She

she brings colour

to my sometimes-stifling greys

she is bright and she is warm

and she shines in deep rich tones

she is wild and she is bold

and in sharp and striking contrast

she is soft

gentle and tender in her touch

when I am strong

she stands beside me beaming

she looks at me as if

I am something magnificent to behold

and when I am feeling small

she holds me to her chest

she nuzzles her way into my heart

and loves me back to life

she, like a star, shines brightly

amidst the dark that sometimes surrounds me

she twinkles and shimmers

and she lights my way

she, in her deeper hues,

is raw and free

she is intimately intense

and I constantly crave her

she is graceful and she moves

in and around me with tantalizing skill

she learns with a voracious appetite

all of the pieces of me

she teaches me, every day

with a heart that has no boundaries

she is showing me how to believe

in unconditional love

she reminded me with her simple gaze

that I had forgotten who I was

she saw me through the haze

when I could not see myself

12 yrs old

and all at once I am 12 yrs old again

I am small and sad and lonely

I can feel it as if it is real, it is happening

and I am on the fringes of anything and everything

it seems this wish will never go away

the one where she finally sees me

the one where I would look, to her

the way I once did

the one where she would want to know

the things I hold in my heart

the one where she would care

and she could make me believe it so



in my 51 yr old brain, I understand, truly

not everyone communicates the same way

not everyone needs or even wants

to dig in to the things that get messy

to turn things upside down and take them apart

just to see how they work

less and even fewer still

ever face their pain

but far beyond my years exists

a place where time stood still

and from that moment on

there would always be this hole



I stopped trying so long ago

stopped the active visible efforts

and let the wounds scar over

thickened skin keeping them safe

I numbed or neglected everything I felt

and I bolted and closed those doors

I let years pass and life move on

without any reminders of home

I threw my wishes in the trash

and I tried to forget their names





every now and then

my heart finds some glimmer of hope

I feel like that lost little child again

just wishing to find my way back

I lose all sense of reason

and knowing that some things never change

I forget how to accept her for who she is

the way I want her to accept me

Firefly

appreciate

to be fully conscious of, aware of

to raise in value

to be grateful or thankful

various meanings or plays

upon the same phrase

I appreciate you

words I hold in high regard

words that define integrity

words that sustain trust

I said those words today

said them from a place where something fluttered in me

as she heard them, I watched her lips

trace the outline of the sentence

she whispered the word

appreciate

I don’t know what it means to her

and in this context

what anything means

this is untraveled ground

it is dangerous on many levels

many aspects of our existence

but we still are drawn like fireflies

to flame that is lighting the way

Duality

caught somewhere in between

the warring sides of myself

there is a duality, a mirror

conflicting sides of a whole

the difference between me and me

and the faces I wear through the day

are beginning to blur in my vision

and in the lines across my face

I am empty so often these days

wearing the mask of strength

I’ve worn it so often, for so long

I’d forgotten what lay underneath

I’ve gone so long without feeling

without allowing anyone in

that my heart had begun to atrophy

internally turning to dust

behind that measured wall of strength

behind the proverbial mask

is a tiny little pulp of a heart

with traces of blood-stained hands

I don’t know which side is me anymore

the strong or the broken shell

I live constantly in the reflection

the duality of my soul

Magic

my loneliness knows very little

beyond the depth and breadth of itself

it hears very little

beyond the softness of its gentle cries

there is something oddly beautiful

in its solitary existence

yet something savagely painful

that it has to exist at all

lately I’ve fallen to numbing

to drinking away everything

until all of the edges blur

and the pain ceases to exist

I’ve moved into the darkened corners

to the edges of what could barely be called life

I’ve slipped into oblivion

into a place where I no longer want

I don’t know where I belong

or even where I want to be

I go through endless days and weeks

through one mundane task to the next

and only in rare moments of something I can’t explain

do I glimpse anything resembling hope

recently I have witnessed a strange tenacity

affecting me on a daily basis

a will that refuses to give up

refuses to give in

there is something blissful in that strength

in that seemingly unerring belief

it is foreign to me

yet continues to catch my eye

it is a firefly, a spark

a strange little mystery

that I cannot explain

when I believe in nothing

when nothing brings me peace

from the darkness something shines

and in that I believe