Three Steps

First time:
we touched bellies
our hair tangled into the other's
red swollen lips
warm with wanting
soft
with hopes and expectations.

Second time:
jumping off jagged cliffs
into the welcoming ocean below
trusting hands clasped
held tight
our feet brushed the other's
in bed sheets
there were blue lights
cool with calm
smooth
with desire.

Third time:
we let go
revelling in the knowledge
the other will come back
silent with comfort
warm with wanting.

Your Life Is Not Your Own

Your life is not
your own, it belongs
to whatever is holding you down.

Some tell you:
swim!
Others, drown.

Above all else,
do not trust
the court, they will take the crown.

I was forced to leave the plains.

I was forced to leave the plains.
Sulked my way back,
what you think you know -
abandon all that -
return to the swamps.
Soak with me once again.

In the middle of the bog,
at the center of all
things dirty and violently drenched
sits a patch of green.
It contemplates life;
it is my beacon of creation,
and death, I have forgotten
what grass feels like
under bare feet. I cannot
swim to it, no not yet.

There was once a constant offering:
unlimited pleasure, unending possibility,
but now - now that offering
instead is sacrifice; it got cold
so very fast.
The plains were slashed and burned.
Now I lay at the bottom of a swamp.

Opposite and Between

Can things like darkness
and light,
strife and love be born
out of the same place?

Can opposing forces be not really
two separate actions
or ideas
but rather be two sides
of the same coin?

If the outcome of all things
is death,
then does opposition even factor?
If all matter has the same fate,
then we are everything; opposite
and between.

Letter to Emily

My friend!
My soul-sister!
My bandita freedom-fighter!

O those glorious roads we travel!
O those sights we see
and bridges we cross,
cliffs we scale!

How will my heart become full again?

It is the fresh face,
it is the crooked beaming smile -
one tooth and one nail at a time -

when it is us again
and the steps and strides
never fell out of sync!

It is You and I,
my dear dear friend.

That is how.

How I will miss you.
How my spirits will fly
again someday.