We are sitting

on your bedroom floor

and I am telling you

a story

fragments of a

flawed self-portrait

spilling out of my mouth

and onto the carpet.

I usually don't make

this kind of mess

but there was

something gentle

about the way

you pulled my shirt down

and asked

if everything was okay.

Parts of me softened

and the past slid up

from where it was buried

and now

the ground is littered

with grocery lists

of drugs and disorers

and bathrooms I've cried in

and reasons why

I'm afraid to hold

your hand.

The room

is fragrant with memory

and old wounds

and at some point

the words dry up

and a sharp edged silence

carves out a space

between us.

I don't expect

you to stay'sitting amidst

this mess

of broken parts

but you do

and then

you touch my hand

and you say

it's okay

to go slowly.

And so

we begin

again.

#poetry #love #life

Set it gently in a box

filled with old books

and worn shirts

unwanted photos

and shoes outgrown

things I had kept

for too long

taking up space

I didn't have.

I looked at it

resting there

among stripes and dust jackets

and scuffed leather

how much smaller

it seemed than when

it was inside my chest.

Its surface

bleeding beaten bruised

carved by a lifetime

of wars fought

scorched by violent wildfires

haunted by ghosts

who make homes

in the valleys of scars.

I wanted to say

taht I had tried

to carry it

that I had tried

to endure as it had endured

(that's what they say about the heart right?

It always endures?)

but I was running out of room

for parts of myself.

And I think

I'll need more boxes.

(Written this day last year)

#poetry #depression #hearts

You grow roots plunging into soil

made of neighborhood streets

and warm voices filling rooms

and city lights

painting night skies.

Here these roots

carve comfortable spaces

stretching wide the soft earth

for settling

and building homes.

But there is always the leaving

of things

and it comes one day

as a wave rushing in

dissolving those houses

and ligts and voices

into an ocean of discarded pasts.

You find yourself

washed up on the shore

of some foreign present

once the distant future

dazed disoriented

limbs limp soggy roots

tangled and trailing

bits of remaining soil.

Here no one speaks

the language of your past

or recognizes familiar parts

folded in the lines

and curves of your face.

No longer with a definition

or a place

on a map.

And yet.

Departure from the familiar

is not a mourning

of one's self.

For we may leave and arrive

over and over again

stitching together homelands

from ever changing skies

and streets and faces

but what we need

we carry within our bones

across boundaries

across times.

(written in April 2019)

#poetry #life #change #inspiration