This Goodbye Is So Long A Blessing And A Curse You Said, Though It Feels Like Neither

Close your eyes, I'm in the corner of your mind, The corner you see in your Peripheral vision but hardly look at. I'm in the shadows with a match, The flame that crackles and sizzles And sparks, burning lower Until the tiny coals go out Between my finger tips. I'm the light that shines When you can't always see.

Close your arms, I'm the warm, solid Scarred and healed Body that fits between your limbs Like the smallest Of the nesting dolls. I'm the familiar smell of Sweat and sage, unwashed And a little greasy, I'm the familiar sensation you can feel In bed when you lay awake at night, The last breath before sleep.

Don't close your heart, We've both been hurt, Dragged across the street And unknowingly scratched up By one another. I am your inner child's teddy bear, The one that's missing an eye With a bit of stuffing coming out. We are the animals we keep on pillows When we are old When we are bit more gentle, When we have the thread To sew up the torn parts. When we don't need to be Perfect anymore.

Ungraceful am I For grieving so publicly Bereaved, forgive me

This dreary morning January rain Falling onto icy snow Makes my eyes feel Heavy and tired

Roads caked with slush Cars splash through Brownish gray waves And I fall Down into the sludge

I sink like this month This month of melancholy I am crumbling Into these dirty waters Let me sleep in them

Let me sleep until This downpour lets up Until then I am fatigued These rains Beat me into submission

I was a child Unsure what it meant To be grown

I tried to learn The way Ducklings learn To swim

But I was Not quite a duck

It did not come Instinctively

I came into Myself differently Swimming Alternatively

I don't think I was meant for Predestined plumage

One day the wind blew All the leaves down off the trees And they were bare I saw the birds just sitting there Preening their new winter feathers Two sitting on a branch together

Their nests were empty Broken and falling down Sticks and bits all on the ground Babies all long flown away On that branch they said goodbye Now they huddle side by side

I wonder why they stick around When all the others go Maybe they just like the snow Something I will never know I watch them sleeping in that tree A little rest and finally some peace

There are many places where

May begins as winter And ends as summer

I wonder if that's Hard on a month,

To always be in transition

I would like to be no one A nameless, faceless, Shapeless form To walk through life Unknown Lost in the norm

Everything I do will blend Into the scenery, The earth, unheard And I, no one, am but a wisp, My life Never occurred

When I have gone in whisper Give me an Unmarked stone Or better yet, nothing No one was here I, thankfully, was alone

It's in the way you tuck your hair Behind your ear In the way you speak your words Soft and clear In how you make yourself feel close Like you are here The way you navigate the world And hold your fears

It's in the way you tilt your head In photographs The way you light up when you're glad Your sneaky laugh It's how you say what's in your heart And don't hold back How you are strong and hold your own But don't attack

It's in the way your forge your path No compromise When you let me walk with you I get butterflies I love to see which way you go Every surprise Love is in the way you dream Watching the skies

Love is how you've looked at me With kindest eyes Love is when you hold my hand And don't patronize How you've been vulnerable with me Not afraid to cry It's how we let each other breathe Without cutting ties

I thought I saw him walking by Out of the corner of my eye Just a trick of the light A trick of the mind It was just a little cloud Casting a fleeting shroud A phantom little lie He was not conjured from the sky But for a second I had hoped Which I have never since allowed

I am always drawn to water It is not my sign But I am in love with Cancer Her fluid emotions And I feel her in the Unfurling of waves

I swim in her like A brush mixing paint Like cream poured in coffee Or ink dripped on a page I am flowing Completely immersed in her

She takes me to an island Under her planet moon Soaking in the night Fierce as Diana She will rise up and Snatch me down into the sea