Pausing, Discerning, Unearthing
Pausing
Discerning
Unearthing
Insecurities winning
As the room keeps spinning
No
No
Not for long.
You’re not like him.
You’re not her.
With you,
my trust need not quiver.
Homestead?
Homecoming.
How hardly
I remember anything troubling.
Lilac frames
Sweet absence of games
My spring escape,
Earning my touch
And demanding my gaze.
Homestead eyes
And homecoming highs
Country corners
Remain nearby.
You said
Want to come to the post office,
With me?
Homestead eyes
My homecoming prize
Not a moment
left to criticize
Pausing
Discerning
Unearthing
Intentions?
No longer self-serving.
No longer unnerving.
Only kind
Only reinforcing.
Is this what it means
to just be?
Oh, baby
I’ve already committed
this moment
to memory.
Idle Weights & Lucid States.
I put on my camera earrings today
As if that alone,
Were enough.
I promised myself
I would at least try.
yet here I am, 11:54 am — sitting idly by.
What good is knowing you can,
when one false move, makes it hard to stand?
Idle breaths
linger
in my weighted chest.
pulses unpaced,
lost
in the inescapable race.
Paces ahead, lightyears behind,
if only they knew…
just how much
it occupies my mind.
One foot, no two?
I’m unsure — wrong! — what more I can do.
There is no summit. There is no summit. There is no summit.
Most days, this rings true.
But today, anxiety-fueled procrastination
leaves me woefully unfulfilled,
and restlessly blue.
I trust I am exactly where I’m meant to be.
I put on my camera earrings today,
as if that were enough.
If I just keep going,
maybe one day
I’ll believe I’m enough?
Homestead Eyes
And we’ll stay here awhile,
Til just you and I fall asleep
You won’t know until you go,
you won’t know until you go,
you won’t know until you go.
Homestead eyes,
a curious smile
Sailor’s touch,
No sign of a crutch.
Pulses thready,
almost hot, almost heavy.
A near miss,
turned copacetic kiss.
I didn’t know I could surrender like this.
Is this what they mean, when they say,
“I didn’t know it could feel like this?”
Hardworking.
Rustic ease,
a gentle motion,
this is feeling the fear,
without blowing it out of proportion.
Flying, sighing,
Curled up in your corner,
With you, something tells me I won’t have to look over my shoulder.
A lotus intact,
only seconds, inches from warmer.
Soft lips,
and tepid hands,
slip of the tongue,
I couldn’t withstand.
Safe.
Forehead kisses
and butterfly wishes,
please,
don’t be another one
of my near misses.
Kind.
Panting, chanting,
I remind myself,
there’s no more “can’t-ing”
You could take care of me.
Homestead eyes,
a curious smile,
maybe, just maybe,
you’ll be the one to stick around a while.
Shhh.
Pace through the morning, you fuel my mind
And I miss you so much, but you’re not out of sight
You’re still with me
In my secret life
In my secret life…
Is it possible for me to see you, the way I’ve always wanted to be seen? Is it possible that you’re human, afterall?
Can I forgive to forego, surrender to somehow finally let go?
Are you allowed to be in pain, too?
One truth need not eclipse the other, or so I’ve resisted all these years. Black and white, yes or no, all-or-nothing — the binary fragments blinding my perception.
Yours or mine…your love used to feel so divine.
Here and then gone, I hate how much I’ve missed you all along.
In the battle of good vs. evil, you’ve long carried your trophy of deceit with a self-righteous smile.
What happens to the truth, if I embrace ambivalence? What becomes of my story, once I hold space for yours?
With compassion our futile enemy, I don’t think there’s anything left of you and me.
Staring hollowly, I’m left to ponder.
Dozing with a painful curiosity, I’m faced with radical acceptance — again and again and again.
Far from innocent, I too must atone.
Eventually.
Right and wrong willfully aside, how can I miss something that never subsides?
Why do I long for what I never really had? As my worry turns into dread, invasive sadness persists. As preoccupation points toward danger, anger clouds my true intentions.
Still, I am reminded of you. As my throat closes, my face fills with an uncomfortable wetness, warm and otherwise blurred to the markings of reality.
Nowhere left to turn, I sit with it.
Daring it to stay, I somehow allow it to slip away. One jolt, and then two, my body tells me what to do.
I miss you, more than I want to.
I miss you, more than I need to.
Meeting someone new inevitably brings me back to you. Still, I am reminded of you. The cursed love affair that used to send flips through my stomach, frolicking about in my mind — I can’t move on without you.
You used to be so kind.
At the first glimpse of trouble, I panic. Will I lose someone else, the way I lost you? Will they leave the way you did? Will it be my fault?
Sadness envelops me with sweeping glare, reminding me I’m not quite there. Your presence lingers, buzzing in the background, knowing full well I can’t let lift a finger.
I hugged you a few weeks ago. Foreign and out of touch, I nearly shuddered in your embrace.
Will I always feel the longing?
Will I always yearn to be chosen?
Will it ever not ache?
WIll I ever mend my first heartbreak?
Faceless in a crowd,
I feel it.
Voiceless in a shroud,
I see it.
I miss you, Mom.
I, I…
Do you remember the good?
Do you miss your Mandy girl?
Do you wish for quality time the way all mothers should?
Somewhere between then and now, you decided I wasn’t worthy.
Somewhere between furrowed brows, I learned to desert me.
Grief — love with nowhere to go.
Anger — energy with a purpose.
Were the early years just for show?
Holding absences, a lotus in bloom.
You took your love away in one fell swoop.
I, I…
My melodic nightmare echoes in the silence
You always scolded my inherent defiance.
Shh (please tell)
I, I, … can no longer dwell.