Mother
with wine-tinted cheeks, rounded
to roll the tears down like rivers
slicing through the marrow
of earth's own divine.

Father
with veins frozen over
by rage and deep regret
bleeds life into newfound
companionship of sorrows.

From behind cracked door,
wide-eyed and shaken
Child
pulls pants up and over
cold knees and listens.
Hears drawers shoving,
glasses meeting
cold tile floors
then breaking.

Words defined
by the actions they inspire
find careful ears from behind
cracked doors in dark corners
where dog lies whining
aware of tiny owner kneeling
while blame is tossed
like coins from wells
where wishes don't come true.

If my stories tripped and fell
would they land in the darkness of your well
where your fascination seems to gather but not dwell
where it seems I might lose in you
the sacred secret that I tell

I feel emotionally stilled when I think of you now.
A once frenetic pulse now drowned
in a motionless layer of dark sea.
I do not know if anything exists beneath this.
I just know in trying to find something to feel
I stop breathing.

I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things true before you.
I want to describe myself like a painting that
I looked at closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely through
the wildest storm of all.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Impermanence made an appearance last night
and made me look him in the eye
Made me stand there and watch
the fleeting, shape-shifting nature of love flapping
its dark wings toward a moonless sky.
I stood there fearful and frozen
Undone like the ribbons of a gift torn open
And still tried to love with both arms wide.

In awe of the perfection
Of the movement love creates with its rise
And terrified for the reflection
Of my reliance on something that dies.

I walked away with a sense of mourning
Knowingly moving toward my soul’s next call
And the stars once in my eyes
now reached down to hold me
They know what it’s like to fall.

I have had dreams of spiders
infesting different rooms in my house.
I have dreamt of snakes crawling out of my arm
of smelling my mother's burning flesh
of removing filters from my eyes
and going blind.

I dreamt of a little girl who lived in the attic
above my old room
She crawled out in the darkness
Her eyes completely white with diamonds for iris’s
She came straight toward me
Wide-eyed and expressionless

Did she intend to devour or become me?

I dream of the things I fear.
I dream of saving those I love.
I dream of separation, threat, and death.

The rest are animal dreams.

I dream in symbol
of my power embodied in killer whales
of a past peace found in a cove of sleeping panthers.
I am the lion, steadfast and fearless
who walked toward me on the beach.
I am the puppy, sad and coy
who whimpered as he ran from me.

This week it was frogs and birds.
Naked women
and a broken heart.

Next week it will be missiles
and men who trade faces
but leave me feeling the same.

The sun draws out the life,
the creation from the seed of spirit.
And my worship turns to the sun,
my worship turns to the inspiration
instead of the inspired one.

I am in love
but I do not love.
I love for the sake of being loved
in return.

Ah, the ultimate validation...
and then what?

The need remains.
Swells in the nest and calls for more
Yet feeding only seems to deepen the void.

The ecstasy of merging disguises the divide
Making his life, whoever he may be
about me
about filling me
So much so he loses sight of himself.
His purpose.
And then broken he shall be.
And his validation of me
will not hold its same value
for he will no longer be
the man my soul caught sight of.