through my crazed
imagination
Seeming blurry and tear filled through these eyes
Human. Mortal. Concrete.
Deity. Eternal. Without boundaries.
Dust settles between my toes
Rubble at my feet
Keep telling myself I'm ok
As I drown myself in moon's long dead oceans
I'm ok
Tripping off into the space in between spaces
Mind constantly adrift

I approach calm
Uninvited
Yet your arms stay warm and wide
I'd rather not remember their weight
Instead I run and hide
You peel me back like banana skin
Yellow, yes, with sunshine
Please spare me words of comfort
I'd rather you stay benign
We are but two quasars
Spinning with flashing solar light
Compared to dawn and dusk
Our polarities reside with the night

I want to expose you
Pull out from behind static screens and caffeine
I don't want to  know you sober sugar
Only as a lover
Dipping in and out between light's fall
Light's rise
Concrete beneath never-at-home feet
Losing sand as time runs
Always in a hurry walking too slow
I catch up
Hands palm to palm
In heart to heartbeat resuscitation
I've Gypsy Blood, remember honey
Where you go
This sun drunk passion ***** follows

In a sea of faces
Your eyes would be my anchor

You have not posted since mid-year of 2014
I search your name with bated breath
Hoping to see something new that I was  not privy to
Your fingertips have not been idle
Their vibrations sending morse code
Through the miles of separation
That always seems to span between us

The veil of sleep covers softly
Many forms must shed
Before the fall
I shut down my inner oven
No soup for you until tomorrow
I'll bake new love for you
Tucking in my yawning misadventure
Tails of kites and renaissance costumes
Peak out from below her edges
Into a ball curls my heat
Rarely putting up a fight
Sated still with bedtime ****** hum
Reverent fingers gently close my ink well
Papers scattered but the feather always meticulously replaced
This facet, the crown jewel of my traits
One piece remains, joy
She, I let roam free, spreading
I wish those I know good night
A hopeful good morning for those I don't
*May our paths eventually cross

The radio has gone silent
No news across crushing blue depths
If whispers I cannot hear
I would give much for even a morsel
To know how you fare
Missing you
Wishing you well

Don't let this blue sky in my eyes fool you
There's thunder in my heart
Lightening in my lungs
Rain pours in sheets from fingertips
That long to soak the thirsty plains of your skin

Feeling marked and wicked
Silk skin stretched tight across the starving pain of my wanting
Stretching. Breathing. Breaking. Needing.
Ease this tension I must. I must.
The wet rage of the Shenandoah between my thighs
A soft rumble in the distance heralds the coming storm
I can almost feel you in me
Aching for you to fill the slick hollow that I keep hidden
Need you closer, closer, closer
Please
Begging so pretty against the distance
Please

You tell me to slow down
The playground of my childhood's gone rusty
Don't play so hard!
As I burn my thighs on sunburnt metal slides
That make my hair stand on end
I fingertip touch your lips
Arching sizzle between your flesh and mine
I tell you not to think so hard
The fastidious cogs of your aging brain weazing
Be spontaneous!
As you sit steadfast watching me
Swinging so high I touch the trees
Wishing they were stars
And that your toes painted the sky next to mine

Vaulted memories of hot asfault and a million stars surface
Gathering in little many moons ago puddles
Reflecting back into my haunted eyes what might have been
Where are we off to now?
Seems as though we are always on the run
I fOllow but never can catch up
Always just out of reach
In letters and prose you still exist
Laugh lines etched into a photographic brain cell
Easier to hide than you think
Then again mine never quite reached my eyes
Yours could never stay at bay
We are if anything constant and eternal
Gravitating, orbiting in the same system yet following separate paths
Dust swirling in the after math of a super nova
Wild and untamed futures written in the stars